Thoughts on Thursdays

Let life's experiences draw you closer together.

When shaping a vessel, potters exert equal pressure with their hands on both the outside and the inside of the clay to prevent it from collapsing. After the clay dries, it is glazed and placed in a fiery kiln. The intense heat perfects the clay by removing blemishes, strengthening it, and enhancing the paint colors. The once wet piece of clay is finally transformed into a beautiful and useful piece of pottery.

Marriage can be viewed as a similar work in progress. Like the clay, you and your spouse will constantly face various pressures from life-job changes, financial stress, parenting responsibilities, and the list goes on. To prevent your marriage from collapsing, you must respond to any external pressure with the internal pressure of a powerful relationship with the living God. Just as clay is fired in a kiln, so will your marriage go through periods of intense heat. Remember that God is using these times to remove imperfections in your relationship and make it stronger and more beautiful. Face the difficult times together, and let Him mold and perfect your marriage, lifting you to higher levels of intimacy with each other. From the book Married for Life.

O Lord you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isaiah 64:8

Miscellaneous

We thought it would be fun to share a few of our favorite gifts. This is my favorite. Golden branch necklace from etsy picked out by Jay. perfect.
Mmm Coco Mademoiselle. I have had people literally stop and ask me what I am wearing when I wear this! Hubby likes it too ;)

Yes!!!! I got a Shootsac!

I had a cribbage board for Jay in the shape of a gator. He loves it!

And last but not least, his favorite gift. A bean bag game that Papa made (and I designed!) It's so amazing!! Thanks to Papa for all his hard work. Handmade gifts are the best.

On Monday Jay forgot something at work so he took me to see his office and show me around his school a little bit. I was so excited to see where he works every day and what his office looks like. We only had his blackberry so that's why the images are a little blurry/dim...but you get the picture!

The cribbage scoreboard. He & his co-teacher play cribbage often during their breaks. I thought you might enjoy seeing where he spends his day. Today will be full of catch up posting since I have time to blog!

Baby steps.

Today is my Friday so I'm up a little late =) Tomorrow I'm going to focus part of my day on sorting/photographing items to sell. Once we make some progress we'll post a link to our "for sale" blog that we'll be linking to craigslist in case anyone wants to take a peek at our items. Our progress so far: we've finally switched entirely to paperless everything. It took us awhile because it's a hassle to get on each website and switch everything separately- but we got the job done. It's SO nice not receiving statements and papers in the mail that we don't know what to do with. Makes less recycling, less filing, less JUNK. Love it. We also found all of these old check book boxes (full of old checkbooks) below, a combination of numerous separate accounts pre-marriage. We had not gotten around to sorting them all out. All of these below are old and got shredded. 8 boxes of junk out the door! Seems small but sometimes it takes baby steps!

Tonight we spent some time going over our financial situation and figuring out how much we owe total for our student loans. My Dad just made the final payment on mine and that was really exciting for us. Now all we have left is Jay's. It's so amazing to know that his student loans and our home is the only debt we have. Like my Mom says, that's the "good" kind of debt. We still have a ways to go with his loans, but I'm encouraged by our saving habits and dedication to pay it off. We are sending in a check to pay off a little chunk of it and although it's a little like throwing money away, it still feels great. We are on our way to be free of debt! We are so strict with our budget and it totally pays off. If only we were taught the value and weight of debt before we went to college! We also went over our budget so we knew how much we needed to save and what we want to save for. It was overwhelming and exciting and scary and fun at the same time.

Holiday blessings.

The end of this year was a little rough on our family so this Christmas was really a blessing for us. It was more about being together and less about the gifts. It was about appreciating the good people in our lives and embracing one another. It was filled with laughter and memories we'll never forget. We had a really blessed Christmas.

Health, home, friends and family.

Without those ingredients in our lives,

the rest of the effort is meaningless.

This is a great time to refocus

on that is truly important.

We have big plans for the new year. We look forward to what it will bring us! This is the first new year that I've really been whole heartedly excited for. We have relatively a lot less stress in our lives, we are really in our groove, we are happy. We have a lot to be excited about. As we get older it's funny how your eyes are opened and you learn to appreciate the little things you never noticed as a child. Life is good.

