Review of House To Do List 2012

I stopped doing the month house updates but not because we weren't being productive. We ended up accomplishing a lot of the things on our list. We tackled some of the more costly items on the list- dining room table, bedroom furniture, television. I did not really expect to accomplish everything- mainly due to time and money- so I am quite pleased with our progress. There were also somethings not on the list that got accomplished such as cutting down a 50ft tree and adding lights in the garage.

*If you notice headboard is only half crossed out. That because it is not completed which is a whole blog post in its self. Hopefully the completed headboard will make its presence soon.

2012 Performance Appraisal

Looking back at 2012

A refresher on my 2012 bucket list

Lift weights 5 times/week

I can't say that I lifted weights 5 times/week but I definitely am in better shape than I have been in my adult life. I committed to going to a work out class 2 nights a week (for most of the year then just 1 night a week b/c one of the classes got canceled). I also felt doing these classes motivated me to be more active at home. In August I pushed myself more than I ever had before by attending 2 boot camp classes a week for 3 weeks as part of a groupon deal. Although it was just six classes I could really tell a difference, and it showed me how much I really could do. I must say that if I didn't have a very active sister and a husband who is active as well, I probably wouldn't have done as well with this.

Run a 5k

I did! Two girls from work and I ran in the Color Run in the fall.  We ran the whole thing without stopping with no training. Running a 5k with others is such much easier than running it by yourself.

Keep a list of things I'm thankful for-3/day

Absolute fail.

Send notes

I'd say I'd get a fair mark on this one. Definitely not 3/month but not 0/month either.

Read 12 books

JP says I should change this goal for 2013 to - read 12 pages. I really read one book- Hazel Creek. It was set in the tiny little town my grandmother grew up in during the time period she was a child. Other than that I read parts of a few books including a little over 30% of Atlas Shrugged- which reading that much of an approximately 1000 page book should count as reading a book. 

Expand my world view.

I did not have a way to measure this but I'd say I'd give myself a D+ on this one. There is a still a lot more I could do. I could probably read some books to help and then I'd kill two birds with one stone!

Memorize 2 scripture passages per month

Epic fail. There is not excuse for this. In the fall my co-worker started bringing in a verse to memorize each week... and I still failed.

Improve food intake.

I think I averaged trying at least one new recipe each month- not two. I did not make a recipe book, however, it is in the planning process.

Scan pictures

Epic fail. No progress at all.

Blog once a week.

I had a total of 49 blogposts with over half of them coming in the first four months of the year. I'd say I did not meet expectations on this one.

Drink 64oz of water/day

Fail.

Go somewhere I've never been.

I went to Kansas City, Missouri. Although it was not somewhere I've always wanted to go, it was a fun trip and counted as going somewhere I've never been.

The Christmas Card (That Wasn't)

This year I decided instead of using one of the predesigned Christmas cards that you just insert a picture, I wanted to design my own. And, I did... but too late. Once I started looking at getting them printed, the kind of card I wanted printed was going to take too long to get to me, and I wasn't willing to pay the large fee to get it to me in time. So, I went with a standard insert your picture card.

So here is the Christmas card that wasn't. Hopefully next year I'll remember it takes a while to get them printed and take care of it well in advance.

The Life of a Dress.

In my last post, I mentioned that the dress I wore at Sean's wedding is my favorite dress. I love when I get a chance to wear it. So, I thought we'd follow the dress through the years!

2005: I originally bought the dress from Banana Republic for a semiformal in December. Here I am wearing it for the first time!

2006: I went to my sororities National Convention in Nashville with my friend Emily since she was President and I was VP of our chapter. We had to have a semiformal dress so I wore the one I already had. You can't see the whole dress in this picture, and I'm pretty sure that is a good thing. This was during my weight gain period and I was very close to not being able to wear the dress! Thankfully that was only a phase!

2008: When it was time to think about a dress for my rehearsal dinner, I couldn't think of a better dress to wear than my favorite. I know it was the perfect time to buy a new dress, but I looked and I couldn't find one that I liked more than this one.

2009: Here we are at my friend Amy's wedding. I think this was the first wedding where I wore this dress. I have worn it to a few more weddings. I know it is probably getting stale, but I love it so much! Note: I don't wear it to every wedding! It is just the one I wear most frequently.

