104 degrees?!?

I was able to participate in a little blog called The Marriage Project.  Chanel Dubofsky is a twenty-something who is looking into the minds of women and their thoughts about marriage in imagination or reality.  It's really interesting to read about other women's views.  Some are completely against the idea of traditional marriage, while others have a different view.  I like being able to have a voice in such a great project.

You can read all my opinion of being married right here.

What are your views on marriage?

{via}

{via}

{via}

{via}

Also, in keeping with linking up to other stuff, have you ever been to The Billfold?

Among other great stories, they have this series called My Last Hundred Bucks: It was here and then it was gone.  I love it.  Some answers are funny, while others are insightful.  A lot of the stories on the site are really great.

How'd you spend your last hundo?

In other news, you're not gonna believe this!  We are going camping!  Yup.  I know.

Here's the deal.  It was 32 degrees at night the last time we were there... it's gonna be 104 degrees there today.  Two weeks, people... it's only been two weeks and there's that big of a variation in temperature.  Welcome to Texas!  (In all fairness, it was 32 degrees at night and 89 during the day last time; this time it's gonna be 104 during the day and 70 at night.)

Our camping never looks quite like this.
Sergio doesn't like cupcakes.
{via}

Have a great Friday, ya'll!

Always have a cute umbrella handy!

Picture this- a lovely, intimate wedding outdoors at the Palace of Fine Arts surrounded by swans, flowers, and greenery suddenly caught in the midst of a torrential downpour accompanied by freezing temperatures.  Yeah.  Not my dream wedding. 

We flew from San Antonio to San Francisco to have our wedding at the POFA, but plans changed when we landed and realized the weather was suddenly taking a turn for the worst.  Not only was the world supposed to end on our wedding day (December 21, 2012), it was supposed to flood and freeze and that was not gonna happen on my watch.  The drizzle was lovely, even the thunder and lightning was nice, but I was so glad it didn't flood (thus potentially ruining my awesome gold shoes.)

We (luckily) had a backup plan thanks to the fact that my mother-in-law is a priest at an Episcopalian church which happened to have a lovely historical chapel (complete with maintained garden) in addition to their modern church. 

So we changed venues to a lovely indoor chapel and the rest is history.

I was reading my RSS feed and wondering what I was gonna share today, when I came across a post on Melissa's blog about 3 tips for a rainy-day wedding.  It reminded me of two of my favorite photos from our wedding and made me smile:

I love this photo of my mom.  So candid!

Me, my mom, mother-in-law, and husband (in the background).
A cute umbrella is a necessity for wedding photos.

I have photos of the wedding in our story, but in case you don't stalk us explore our site, here are a few I'll share here, too:


#nofilter.  Seriously.

We had a small wedding.
We flew from San Antonio to San Francisco over the Christmas break.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
Well, we did, but our friends and family?  Not so much.

I loved the details.
We loved having a small, intimate wedding.

Good humor.
I thought so.  Sergio was over it.
Or so he pretended.  Look at his smile.
It says otherwise.

I'm thankful that I have the ability to see I have so much to be thankful for and that I acknowledge that any "inconveniences" in life are just that- inconvenient.  They're not the end of the world, nor do they change how great anything else in my life is.    

To perm or not to perm?

So I was having a less than the best day and then I perused our stats.

Oh, yes.  This happened:

My father and mother.

I looked at the google searches associated with my blog and found that this lovely picture comes up in people's searches of the word "permed." 

What's better?  7 people searched and clicked last weekish and 3 people have searched and clicked this weekish.  Yup.  My dad is in the annals of time as "permed."  And people find his photo worthy of a click.  Awesome.

By now, the photo's a little buried, but it's still there.  It's there enough that three people clicked it just this week.

And when I search my blog for "permed" via the little gadget on the side, this photo comes up.  Yay!

That is all.

Instagram: The Fly on the Wall

I came across this awesome linkup for "My Life Via Instagram" via mommyonlyhas2hands and I wanted to join.  I don't instagram very often.  I love instagram, but I tend to stalk people on it more than actually post.  It bothers me that my iphone saves the photo to the same album as my regular photos along with the special instagram album.  (Uh, oh.  I think my OCD is showing.)

Well, I now realize that the few photos I've posted since starting my instagram last Februaryish are a chronicle in a few things:

How my life has changed
How my interests have changed
How I've gained weight

PTSD via instagram/webstagram...

Wow, how life changes in just a year!

2/2012
Tutus for the Hell Run...
that photo a few photos below.

2/2012
I used to volunteer for the Humane Society. 
After getting volunteer of the quarter, I was kicked out
for inactivity.  Oops.

3/2012
I love photo booths.
Our friends own one and have it at every party.

4/2012
I used to run 6 miles 6 days a week.
Just a year ago.
What was I thinking?!?

4/2012
Oh, this body is what I was thinking about.
Don't know where it went and when that happened.

5/2012
Spartan Race.  You'll know at the finish line.
I'm signed up for the one in Burnet this Saturday,
but since I don't run as much this year I don't think I'm as ready
as I was last year. 
Look at my arms! And legs!
Foregoing that run this year.

6/2012
Jailbreak.
Loved running on the beach!

9/1/12.
Engaged.
He proposed on my best friend's birthday.

10/2012
I made our wedding cake toppers.

10/2012
If I lose just 10 pounds, I could wear this dress again.
I love this dress.

11/2012
I made these plaques for wedding photos.
They hang on our bedroom wall now.

3/2013
I replaced running with eating, flowers, and DIY projects.
I'm okay with that trade off.
We started exercising together this week.
2 miles a day and 20 mins of other exercise.
That's a good start.

3/2013
Oh, yeah.
I also replaced running with camping and hiking.
I love camping and hiking.