Winter wonderland.

Just got home from Beauty & The Beast at the Ordway.

Had a wonderful dinner at Pazzaluna.

Saw a man propose to his girlfriend in Rice Park. So cute.

At home watching the snow swirl outside.

Peaceful & beautiful.

Preparing for an amazing Christmas Eve.

Have a blessed Christmas.

Anticipation

Megan said... seriously so inspiring, love this idea! what made you want to do this? (downsize)

We had been debating whether or not to prepare to sell our townhome. We were feeling cramped and like we needed more space, but really we just need to get rid of stuff and make more space! our townhome is amazing. We just needed to realize that. It was brand new when we moved into it. It's bigger than a lot of peoples homes that we know. It has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Sure, there is not a lot of storage, but it makes it cozy. So we decided to stay for a few years until we can make a good profit on it, and we will make an excellent one when the market turns around. We also LOVE that we don't have to mow, fertilize, landscape, pay for garbage, or shovel snow (especially now that it's winter!!) It's so nice. We decided that just because the market is really good for buyers, doesn't mean we need to buy. We don't want to purchase a home because the price is right. The time has to be right too. And the space. It's not a decision to rush, or jump into. The next place we move into we plan on staying for a loooong time. We hate moving ;) Right now we would only be able to afford an older home and we don't want to invest our time and money into upgrading, maintenance, or rennovating just now. We are hoping to purchase something that is not brand new, but built within a reasonable time frame. Thankfully, we haven't had any problems with anything in our home because it's new. So to make a short story long, that's where the downsize idea came to us!

Side note: Thank you for everyone sending us love and support about this idea! we've already received a few e-mails from people saying they are really interested in looking at our items/putting dibs on them before we put them up for sale!! amazing! Thank you!

Today is my Friday. I am bursting at the seams with excitement to get out of here and start our Holiday tonight!! Tomorrow we are going to see Beauty and the Beast and I can't wait. What a great way to kick-off Christmas. We are getting a little nervous about the snowstorm coming our way since we will be traveling on Christmas Eve, but nothing can damper our excitement. This is the best week of the year! I can't wait to get down to Bunny's and nest in her home for the week with my favorite people. I don't think I can wait..................

welcome to the new blog =)

It's the perfect night.

I'm laying in bed after a great work out and a hot shower. Hubby's off with his best friends and I'm enjoying the quiet time and doing some blogging. Last night I made a quick trip to Bunny & Papa's to see Tangled Roots in concert & to help them prepare for Christmas. As always, Papa took me and Al out shopping and ridiculously spoiled us!! He's also helping me with a special project for Jay so we worked on that too. It was 2 full days of love and laughter. We even pulled out some old records and played them on the record player! It was so fun.

Now I'm home and starting to go through a few items for the downsize. I am getting so excited to do this. Our storage "areas" are a huge mess. Here are a few pictures to illustrate. This is the 4 shelves we want to get down to 2. Big project.

More stuff. ugh.

And a few closets like this:

This is our initial list. We thought it would be fun to share. We'll explain more about the wander list after we've made that. Hopefully we'll make some good progress on this list this year!

Ok I have to get some rest...big sessions tomorrow! Tomorrow night we are introducing one of Jay's friends to Jenni, so I'm kind of nervous about that. I hope it goes well!!!!

Drum roll please...

We've decided to name our little blog home 99th Street.

Short, sweet, and very meaningful to us.

We live on 99th Street-our first home together.

We liked the idea of the name of our blog "home" relating to our real home, as it also houses our thoughts, ideas, experiences, etc. We think it fits us well =)

We hope you like it and that you continue to visit often! Stay tuned for a new look coming soon in the next few days. We have some other news to share.

