packing up, headed out

So, I haven't posted in a long time. It's been a pretty stressful time around here. Long complicated story mad uber short: John Paul got transferred to a job in OKC. He found out a week before he was supposed to be there, so he packed for a week, and I'm packing this week.

This is a blessing we've been praying for for a while. We thought we were city people, but we aren't there's no where you can go to get away from people, without driving for hours, and we miss friends at home. Though, we have made some friends here!

So, I guess my 10 minute break from boxes has ended (I was reading stuff first) So packing here I come.

Knitting fun!

Here's what I've been doing lately. I'd been working on knitting the quilt since about March, and told myself I needed to get it finished before Christmas knitting. I'm making the sock monkey for my niece. This is one outfit, and I've started a dress. I have the patterns for a set of pants, another shirt and dress, and 2 cardigans. So, we will see how much wardrobe there is actually finished by December! I'm also knitting some koozies for friends, and a set of cool desk accessories that will make her cube feel like a tropical isle! If I have time, I also got some knittable market bags, but those are on the bottom of the list since I'm not sure who I'd give them to.

Pistol Pete

I miss him. I've never been one for school spirit, but man college was awesome. I miss the oceans of orange and seeing this scruffy guy on everyone's tee shirt.

I've actually been following football! I never went to a game while at school, because I thought it was just a buncha guys wearing big shoulder pads and tight pants. Now I realize what I missed out on. To be a part of a group cheering for the same end. I did go to a basketball game though.

Sorry Jen, I know you'd probably rather see that silly schooner, but I've been jonesing for some Pistol Pete. So I had to share his cute mug!

This Month

So, I've made 2 cakes lately. One for a going away party for a co-worker and the other (which I didn't post a picture of) for a bachelorette party. That cake turned out awesome, but I didn't think it was quite appropriate to post lol. I've been to 2 bachelorette parties, and one wedding for those pretty ladies. I'm not so good at taking pictures, so only one bachelorette is pictured, and I didn't think of the camera at the wedding. So, of our Houston friends, 2 sets got married on consecutive weekends. We only went to one wedding as the other was in Colorado. Love is so wonderful isn't it?

Love makes us do things like the front hair poof, which I'm trying to hide in the picture with John Paul. He saw some girl with the hairdo and asked me to try it. I did, and felt ridiculous. O well, the picture was taken at an Astros Baseball game. We had really awesome seats just behind home plate right below the press boxes. A foul ball hit on the stairs 2 rows below us and ricocheted down below. It was fun, but that was the most notable adventure of the evening.

The pictures below are from the Forbidden Garden, which is a replica of the tomb where the terra cotta warriors were discovered, and a replica of the forbidden city. It was an interesting day. Lots of Chinese history done up really small :)

Other noteworthy things, well highlights really on the trip to the wedding we ate at Braum's twice and I'm working on loosing weight. Over the last 3 weeks I've lost 8 pounds. I weighed the most I've ever weighed and decided I wanted my close to actually fit me again. So here's to keep trying!

Visit home

So, last week I had the opportunity to have several days off, and I took it! I went home to visit. John Paul didn't have the time off, so he hung out here. He told me it was nice to be alone, but he was glad when I came back. He's pretty sweet when he wants to be.

The trip home was great (no I didn't take pictures, I don't know why). I got to eat at Braum's. No one makes milkshakes, french fries, or burgers like Braum's!! I visited lots of lovely family and friends. I got to listen to good radio, drive on 2 lane highways, randomly bump into people I knew, have a conversation while blocking both lanes of a dirt road, and be encouraged by lots of people that love me!

It was so good to meet up with everyone I'd been missing so long. It's funny, I think talking about being happy with what's going on in the here and now came up with everybody. Going home was nice, and I didn't want to come back to Houston, but I feel so much better about being here in Houston. I may not run into someone who knows my name while I'm out and about, or get hugs from anyone but John Paul, but I can live here and be ok. Which is such a blessing, because for such a long time I thought I would scream if we couldn't move somewhere nicer, smaller, closer to people we know and 100 other things that Houston isn't. We have lovely friends here, which I'm so thankful for. That helps most of all with being ok.

