9 years and wait... what's THAT for!?

SOOOO This last week (wed the 26th)  Brad and I celebrated
               
                                 9 (NINE)

                                                                                                           Years of our Happily Ever After!

A few weeks ago i accidently broke his favorite cooking utensil (ooops)....

And then on last monday, brad realized that he "MISPLACED" both of his flash drives with his

       ENTIRE DISSERTATION
On it.

Now i have to insert this little bit here.... we DON'T buy anniversary gifts...
      1. our fun student budget doesn't REALLLY allow for it.
      2. our aniversary is exactly 1 month after Christmas
      3.  and lastly, we just think it's a bit silly really.
But, i thought since i had just broken his favorite utensil, we could swing the 3 bucks for a funny little "here ya go :)"
  
So I hid it in my nightstand drawer.

ok, now back to monday, 2 days before our anniversary while we are frantically searching for the missing flash drives, i go into our room where brad is under the bed scouring each and every crevice. then he goes for the nightstand drawer while i'm obviously not paying attention....

Brad: "noel, what is this doing in your nightstand drawer?)

me (slapping my face, cause he ALWAYS finds or figures out his gifts for anything!!!!) "awe nuts!!! that's supposed to be for you for our anniversary!"

Brad (with a very confused look, ya know, the one with one eyebrow raised much MUCH  Much higher than the other one) "What's it for and WHY is it in your nightstand?!?!?!"

and well, here i have to insert that we don't really use kitchen utensils outside of the kitchen or for things other than their intended purposes, just to make sure y'all understand we're not "those" kind of people....

But i do want to say that it's experiences like this and all sorts of other fun ones that have made our marriage

"Happily Ever After"


I know a lot of people say marriage is hard work, and takes time and adjusting and blah blah blah...

but seriously, I don't buy that.  Sure we have days where one or both of us is/are grumpy and may need a couple of time-outs, and we may even have stretches where one of us seems to be pulling the other along, but most of the time, we get to be working side by side, ya know... teamwork!

after 9 years, we still have never fought, or raised our voices to each other.  We still are falling in love... even with dirty laundry piling up all around us and stresses of life, almost 4 kids, almost 5 degrees, and a dissertation.  He still makes me laugh and i still make him smile :)

and we are still cookin' up a storm in the... "kitchen", with all our favorite utensils!

p.s. we DID find the flash drives... BOTH of them! 

What's in the box? in the box? in the box?

brad's entire 1st draft of his dissertation! he put the intro and conclusion chapters into his advisor's box this afternoon.  i'm not sure how it will work with her being out of the office, but the fact of the matter is,


it is in the box!

WA-HOO!

now, just to get some more interviews or campus visits!


(BTW, regarding the title, think bringing up baby)

when the word of the day is.....

CONSISTENCY (reminds me of pee-wee's playhouse)

moving on.

CONSISTENCY (insert loud AAAAAAAA here)

so far we have been CONSISTENTLY (AAAAAAAAA) sick here,

and i have CONSISTENTLY (AAAAAA)  not done things the way i've planed.

SO, i'm doing fairly well at being CONSISTENT :) (AAAAAAA)

(oh, and i'm ok with that too :)

One thing we HAVE been working/planning out is being CONSISTENT on our date nights.  my friend and her husband have institued a "date jar" which i thought was pretty cool where they wrote out 52 dates, not one repetitive date!!! you check it out here

For us, a lot of our "dates" end up being after kids are in bed and we pull the laptop on the bed and pull up something on youtube, hulu, or netflix instant play.  that also involved me falling asleep about 2 minutes in.... (that is something i CONSISTENTLY do :)

so for us, we have one week a month where we go to the temple and have a sitter. then we decided because of our budget, to have 1 date out a month and the rest be after kids go to bed. our problems are that we are dull, boring old married folk (9 years tomorrow folks!)

 we have a few ideas to get us up and going towards CONSISTENCY: (please don't judge ;p)

1. "how to" nights, learning something new (that's as far as that idea has been developed)
2. playing HORSE (ya know, the basketball game)
3. playing one of our many board games
4. drawing/painting portraits of each other
5. massages
6. foot rubs
7. building a fort in our room and reading short stories with flashlights together.
8. i suggested another scavenger hunt (we did one at a bookstore last year that i thought was fun, buuuuuut, lets just say, brad's not so into that.) 

so that's all i have.  any other ideas, cheap (remember.... itty bitty budget) and fun, for out and about AND at home after the kiddlets have drifted off to dream world would be GREATLY appreciated!

Happy new years resolution keeping y'all!

and my new years revolution... i mean resolution.

Consistency.

I've decided on a theme to my new year's resolution: Be Consistent.

everything falls under this:

• be more consistent in saying my personal prayers
• be more consistent in reading my personal scripture study
• be more consistent in my "wifeing" (all that stuff that goes with improving our relationship)
• be more consistent in my mothering ("they" say consistency is the key to good parenting... i used to be consistent.... i used to have really well behaved kids ;) (maybe we should try it again)
• be more consistent in my "me time" so i don't burn out and become the wicked witch of tuscaloosa!
• be more consistent in taking care of my physical body (good food, good moves (exercising) good sleep)
• be more consistent in my attitude and actions towards others
• and everything else that falls under this category

In the past, when i've made long lists of ways to improve myself i start off well but hen get distracted by other lists that i make... yes, i'm a list person, i like to put little things like, wake up, make my bed and such just so i can cross things off and feel/look productive.

This year, i decided that if my ONE goal is to be more consistent, that's all i have to remember!

I'll let y'all know how it goes!

what are some of your new year's goals?