After much consideration, we've decided to considerably downsize the material items in our home. Our dream is to sell everything, including our house and take off for a year of travel around the world. Think backpacking in Europe, a safari in Africa, and sailing in New Zealand. Don't panic yet. This is something that will take more then a few weeks of planning and we'll need time to save up enough money. This is something we would love to do in the future when the time {and housing market!} is right. For now we plan on selling, donating, and throwing away a good amount of our "stuff" and traveling next summer. We are blessed with so much-and we LOVE our things. But they are exactly that-just things, and someone could use them or need them more than we could. We want to live a simple{r} life. We'll keep the necessities and items that are really meaningful, {Our tvs, larger furniture, some appliances, personal items, ect.} but the rest is going. This is going to be SO hard for me. I'm a very sentimental person and it's really hard for me to part with things I've been given. I'll never give up shopping, make no mistake, but I'm going to stick with the idea that if one thing comes in our home, 2 go out. I'm committed to my husband and our plan and I am going to follow through. We will post here and there and share our struggles, and progress along the way. We plan on using the money from items we sell to travel for a few consecutive months next summer {we'll also be setting up a special savings plan}. This summer we'll be in Spain, and the destination for next summer is still to be determined. The idea of this downsize is to not dwell on worldy material posesssions and to live in the moment. Traveling is our passion, so why not get up and go? We have nothing holding us back.

I read a blog where the couple could fit everything they own in a small storage space (10x10 room) They travel all over and don't have to worry about owning a home. What they would pay monthly for a mortgage they use towards travel expenses. Wow. This is amazing and so liberating to me. Now obviously we aren't going that extreme but it's a really neat story. I couldn't live like that forever, but it would be fun to be that carefree for awhile! Our downsize will be much more low key than that. We have so many things and have seen so many in need this Holiday season. There is so much more I want to share with you guys, but this post is exhausting me. Thinking about how much stuff we want to get rid of is overwhelming! Our goal is to cut our storage amount in half {we have 4 shelves of storage, so down to 2}. If you know someone in need of anything, please please send them my contact information. We would love to donate items to people that could use them {and we have a LOT of stuff, so any requests will likely be filled} I have a feeling Craigslist will be our new best friend ;)

Here's to a simpler, less cluttered 2010!

Sweet treats galore!

Mama and I were busy bees last night! We started off planning on frosting some sugar cookies we had made, and it turned into a night of goodie baking. We made so many yummy treats. It's been so fun having them stay with us =)
Sprinkle cheers! A few more Q&A's:

If you could spend a day with any celebrity who would it be/why?
Tim Tebow. I'm a huge huge football fan {and gator fan!!} and Tim Tebow is the top althete in my mind. Not necessarily for skill {although he is amazing at college football} but because he is a genuine, wholesome person. I love his attitude, the way he treats his teammates, coach & fans, the way he plays the game, and his outlook on life. I would love a chance to sit down with him and find out more about his life. He seems like such a confident, happy and positive person always striving to serve the Lord.

If an athlete doesn't count then I would choose Rachel McAdams. Love her.

Where do you see your career & your marriage in 5 years?
I'm going to be honest and say I'm not a career person. I really could care less where my career takes me or goes. If I did, I definetly would not be working at my Dad's law firm ;) Not that it's not hard and challenging from day to day, but it's not the career I would be in if I wanted to advance. I'd be an advertiser or a writer or a psychologist. I've always been a family person. We hope to someday have children and I would love to stay home with them. I would love for my photography to be my main source of work because it's my passion. So for now the plan is to work to save, spend more time with my Dad, and have a very flexible schedule. It's worked great so far. I hope in 5 years that my marriage has grown and continues to enrich our lives. I hope that we have 1 or two healthy babies in 5 years, and I hope that we are exceptional parents. Thanks for adding a question, Robyn!

Blog design

p.s. check out my friend Robyn's blog, I designed it for her =)

More answers.

wow Christmas is next. week. !! the days are passing two at a time for me or something =)

After much debate we've picked a name for our blog home. We'll be sharing that soon along with a few other fun things in the next few days! our little life has been so busy already this week. I keep forgetting the Q&A's each day...sorry! here are a few ones for today.