4/2013
And this guy.
I love this guy.

Well, I loved going through my instagram feed and seeing how life has changed.  There were lots of fun photos, even though I rarely post.  I'll be honest.  If I follow you and you use hashtags, I get distracted for hours by looking through the photo associated with hashtags.  Sometimes I follow random people as the result of hashtag stream-of-consciousness.

Have a great Tuesday night! 

What we did and didn't do...

This weekend was amazing.

Ok, now that you wanna read on, I'll be honest.

Not much happened.  Rather normalcy and simplicity happened.  We had a great Texas BBQ at my brothers house and now we have our weight in fajitas to eat tonight.  (Thanks, leftovers!)

We cancelled our camping trip because it was supposed to torrentially downpour out in Concan, where Garner State Park is located.  It rained, but not a torrential downpour.

I was bummed.  I wanted people to run from the monsoon in fear.  I mean, after all, Sergio and I survived a torrential downpour when we went camping a few weekends ago.  We cancelled our trip this time because of that experience.  So, we certainly were hoping we didn't cancel our trip for nothing. 

We were hoping this would happen.
Not too much, but enough to make it worth our cancellation.
Kind of.



Instead, we heard this happened.
{via}

Ladida.  At least all the campers were able to enjoy the dance under the stars.

Full disclosure?

When we first cancelled our camping trip, the original plan was to have an actual date night on Saturday night.  I was kinda stoked.  I mean, I love camping, but it sure is nice to get dressed up every now and then and go to a really nice dinner.  Well, Friday night, we babysat my nephew until about midnight.  By the time Saturday morning rolled around, I slept until 10ish.  We cleaned out rabbit cages and other little housey things that slip on the day to day and got our day started late.  Since I've gained a little weight, I needed a couple of things to wear to work everywhere, so we went shopping.  By the time our day was said and done, it was 8pm.  (Somewhere after this and before the next statement, I might have cried a little.  Won't go into details, but I will say that about 30 minutes were spent on emotion before we actually were in a place where I was okay to go out in public again.

Needless to say, it was too late for us to really enjoy a night out with a fancy dinner.  I woulda still needed to shower and get ready.

We grabbed some fast food and annihilated it at home in a frenzy of hunger.  We hadn't eaten since 11am.  After our tummies settled, we went to see The Great Gatsby for a late night showing.  So, so good!  Made me relive all the emotions I remember feeling when I read the book for the first and fiftieth time.  And the costumes?

Just beautiful.

So, we are selling our small rabbit cage on craigslist, because I don't need it taking up valuable storage space.  Crunch and Dill are in the large cage together and it works out fine. 

Since marketing on Craigslist is all about the photos, we put Crunch in the cage and took some pics of the cage in use. 

He's grown so much since we've had him.

Check these vintage shots out:

Notice how his little head barely reaches the top of the plastic.

His entire body used to fit under the plastic shelf in the cage.

Look at our gigantor of a bunny now:

He looks smaller than he is in the pic, but he can't even begin
to fit under that little shelf anymore!

I am so looking forward to camping this weekend.

I literally cannot wait.  I wanna take 2 days vacation so we can get this party started all ready.

and

Go grab a button and link up!

The Party

I have nothing.  Seriously.  I have nothing to say except...

You gotta read this.  Hyperbole and a Half is back at it and I am so super stoked.

I would post the whole story, but I don't wanna plagarize.  Tears were streaming down my cheeks.  I mean, check out these little drawings:

The Party

(click it to read it.)

(all these little drawings are from the website Hyperbole and a Half.)

Go visit her by clicking on this link:  Hyperbole and a Half.  I linked that at the top of the story and here because it's that funny and informative.  She's dealing with depression and her stories, even those about depression, are funny or insightful and well-illustrated. 

Also, I wanted to share this:

I found this on facebook via Purpose Fairy.
Have faith in what will be.
Such true words.

As George Michael said, "Gotta have faith."

See what I did there?  I did that so I could link up with Whitney:

Seriously, though.  Have faith.  I remind myself that lesson every day.  It all works out if we just stop trying to control it all.  Hard, hard thing for this little Virgo to do, but I make the effort. 

It's all working out. 

Have an amazing Friday, hens -n- roosters. 

Our House is Your House...

Well, not really.  Why do people say that?  I mean, I wouldn't let you break sh*t or paint a wall or anything.

Our house is... where you can rest for a little while (as in 3 hours or so, unless we're drinking, then you can be here a lot longer.)

I finally finished the "Our Home" section of our blog.  It took forever to take photos because... truthfully, no real reason.

Wanted to share some of the new photos with you in case you only read the blog and don't really cyber-snoop.

The Hallway

The first project we painted together.

The Living Room

Living room.  That daybed is my favorite piece of furniture.
We don't have a second bedroom, so our "couch" had to
be multi-functional.

Crunch's cage is just... so big.  (That's what she said.)
Nico chases Crunch all the time.

The Dining Room

The floral curtains hide all of our camping stuff.
That used to be a desk nook, but we needed the storage back.
When we can, we will have someone hang doors.

The Kitchen 

Addiction.  Owl cookie jars.

Another addiction.  Cupcakes in any form.

Another addiction.  Vintage signs.

Last addiction.  Inspirational quotes.
(There are like a million magnets telling me how to live.)

The Bathroom

I painted this gray while my husband was
at his bachelor party.

The Bedroom

Bought that world pillow at the Round Top Antique Fair.
It makes me smile and think of serenity.

The door leads out to our patio.

The dresser is the first piece of furniture we bought together.
He was moving in and we needed some extra storage.
Estate sale.  $70.  Score.

The Patio

This is what's behind those curtains in the above photo.

Our "garden."

Well, that's about it.  Hope you had a nice stay.