Before

As I mentioned before, Francie and I spent the weekend painting pottery. Rachael wants me to paint her a bunch of stuff for her etsy store. Which I don't mind doing, since all her profits go to buy Christmas presents for orphans in Russia. So I painted mugs for her store and a few for mine and Francie painted a couple of things for her kitchen. All these mugs you see here are just the ones I did for Rach. So as you can clearly see, we were very busy. I guess I didn't do all of these this weekend, but I doctored up some of them that needed more detail. They look pretty dull and boring, but the color doesn't show up until they are fired. I made something for Rachael that she doesn't know about. It is a surprise. I can't wait to see if it turns out, she is going to like it so much she won't want to sell it in her store. She's going to try to talk me into letting her just keep it. She does this a lot. But that's OK, because I have made arrangements to make sure I can get more just in case. I will post pictures of her surprise once I have finished it and given it to her. I was supposed to make a bunch of Christmas stuff for her too, but I have so many other things painted that I'm going to be able to fill the kiln more than once with all the stuff I need to fire already. She might have to do a Christmas in August theme because July is quickly disappearing. Stay tuned to see how everything turns out. I should be running the kiln this weekend I hope. I need to hire someone to help me glaze all this stuff. Too bad I can't make any money doing this, then I could stay home all day and play in the basement. Maybe in another life time.

My Precious Pets

I don't have anything new to blog about, but I'm sure you're all sick of seeing the same page over again. So you get to see a picture of my precious pets. I did have a really fun weekend, but I didn't have my camera battery charged and I hate to blog without pictures. Adam and I went west. He surfed, I painted pottery with Francie all day. It was a ton of fun though. I guess I gotta go to bed so that I can get up early.

Fourth of July Weekend

There are a thousand things to love about America. One of my favorites would be National Holidays! The 4th is Adam's favorite holiday. He likes it more than Christmas! So we did exactly what he wanted to do, that he has done with his family for years. We spent the long weekend in Northwestern Michigan. For those of you who have never been to Michigan, did you know it was this beautiful? We had fun the whole weekend. To start, Adams parents stopped by the house to pick us all up, we all drove together...in the motor home! It was so nice, we layed around and played games, read magazines, napped, and ate ice cream. Walter loved it too. I felt a little silly at first when that giant motor home rolled up, blocking ours and the neighbors driveway, with a trailer on the back soon to be holding 4 motorcycles and 2 bicycles. I think we took everything but the kitchen sink! We spent about 45 min. to an hour loading the motorcycles, strapping them down, and all the other stuff we had to take. Guns, ammo, suitcases, backpacks, purses, helmets, motorcycle jackets, etc. I didn't think we would ever be done loading and strapping. It was the most pain free traveling I've done in a long time. (Even though I got an entire empty row on the airplane a couple weeks ago on the way home from Lindsay's wedding, even though the rest o the airplane was almost completely full... I got lucky AND took advantage of it; I had no shame stretching out on my back with a pillow-aka:stuffed backpack and a book). When we got to Grandma Lois' house, which is where we stayed, we unloaded all the stuff and went straight to bed. Adam really likes to go back to his childhood ways when he goes to G. Lois' house. He insisted on sleeping on his (single-person) cot in the basement. I was OK with that though, I wasn't about to share an air mattress. Ever slept on an air mattress with someone who was heavier than you? We only had Grandma Lois' 5 seat car since no one drove, so I rode on the motorcycle to church with Adam. I had my dress on, and my sweatpants, and my jacket, so I looked like I was wearing a nightie and sweats. I'm sure it was a site. At least I didn't wear my heals until I got there. Remember all the flooding that has been happening all over last month? We came upon a road that was completely washed out! We couldn't help but wonder how scary it must have been for the first person who discovered the giant gap in the road. It was impossible to drive around, we had to turn back. It was a good weekend, we had a lot of fun and will probably do the same thing next year. Don't worry family...that gives me dibs on the where and what for Christmas.

Oh...about that 6 words that sums up my life...I keep forgetting to think of something...here is what I came up with in about 5 seconds that pretty much sums me up in a very vague way:

Eh... I'll Worry About It Later!

Lindsays Wedding

I've never had more fun during pictures at a wedding than I did at Lindsay's. We never stopped laughing. I'm just glad that photos don't capture audio because we were pretty silly.
Have you ever seen a picture of yourself and wondered who it was, and thought 'oh please don't tell me I look like that every time I laugh?' Here's mine. This picture of me looks so funny! The only reason I'm sharing it with you is because I got a good laugh out of it, hoped others could do the same. I asked Adam if I look like this ever, and he said ALL the time, and thats why when I laugh, he laughs. I hope he was only kidding. If he wasn't, I guess I'll survive. And on another note, we were not laughing this histarically at Lindsays muscles, here is where the audio would fill in the blanks. Like I said, good thing the audio was not captured.
Takeing it seriously for a quick second so that Lindsay would get at least a few good pictures or her album.
Trying oh so desperately to be sexy.

All of us from left back to right back: Heather, Brian, Myself, Groom (Kevin), Bride (Lindsay) Scott, Stephanie.

Front row: Trey, Vanessa, Olivia, Madison, Sarah and Pete.
The two cutest girls there. (above...:)

Fun times! Don't ask! You'll never think of us the same again.
Rehearsal Dinner. Lindsays shirt says "I met my husband on MySpace."

