Things I Made

Recent crafts

I made these little booties for my baby niece coming soon!

puffy painted this onsie

Next craft was a "felted sweater" very loosely based on a Martha Stewart episode I saw years ago

First I cut down the sweater from a woman's sweater, and sewed it back up. I actually sewed this stupid sleeve on 3 times because I kept doing it inside out. I ended up frustratedly throwing it out, but the next day I dug it out of the trash and did it right.

Sewing on a rabbit shape from cutouts of another sweater

I actually "felted" by sewing on felt bits, not doing it like in the Martha Stewart. I wasn't sure about the red flowers, but the rest of the family voted for them. I think the googly eyes makes it look a bit silly, but too late now!

The back. Hope baby girl likes it!

Recently made eats:

I had one last cup of quinoa in the pantry that I wanted to get rid of. It's not my favorite grain, and now I feel guilty eating it since my mom told me that the countries that grow quinoa and used to depend on it, can now hardly afford to eat their own product since the Americans are going crazy about it and it's driving up the prices :(. So anyway, I used it up and made a Cumin Lime Black Bean Quinoa Salad which ended up being quite tasty. I hate how those little grains looks like parasite worms, but otherwise was tasty.

Followed that meal up by eating the rest of my mom's carrot cake, so good!

I'd also been wanting to make zucchini boats. Got these huge guys from mom's garden.

Browned beef with onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, and spices

Filled up the boats and topped with cheese. I think I was supposed to bake the zucchinis a bit first by themselves, but I didn't know that. So mine baked a little longer.

The end result was kind of 'meh'. But the next day I put some of the reheated leftovers in a tortilla and topped it with a fried egg, and it was amazing!

Random flower bouquet from my lovely mom

Jill actually made this chicken and I made the veggie sides. Mom's garden beans with this potato salad that I am in love with.

Good eats!

thoughts

Wow, I really must have been watching too much Pitch Perfect. Last night I caught myself thinking, I should just move out east and go live in a college dorm out there, that's where everyone falls in love.... and then I realized I am a 32 year old woman and way too old to live in a dorm.

Oh well. Maybe God has another plan for me.

I was going to share stuff I've made lately, but apparently I did not drag the pics to my flash drive, wah wah.

So instead, some Bible verses that have meant a lot to me over the year.

And this may be borderline sacrilegious, but it makes me laugh, and it's true!!!

smorgasbord

The problem with infrequent blogging is then there is so much to talk about and then there is no theme!

I already talked about my birthday, and 32 is so far, so good. I got to clear my dresser of the Valentine's day cards and line up all my bday cards. There were some super good ones, and lots of love and encouragement, and this write in from my dad, "I'm so proud that set backs have ultimately made you stronger, and more resilient, our happy Anne Marie is back, and I love it!" Oh My Gosh. Tear jerker!

wonderful cards and tons of chocolate (it pays for all your friends to know the specifics of your chocolate obsession! :))

and a couple more a few days later

note the m&m bag is mysteriously missing...

My bday necklace, thanks mom!

August 6th would have been my 3 year anniversary. This year it was just a normal day. Last year I went to the place where we had our reception and I sat on the porch and journaled, and it was actually good and healing for me. This year I packed my journal and planned to go after work. But when it came time, I really didn't feel like it at all, and even if I wanted to, it ended up being a super busy day and I couldn't. And instead I went to the Justin Timberlake/Jay Z concert with friends. Very different indeed!

me & my co-worker friend Cristy

me & Jenna

me & Jill

the gang - (I think Nikki is mid-blink and actually not trying to look seductive, haha, this picture makes me laugh, "hey Justin, hey, wink wink")

My 5 year journal is now in the 3rd year, and it is getting interesting looking back. On my birthday I noticed that both this year and last year my friends and I played exactly the same game! That's ok though, I love it :) and when I had my friends over for book club last night, after everyone left I put the day in the journal and saw that exactly a year ago, I had the girl's over for book club, and at that one we had made my audition tape for the Bachelor. So crazy! I'm actually really glad I didn't get on the Bachelor back then, (what was I thinking at 1 wk divorced?!), but it is so weird that exactly a year later I was hosting again and how different things are. Again, God has been so faithful to me.

I made coconut dream bars for my book club dessert

graham cracker crust

coconut milk and sugar

ridiculously hard to open nut bag = disaster

as it was going in the oven.

No final picture, but they ended up quite tasty. I would definitely add a thicker chocolate layer if I were to make them again. Life lesson = ALWAYS add more chocolate!

Lizzy B's wedding

My little sister is all grown up! She got married on July 27th.

It was SO nice to see her, hadn't seen her since Christmas and it felt like forever! I miss her.

She came in town the week before and we got busy helping her with the wedding decor.