Is there anything in your life you wish you had done differently?
Yes! I can most defintely answer this before even thinking it over. There are things I wish I would have done differently 10 minutes ago! but--there is nothing major that I would change. I am very very happy with what I have accomplished in my life so far and while there are some things that I might have changed, there are far too many things that I would never change that out-weigh them. I feel like I was very young & naive when making major life choices (college, marriage, purchasing a house, etc.)....I ranged from 18-22 years old, and did not have a clue what I was doing. What 18 year old knows where they want to go to school and who they want to be? What 21 year old knows herself enough to committ her life completely to someone else? What 22 year old knows enough about home ownership to purchase and own one? And yet I took those leaps of faith and have landed in a place that amazingly feels like home. I think it was pure grace that got me here, and I'm confident I am right where I am supposed to be.

What is your favorite hobby-you seem to have a lot so what would you choose if you could only choose one? & {these two questions were from different people but I am answering them in one because they relate} What subject do you prefer shooting in photography? or none at all?
Easy peasy. Photography! this is one hobby I couldn't live without. I feel like a whole nother person when I am behind my camera, and the things that happen during those shutter sessions are magical. I definetly have a love affair with my camera. My camera is starting to be an extenstion of my right arm, it goes everywhere we do! My absolute favorite are engagement sessions. You get to be alone with the couple with no time constraints or pressure and peel back the layers of what makes them a couple. The couples are usually newly engaged and still making puppy eyes at each other. The chemistry is phenominal. I love this. Good question!

Last week our wish was granted: a snow day for both of us! although we didn't do much, it was super fun. We could tell as the snow kept falling harder & faster the night before that we were in for a snow day....so we stayed up later than expected talking. We slept in and then went out for a lunch date in the blizzard. We also made a stop at Menards to get plastic to cover our drafty windows. What a difference it has made! It's so nice to have an entire day to get things done around the house that you aren't planning on. We listened to Christmas tunes and made cookies, and later that night we met Mama & Al for dinner. Fun, fun day.

This weekend we did a whole lot of nothing. Saturday Jenni invited me over for some yummy cheese and chocolate fondue. I surprised her and hired a friend to come over and give us massages (thanks Robyn!!) It was super relaxing and fun and just what the doctor ordered. It was a long weekend so it was nice to get in some girl time and a few glasses of wine ;) We had fun!

It was a long and somewhat emotional weekend. It ended up being one of the best in a long time, thanks to some positivity {right babe!?}. Tonight my mom and sister will be staying with us because they are getting hardwood floors put in the house and can't be around the fumes. We are super excited to have them as guests!! we are meeting them for some mexican food and then having a slumber party at our place!!! oh my poor husband, he will be bombarded with girls for a few days...what a lucky guy =)

My weeKend List.

01. dinner date with my most favorite person.

02. lots of talk about the next few years + our plan for our life.

03. wonder with anticipation where we will be a year from now.

04. continue good conversation on the way to get a $1 redbox move rental.

05. watch said movie rental & cuddle close in our freezing bedroom.

06. sleep in.

07. part ways for my special girls day out.

08. massages and fondue with my best.

09. catching up, laughter, heartache and dreams shared.

10. race home to surprise my hubby.

11. wait impatiently for said hubby.

12. surprise hubby followed by lots of appreciation.

12. sleep in.

13. wake up and make sweet mimosa's in bed.

14. say a silent prayer for the life we've been given, and the man who loves me.

15. open Christmas cards together from dear family + friends.

16. smile + say another silent prayer because each of these people bless our lives.

17. hastings walmart run for necessary Christmas items & chipotle.

18. watch the vikings game.

19. use elbow grease to clean the entire house.

19. enjoy dinner together.

19. crash in bed from our full, exhausting but completely blessed weekend.

Help us pick a name!

We've been thinking about it for awhile and we've decided that we need a name for our blog. 2010 is the start of a new year and so a name is needed-a new look and a new face for our little blog home. We are leaning toward staying with our "lovebirds" theme. We'll be brainstorming this weekend. Hopefully we will have a name by Monday to share! If you have any ideas please do share!!

Time to get dolled up for date night, hubby will be here to pick me up soon. Have a happy weekend!