Lindsay is a nut case.
By far this was one of the funnest weddings I have been to. For those of you who don't know who Lindsay is, we were roomates at boarding academy for almost 3 years. (My mom thought we were too much trouble, so she made me get my own room for a semester.) All that did was make getting to 3rd floor from 1st after lights-out that much more interesting and thrilling. We were good most of the time, we just usually had a lot of energy after 10pm. Seeing Lindsay and being back in town where we went to school and seeing old friends brought back a lot of forgotten memories!

I Found the Mother Load!

Remember when I said I had a secret liking for little boxes? Check out what I scored at work! I was walking around the shop floor picking up root cause forms when I stumbled upon someone unpacking pressure testing fittings from a bunch of little brown and white boxes. I asked him if I could have a couple, and then told him how I liked little boxes because they are perfect for mailing little items from my etsy store. I gave him about a half hour to finish unpacking them, and when I went back, he had saved ALL of them for me! I was pretty excited; I had to make him promise not to tell Adam about them or he might throw them away. He asked "how much stuff do you sell anyways?" I was like... "not that much, but some." I've only sold 4 or 5 items, but I didn't want him to laugh at me for wanting so many boxes when I clearly didn't really need them. I will use them at Christmas time; I'm planning on making lots of ornaments for my store. They will fit perfectly if someone only wants to buy 2 or 3.

I have been really busy lately, making pottery stuff for my friend and for my sister. I think they turned out pretty good. Keep an eye out on Rachael's etsy store if you want to see the ones I made for her. But also keep watching mine, when I get back from my friends wedding in a week, I'm going to get busy making more stuff for my store.

When I was at the flower store the other day to pick something up, I was greeted by the cutest, friendliest, sleepiest cat named Stein. He was just sitting in a box on top of the counter where you pay for stuff. The funny thing is, I had Walter in the car because I was just coming from work; I had thought about bringing him in with me for a second. Good thing I didn't. I don't think I would have seen the kind side of Stein that I did.

One year ago. I hate that time goes by so fast! It has been a really fun year though.For our anniversary we took Monday and Tuesday off work to go up north. We went to Silver Lake first. That was fun, but we managed to sink the jeep into the sand going up a steep sand dune. There was a big storm rolling in, so almost everyone had already headed back to their trailers and cars. But we were stuck; it was pouring down rain with lightning flashing across the sky right in front of us. Thankfully we were able to flag down a four wheeler to go get a truck to come pull us out. Guess who came to our rescue? American soldiers! Two guys crawled out of their ranger wearing army fatigues. It was nice to get a chance to thank them for more than just pulling us out of the sand.
El Rodeo anyone? We met their brothers! No kidding! This place was called El Rancho. Adam ALWAYS orders "vegetarian E." This was probably the 4th mexican restaurant we have been to that had vegetarian E be the same thing. Finally Adam couldn't take it anymore, he asked the guy...do you know anything about El Rodeo in Benton Harbor? The guy got really excited and said..."yeah! El Rodeo #8!" So now we know for SURE that they are in fact affiliated with our favorite restaurant.
We went in search of a place to shoot the guns. All you have to do up north is find state owned land, and a hill to shoot into. We didn't in a hill in here, but we had a good time riding through the woods in the jeep. We finally found a place to shoot, right on the side of the road, there were people there already. we could have had one foot on the road while shooting. It's really different than what we are used to.
I have been working on this post for a really long time. I keep getting pulled away. So I'm just going to post it and be done with it.

Robbed and Furious

Have you ever had anything stolen from you? It's a horrible feeling when you discover someone with sticky, greedy fingers has gone through your things. I always lock my car. Except for last night! The one night I don't turn on the porch lights, lock the car and have Walter at home with us, someone decides to go through my car. Walter was at my in-laws house because we were gone all day yesterday and were too tired to go pick him up when we got home. I went to bed early, long before Adam, so I didn't go through my usual lock-up routine. When my mom was single and it was just her, Francie and myself living at home, I was the "man-of-the-house." I took the trash out, killed bugs and spiders, locked the doors before bedtime every night and even checked out the house when my mom or sisters thought someone was inside...I wasn't brave, they would just trick me into going inside first, send me in to get something..."nay, will you go get my shoes, I think they are under mom's bed" where they thought they heard the noise come from. Evil, I know. But even more evil than that, is the little punk who stole my I-pod and docking station from my car last night. I'm pretty sure it was a kid because they saw what they wanted, took it and left. They didn't bother to check Adam's show Jeep that had $2500 worth of sponsor donated stereo equipment even though the windows were all open and the top was off. Funny thing is, they could have had two I-pods if they hadn't been so stupid. Adam's glove box WAS (not anymore) unlocked and had his I-pod in it. When I was telling Francie about it tonight, she was like... "oh, every time they hear a song that was on there, later in life, they will feel guilty"... I'm pretty sure they aren't going to like what I listen to enough to listen to the songs all the way through even once. Adam makes fun of the music I listen to; and I'll agree I listen to some pretty weird things. I mentioned to Francie that whoever stole my I-pod would not feel guilty, but rather say something like... "she deserved to get this thing stolen for listening to the kind of music that she does." I'm still really mad that someone stole my $300 I-pod, but even worse than that was the way I felt when I ran out to the car, running incredibly late for work, ready to quickly hop in the passengers seat next to Adam who had been waiting in the car for me, only to be stopped by a pile of junk from the glove box and center console strewn all over my seat. He thought it was MY mess, from looking for something, and I was mad that HE would pull all that stuff out and leave it sitting like that. I called the sheriff's department today, they had zero sympathy and said there was nothing they could do about it but that I was welcome to file a police report. No thanks, you'll just put it in a file; not going to waste my time. Glad we pay so much in taxes to live in this county that won't help fight crime!