2012: Here we are at my most recent wearing of the dress. Thankfully the weddings I seem to wear it to are for different groups of people, so hopefully no one is thinking I only own one dress.

So there we have the dress through the years. Hopefully the dress will continue its story. If I ever get to the point where I can not fit into the dress, it will become my goal to fit back into it. Hopefully, thought, that will not happen!

Basketball

JP and I have always enjoyed watching basketball.  We've also played fantasy NBA basketball. In the NBA, JP cheers for the Suns, and I cheer for the Mavs. Although I like NBA basketball, I love college basketball, especially March Madness. Go Duke!

Here we are after the Suns Mavs game in Phoenix. I was the only Mavs fan in the group!

So, we've always watched basketball, but over the past few months JP has started to play basketball.

It all started with the CPA league this past spring. JP played for PWC and discovered that despite his height, playing basketball is much different than watching. He asked me why others were so good. I told him probably because they played in high school- something he never did.



Once the CPA league ended, it seemed like other opportunities to play basketball started to present themselves.

On Monday nights, guys from our church meet to play basketball with some of the middle and high school guys that live in Woodlawn and at the Hospitality House. They have been doing it for a while but JP was unable to go when he was taking classes on Monday nights and then work interfered. But in May, he no longer had commitments on Monday night so he was able to start playing. He really enjoys getting to play basketball but also getting to know these guys. One thing that made us laugh- one of the high school guys told JP, "You ball above the knee" pointing out that JP's basketball shorts fall above the knee. Now not by much but they don't go over the knee.

In August one of the guys from church started recruiting guys to play basketball on Tuesday mornings at 6am. JP has consistently participated in this. Every Tuesday there are 10 guys that play. I was kinda surprised that many guys are willing to wake up so early. That start play at 6am but get there at 5:45am to pick teams! This event was such a success, they started doing it on Friday mornings too!

To help improve his skills, JP frequently goes up to the church near our house which has a basketball goal in the parking lot. I sometimes will go with him but I really have no basketball skill. I would much rather watch the sport than play.

Oh the Places You'll Go... Missouri/Kansas

JP and I recently ventured to St. Joseph, Missouri for the wedding of Sean, one of JP's closest college friends. JP and Sean ran on the track team together all four years in college and lived together two of the years.

Sean was a groomsman our wedding.



And now JP was a groomsman in Sean's wedding.

JP and I decided to rent a car and make the 12 hour drive to Missouri. We went got to spend time in a total of seven states on this trip: Alabama (of course), Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas (Sean actually lives in Kansas- Kansas City is in both states), and Indiana (unintentionally- I messed up the GPS on the way home).

We got to passed Busch Stadium on our way (after the Cardinals recent beating of the Braves I still yelled Go Braves when we drove by) and Kauffman Stadium (the Kansas City Royal's stadium).

Our first night, Thursday, we spent in Kansas City eating dinner with Sean, his family, and other out of town guests. We stayed the night at Sean's house with several other out of town people.

Around noon on Friday, JP and I drove to St. Joseph which is about an hour north of Kansas City. We checked into our hotel, got JP's tux for the wedding, and got ready for the Rehearsal.

I had to take a pic to send to my mom because she had not yet seen the dress I bought for the occasion.

The Rehearsal dinner was held at an old house in St. Joseph that had been turned into a museum. It was really cool! St. Joseph is where the Pony Express started and where Jesse James died. Here we are with a scary bear. Apparently the main who originally lived in this house was a hunter.

While we were at the rehearsal dinner, I met one of the groomsman's girlfriend, Sarah. I was very glad I met her because we ended up spending a lot of time together while our date's were busy doing wedding stuff. Neither one of use knew anyone that was not in the wedding party.

After the rehearsal dinner JP and I, Sarah and her boyfriend, and one other groomsmen went to the Pony Express museum for their annual pumpkin lighting. The one night we are in St. Joe's just so happened to be the night of the pumpkin lighting. I read this in a tourist brochure I saw a the rehearsal dinner location and knew we had to go. We were all glad we went!

However, we did not know that in the process of going we actually got in a time machine and went back to 2002 (Seriously, this was the sign they had at the entrance of the lighting).