We had plans to go out to Coyote Joe's for her bachelorette party, but it was already really late, and we knew we had to wake up early to drive to the other side of the state, so instead we went and got icecream and talked at our favorite icecream place.

Joel and I had both worked there during high school, and we reminisced and laughed over all the jobs we had. Elizabeth by far had the most food jobs: pizza maker at 2 places, subway, Vlassic pickle factory, but was denied to work with us at the icecream place. Boo!

Elizabeth and I stayed up and watched What Happens in Vegas and I did her nails and toenails.

The next day we headed over to the west side of the state. We had to stop and get my favorite road-trip snack, coffee icies!

I told Joel we looked squashed up, so he pushed me away

We hung out and had lunch with Elizabeth's other bridesmaid, and then it was time for the rehearsal.

I did her hair for the rehearsal.

Future bride and groom!

Then the bridesmaids and Joel went out to Fridays for more hanging out and getting dessert. It was fun. We came back to the hotel and spent our laaast night in the hotel room as the 3 kids (+ Michelle!). We stayed up a bit and played a fun movie trivia game and some charades. But made the bride get her beauty sleep.

The next morning was the big day.

She's ready!

Now she's totally ready!

The wedding went smoothly. I felt bad because no one remembered the flower petals for the aisle or to blow bubbles afterwards. I saw the flower bag and was thinking about scattering them myself, but then I saw my partner standing by the door and it was already time to go in! So no flowers.

I obviously didn't take ceremony pictures since I was busy holding bouquets, arranging her dress, trying not to lock my knees and faint, etc. It was a short but sweet ceremony. There was one weird moment, after the pastor announced them man & wife and they kissed, I was like 'woooo!' and NO ONE ELSE made a sound. It was so weird. So I started awkwardly laughing and then slowly people were clapping. Get excited people!

The reception was good, the food was good, and I didn't stumble too much during my speech! I'm looking forward to her getting her pics back from the photographer, because I think they'll be good! But here are some I took:

Congratulations Elizabeth and Johnny!! I love you!

32

32 - flirty and thriving? Ever since 13 Going on 30, I looked forward to being "30, flirty and thriving". Then the first third of 30 was good, and the rest was the worst year of my life. 31 was mostly getting back on my feet. 32 is looking pretty good so far! I'll probably never be super flirty, just not me, but I can see some thriving in my future :)

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't have to work, so I started off the day with a run. Went pretty good for not running in 2 weeks, but I need to get training for this half marathon!! Then I went and got a massage. My friend had given me a gift card 2 Christmases ago, and it was time! I told the lady I liked hard pressure, and now I'm paying the price. She kept saying "I can't believe all these knots in here don't bother you" rub rub, dig dig, and today my back hurts! Then I went over to Liz's house to help tidy up since we would be having my game night there.

I felt so loved by my friends that came out! We had cake and icecream and a few snacks.

Last year mom and I had a chocolate cake bake off, this year I made chocolate peanut butter cupcakes and mom made her carrot cake. And let me just say there is no comparison to mom's carrot cake. It is awesome.

mmmmmmmmm

A lot of my friends came out and I thought about how lucky I am to have such wonderful people in my life. High school friends, InterVarsity friends, friends from both churches I went to, book club friends, the friends I got from my marriage, and my parents came too. It was a weeknight, so we only ended up playing 1 game but it was fun. We call it Trifecta: first round catchprase, second round charades, third round password. My favorite round is the charades.

I can't remember which one this was

Matt about to do his clue

Jenna, I think hula-hooping, I love her face and her hair swinging around

Angela doing something

This is pretty much the only other one I remember because I was laughing so hard. First my dad pointed to my friend Angela sitting next to him, and then he pointed to himself as he was making this face, and it was Beauty and the Beast.

I don't remember mom's either, but I like how happy she looks :)

I didn't take this picture until after a bunch of friends went home :( but here was some of the gang.

And even though I specifically said no gifts I still ended up with some pretty good loot! A fun new game, dark chocolate from 2 different friends, 2 bags m&ms from another (people know me so well!), movie passes (I open up this gift card and it has the picture of popcorn on it, and I say something stupid like wow that's going to be a lot of popcorn to eat, and my friend was like, you know you can use it to actually watch a movie too, lol, well played subliminal messaging giftcard!), an amazon gift card, that Warm Bodies movie I loved, that other movie Pitch Perfect I loved, a concert ticket, a white summer scarf, earrings and a necklace from my parents. Really funny and also the sweetest cards. People were way too generous to me.

Then I stuck around for awhile after, helped Liz clean up, watched a Dexter, talked and prayed with her.

As I drove home I just felt really thankful for all the good friends God has blessed me with, and I feel really hopeful for the future!

me & Jill!