::snowed in::

Tonight we are snuggled up at home and enjoying our night in. This is why I love winter snowstorms....they make you feel so cozy! Last night we watched Carrie Underwood's Holiday variety show and made our almond bark pretzels, and tonight we are relaxing. I'm pretty sure if the snow keeps up like it is supposed to, we will both have the day off tomorrow. I am keeping my fingers crossed!! Jay is ordering some books for his last semester of classes so I am doing a little blogging.

Here are a few more questions from the Q&A:

What are you most afraid of?

This is a toss up between flying and winter driving. I'm so terrified of flying, and it's really weird because I love to travel. I'm the one on the plane who never relaxes and jumps at every odd sound or movement and convinces herself the plane is going down and we are all going to tragically die. Winter driving makes my stress level unbearable and shoots my blood pressure through the roof. I think I just worry too much in general. For Jay this would definitely be snakes.

How do you stay motivated or what motivates you to continue blogging? I run out of things to blog about often.

This is a really good question/statement. Some days I don't feel like blogging or like I have anything to say--but I write as if it's my online diary. So some days I ramble about nothing and other days I feel like I actually have something to say. It motivates me when people comment on my posts or send me an e-mail sharing that they love to read my blog, or that a certain post was inspirational. It's really nice to know that people enjoy reading! I also get a lot of positive feedback from Jay. I think he appreciates the attempt to keep people in the loop and updated on our lives & even if he doesn't contribute to each post he reads them and enjoys it. Mostly I just love to write, so I probably need less motivation than the average person to sit down and write =)

Hubby's done on the computer so that's all for tonight ;) I hope you are all enjoying this snowy night!

Traditions & Festivities

It's already December 7th. 7th! This is craziness in my mind. This year Christmas is going to be really fun. It's been hard for us to get in a groove and start our own traditions because everyone wants to see us and that is a lot of families & celebrating! We made it our own tradition to wake up, make a delicious breakfast and open presents together on Christmas Eve morning. We'll hang out for a few hours and then get ready together and head to my Dad's for Church. Last year was our first year with our new tradition because it was our first Christmas living together after the wedding. It was so fun!!! One of my favorite memories was when we were finished opening gifts {or so I thought!} Jay gave me a card with some clues to find one last gift. It ended up being an eternity ring hung in a red velvet bag and hiding in our Christmas tree! I just remember thinking that it was so great to not have to go anywhere or do anything or please anyone, we could just sit and enjoy each other. It's like our last few moments of peace before craziness ensues. So we are excited for that this year!

We put our tree/lights up already but have not trimmed it yet. We are hoping to do that this week. We just love our little tree. It was $6 on clearance two years ago and we have been making good use of it! Eventually we'll get a real tree when it's not just the two of us, but for now it saves us a bunch of money and time spent cleaning up pine needles =) and we are so busy that we don't have a ton of time to sit around it and enjoy it. If we did than we'd get a real one ;) We also don't have a ton of space and don't want to cram it in. So that's another tradition of ours. We each have a box full of ornaments from when we grew up & it's fun to pull them out and share the story behind them with each other. I like the combination of our histories on our tree. I always think the themed trees are so neat, one day when we have more money {and space} maybe we'll have a few trees in our home!

We also make home made carmelcorn each year. Mmmmm delciousness. Usually we do this at my Mom's because she the carmelcorn master and we learned from her {guidance is usually suggested on this for me!} It is so yummy and it's fun to make it as a family. I think by the time we get done half of it is eaten =) We also make Almond covered Christmas pretzels & Christmas cookies. This week we are planning on some baking and this will be fun.

Each year we see a Christmas play with my family. Usually it's A Christmas Carol, but it hasn't been that great the past few years so this year we are seeing Beauty and the Beast {!!!!}. A few years ago we saw A White Christmas & The Sound of Music. It's so fun to dress up for a night, go to a fancy dinner, and see a play. This is one of my fondest memories growing up as a little girl. I'm glad we've continued to do this and I can't wait to continue this tradition with a family of our own.