Saturday was the day of the wedding. Here we are before the wedding. This is the dress I wore to a sorority semi-formal, my wedding rehearsal, and several other weddings. I'm pretty sure I love it. It is my favorite dress and I will keep wearing it.

I followed the guys around as they took pictures.  JP Kaal does not like taking pictures. He did fine taking pictures but for every serious picture, there was immediately a silly/ridiculous one that followed. For example:

A very nice pose...

 Followed by muscle man...

I did not take any pictures at the wedding reception, but we had a great time! We danced and danced until the the reception was over. My feet were tired! The bride's brother actually collects records. He DJ'd the wedding using all of his records. It was pretty cool to have legit turntables at the wedding. He had a huge collection of records! The thing that made me laugh though was as soon as he started to play Call Me Maybe (he did play a few non-record songs) every girl in the place ran out onto the dance floor and every guy went and sat down.

One of the really cool things at the wedding was the favors. The bride and her friends had a baking day earlier in the week and made at least ten different kinds of cookies. There were cute boxes for guests to pick out cookies to take home.  Another cool thing at the wedding was the bride's mom made the wedding cake!

We had a great time in Missouri and are glad we made the long drive!

Oh the Places You'll Go... Santa Rosa Beach

For the second year in a row, my college friends and I reunited for a trip to the beach. This is such a fun tradition as we don't see each other much during the year due to leaving in different locations and busy schedules.

We all rode together in Brittany's mini van, which ended up being so much better than riding in two separate cars. We made a stop at a fabric store that apparently is a store those who sew think highly of. I realized why when just being in the store made me want to learn to sew. Every fabric they had was something I deemed worthy of being turned into a pillow, dress, or curtains. Note: Once we left the store, my desire to learn to sew disappeared. Maybe one day.

I had never been to the 30A beaches but was not disappointed. The beaches were just beautiful, and the water was so clear I could see my feet on the bottom! Our first view of the beauty occurred from the deck of Bud and Alley's where we ate lunch the day we arrived.

When we got to the condo- which was the nicest condo I've ever stayed in. I would def recommend it- we exchanged gifts. The year before we all drew a name and kept who we had a secret. Over the year (or the month/day before for procrastinators like me) we got gifts for our secret person. We had determined a price limit that everyone held to.

I had Brittany as my secret person. She owns a business- Birds on a Fence. I had my other friend Brittany who paints canvases paint Brittany's business logo on a canvas to hang in her sewing room. I was highly pleased with the way the canvas turned out. I also got Brittany a gift card so she could treat herself to a shopping trip just for her- something a mother of two doesn't get to do very often!

Blair had me as her secret person. She had just returned from Israel and included in my gift some bath salts from the Dead Sea and a cross made of olive tree wood. How cool is that! She also included a gift card to Chickfila- obviously one of my favorite places to eat.

I had such a great time catching up with these girls over the weekend. Even though we don't see each other frequently, when we do get together it is like we were never apart.

 Blair: She is responsible for setting JP and I up. When she visits our house she, JP, and I all end up sitting on our king size bed talking. I love it. I loved hearing her talk about her recent trip to Israel. It was something she had been wanting to do for years and years.

 Laurel: The first time I remember hanging out with Laurel was the summer of 1996. We spent the day at the pool and then went to a banana split party at her church. She also had Nintendo brand glasses which she convinced me she could use as a video game control. You know you are friends for life when she asks who her Freshman year CP teacher was and I can tell her.

 Brittany: I remember Brittany teaching me how to paint my toenails French manicure style for Rush one year. She always seems to be doing just that, teaching me things I should know how to do but don't. I'm pretty sure she also helped me get my hair side swoosh right for Step Sing. Note: I admire Brittany so much for her hardwork in creating her business Birds on a Fence. Did you notice the hats we all had on in the beach picture above? She made them!

Emily: She was one of my first friends at Samford. She can quote movies and tv shows like no one else I know. It seriously is a skill. On this trip she got points in my book for venturing out into the ocean with me pretty far out. It was a great chance for just the two of us to catch up.

Ashley: I have gotten to know Ashley more after college than during. I love Ashley's honesty. Recently she has started working for a company, Free Set which offers employment to women in India trapped in human trafficking. It has been cool to see her heart grow for this ministry.

Looking forward to next years trip. And, getting things for my secret person for next year! The questions is, who is it?