I had such awesome ideas of how I was going to convey the awesome mental refreshing that I had visiting OK, but somehow it was so much more awesome in my head on the long drive home. O well.

clearing out the camera

I don't know why I always take a buncha pictures, and rarely put them on the computer. But, I emptied the camera out and am sharing a few!

We've went to several pool parties at a friend's house, so I got a poolside shot of JP.

We went down to the Battleship Texas with my parents, so there's a few shots of that. John Paul was trying to decide how to get that big shell home with no one noticing... don't worry, it's still there ;)

John Paul's employer has a group for new people to the company called Endeavor. They get together for social networking and this year celebrated the 3rd birthday of the group, so that meant a party! We had a blast at Dave and Busters!! I thought John Paul looked like he was having fun blowing that stupid favor in my face!

Gentle nudge

So, I was told I haven't been blogging. Which I realized was true when I looked and my last post was about my kidney stone. I've sat down many times to put my thoughts out there, but they always seem too radical, too whiney, too personal too boring or any other number of things, not to mention would people even care? Since I've gotten a couple of comments, I'll see what I can do about catching you up. (This might be long, but I'm going with you asked for it? lol)

So, since June, I've recovered from my stone completely, but have had a few apts with the urologist. I'm going to say I got really lucky with finding a great doc. He listens, and he doesn't want me to have any more stones! They did a few tests, and I got the results last week. I'm watching what I eat to prevent stones. We will do another test in a few months to see if changing my diet is enough, or if I need medicines to prevent stones. I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the things I can't eat. I'm supposed to cut back on sodium, calcium, and fat, Yet I'm supposed to not eat a lot of veggies because they contain a lot of Oxalate, which is a component of my stones. I'm drinking at least 3 liters of water, and working in fresh lemonade.

We have had quite a few visitors. John Paul's parents came down around Father's day. I was pretty sick at the time, but it was nice to see them. It was nice to spend a little time with my father-in-law before he got deployed to Afghanistan. Then John Paul's little brother came by with a few friends. They had went to Mississippi to pick up a new car, and Houston is way on the way back to OK so they stopped by :). They were only here a little over 24 hours, but it was nice to have people in the house. My parents came down as well. We did a Texas history weekend, visiting 2 state parks that were focused on the founding of Texas. It was great to have people in the house, even though the house seems a lot more hollow after people leave, and there's a little bit of homesickness that flares up when they leave too.

I helped plan a trip to AZ, which I posted pictures of here on Facebook. I've sat down, and wrote several posts about this trip, but didn't post. So, here I'm just going to say that I support AZ's new immigration law because if our federal govt doesn't enforce laws which makes citizens unsafe, I think a state has a right to protect it's citizens. The trip was a hoot, and I really enjoyed meeting lots of other conservatives and seeing AZ from top to bottom! A group from AZ posted a movie they made about our trip here. The video is like 9 minutes long, so no pressure to watch.

The other exciting thing going on is FRIENDS! It's been really cruddy moving here not really knowing anyone. But one of John Paul's co-workers has had people over to his house several of times over the past year (yea, we've been here a year, crazy) And we've recently been really hanging out with several of his co-workers. There's 2 couples getting married in Sept, so we are kind of in the same stage of life, and it's so great to have some people to spend time with. We did a bowling league for 6 weeks. I stank mostly, but got better. I increased my avg, and bowled over 100 once! One co-worker hosted my birthday party, and that was the first time that I really felt like we were finally getting friends. I've went wedding dress shopping, and we are planning a bachelorette party too!

I've been making cakes for, well years, but I've been making several lately. I've got a couple of orders too. I'm really excited about it! Who knows where it will lead!

So, Houston isn't as bad as it was a few months ago. We still haven't found a church home, we're just going to church. It's pretty hard to not have a church family, but God has a plan for that.
I'm still working at Staples as a cashier, but I've been looking for something else, but there's just not a lot. We are praying for God's leading in that area, and are waiting to hear from Him on the issue.