Happy Anniversary to Us!

2 years today!

A New Year

Yesterday was our first anniversary! I can't believe it's been a whole year already - it seems like just a few months ago I was busily sending out wedding invitations. But here it is, fall again, in Minnesota again, yet so much different than last year. It's exciting to be starting our second year together in a new place, with new things to do, new job(s), new friends to be made. It's also very overwhelming - so much change in so little time. I knew that marrying Jason would be one of the biggest adventures of my life, and so far it has been! I am excited to see what this year holds for us.

Our anniversary weekend was so fun! On Friday night we saw "Little Miss Sunshine" (GOOD movie). On Saturday we went up to Northwestern College for a Jars of Clay concert featuring MATT WERTZ! It was great, Matt was great, Jars was great, I want all their CDs (especially Matt's). Then on Sunday evening we had dinner at W.A. Frost in St. Paul, a beautiful, fancy, REALLY good restaurant. I had squash ravioli, which sounds weird, but was awesome. It was fun to have a chance (and an excuse) to live it up in the city for the weekend.

Our apartment is getting more settled looking. I hope to hang up some pictures tonight, and make it look a little more homey. There are still some boxes around, but not for long! I am still searching for a job... blehhhh..... I DO have some freelance stuff going, which is very nice, and I may take some kind of random part-time job just to pass the time (and make a little money).

We miss all of you in Missouri (and elsewhere)!

I hate spiders!

This - a venomous brown recluse spider - is what I found in our bedroom last night. I had to Google "brown recluse" to figure out that's what it was - we don't have spiders like that up north! It was on the floor, frozen like a deer in the headlights. As I swooped down upon it to trap it with a glass, it made a break for my husband's tennis shoe. Luckily I caught it in time - I may have saved his life! It is still under the glass at home, which I taped to the floor for good measure. When Jason (the one officially in charge of disposing of spiders, a position he grudgingly acquired due to lack of competition for the job) gets home, I'm sure the spider will meet a swift death.

Nightly Conundrum

I've almost been pushed/inspired to write a song titled "What Are We Going To Do Tonight?". I presume it would be a big hit on KZBK 96.9 FM (local pop station) as I imagine everyone else in the area asking themselves and loved ones the same question on a nightly basis.

It happens every night. Well, maybe I'm exagerating a little, but because of the frequency of the problem that seems to arise often but have few answers I feel like it is a nightly quest for adventure, for real entertainment that we are on. Being creatives we don't shy away from the brainstorming sessions or the challenge of rising above the blank canvas that is rural northern Missouri, but at the same time any artist knows the pain in staring at that great field of white and the comfort that coming back to an underpainting verses a white rectangle can have.

Simply put we would prefer an underpainting of entertainment to spring from. A start, a beginning, a list of ideas, a mall would be nice. (Let it be known that a list of ideas has been made for quick reference, but the very idea of having to reference it is depressing enough to put one out of the mood to do anything on it.) Yes, we are bored (I, Jason, imparticularly), but we are sharpening our brainstorming skills by devising weekend long entertainment. Let's take this coming weekend for example.

This evening, Friday evening, we will be dining out doors, by a small lake, over a fire with hotdogs and smores. We will then enjoy lakeside/fireside casual conversation and then progress to watching a movie rented from Blockbuster (major source of entertainment around here.) Saturday will consist of Chatauqua In The Park. This is an event held in the Chillicothe (Home of Sliced Bread) park and will include crafts, food, boothes, and live entertainment. This is probably the most exciting form of entertainment we have taken part in for weeks. After the many joys of Chataqua In The Park are...enjoyed we will move on to grocery shopping and an evening at home revelling in our good deals at Hy-Vee and WalMart concluding our Saturday thusly.

So, maybe I overreact. Maybe I am high maintenance, but there is nothing left at Blockbuster. There are no parks or lakes left to discover within a reasonable distance, and there are no more ways to describe the boredom of the last few days except by adding that there is no work to be done in the office, which only gives us more time to figure out what we're going to do once we get home.

A New Week

This past weekend was so nice and relaxing! It was nice just to have Jason back, after his trip to South Carolina. He got to come home a day early, which was a wonderful surprise. On Saturday we celebrated our 6-month anniversary! We had breakfast (Alton Brown's French Toast is excellent, FYI) and spent the day hanging out together, before heading to Kirksville for dinner and Chris's bachelor party. (I hung out with the girls during the bachelor festivities.) It was so great to see everyone - we miss our friends in the (other) ville!

Happy Birthday to Joe Belzer!