I received a ton of responses to the FAQ, mostly by e-mail so I am going to answer a few questions per day because it would take me too long to answer them all at once and I'm going to answer the easy ones first. I'm lazy today =)

Would you say you and your husband have more commonalities or differences between the two you? (personality wise)

Differences. Oh my, I'm laughing as I read that in my head-because we are so different. I'm high strung, and energetic {he calls it hyper, whatever } and creative. He is super easy going, even- keeled & rational. We couldn't be more opposite.

Where is the next place you want to travel to? and p.s. how can you afford to travel so much?

We are both so excited to visit Spain this summer. I just love traveling to Europe because the lifestyle is so different than America. Jay's never been over there so it will be a lot of fun to experience that with him. We can afford to travel often because we make smart decisions. We watch our favorite online sites and we wait for deals. Prices always go up and down, so if you are keeping an eye out you know what a good price is. When they go down we book. Most of our travels we have paid around $200-300 per person for hotel, airfare AND transportation. That's dirt cheap. We also make it a priority for us. We agreed that we both want to travel as much as possible in our first few years of marriage. We save a little bit each month and my photography business helps immensly. It's been on of our greatest marriage blessings, because it helps us get away together so often. We don't spend money in other areas where some people spend a lot {going out, entertainment, shopping, big items for the home, etc.} I also {still} have a piggy bank that we will put random change in & when it fills up we cash it out. You would be surprised how fast it gets filled and there is usually around $100 in it. We bring that for spending money. We live within our means.

I can't believe no one has asked this yet....when are you having kids???

When we get sick of traveling & each other. Haha. I'm kidding. Kind of. There is a lot we want to do before we make that huge commitment. Most of it involves travel but some involves saving, preparing, etc. We want to have kids soon though, within two years for sure. We'll see what happens though because it's not really up to us! I'm just hoping we CAN have kids.

Ask me anything!

So we've been blogging for almost two years now and I've been getting e-mails with people asking random questions about us, so I decided a Q & A might be kind of fun and interesting. I've never done that before and it will be fun to hear what you are interested in knowing. So-leave your questions below in the comment section (you can comment anonymously if you prefer that) or email them to me {abbey.duval@gmail.com}. I'll wait until Monday and then post the answers. I will answer anonymously as well. I've always said i am an open book, and I will not leave any question unanswered, so ask away!

*update* oops! I had restrictions on comments so only registered users could comment, but I changed so that anyone can post anonymously now. =)

Thoughts on Thursdays

My husband is crazy in bed.

Literally.

The title caught your eye didn't it? ;) before you go too far-what I mean by that is the way he sleeps. This is one quirk that is definetly hard for me to live with. The man sleeps with no sheets! yes, ew, my darling husband. I cannot stand it. Apparently he says that he never slept with sheets growing up {clearly his memory is bad} and to this day I wake up with all the sheets bunched up around my feet. Ok. {deep breaths} if you know me, you know one of my biggest pet peeves is a messy bed. I like my bed extremely clean, tidy, and made. I wash the sheets at least once a week, sometimes more. I can't sleep if the sheets are not straight and feel tucked in {I hate when they inch up and your toes pop out and can touch your comforter}. It drives me bonkers if the sheets are twisted, bunched, etc. and I will have to get out of bed and re-make/tuck the sheets back in so I can sleep. He says the sheets make him hot. I tell him that the name refers to the thickness of a product, how can a "sheet" of anything make you hot? It's like paper thin! I ask him to simply fold back the comforter/sheet if he gets hot instead of kicking the sheet under the blanket my way in the night. He had a water bed growing up that had a fitted sheet and then he slept with a blanket {cringe}. Oh the joys of marriage!! hehe. I joke that his New Years Resolution is to become a better sheet sleeper =)

Cayenne rubbed chicken with pineapple avocado salsa

Thank you, Martha! Here is the easy recipe I promised to share last week. It's fast & delicious. We added the pineapple on our own so if you don't like it, leave it out.Coarse salt and ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves (6 to 8 ounces each)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium red onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 Hass avocado, pitted and cut into chunks

1 small can of pineapple chunks (Dole)

In a small bowl, combine 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and cayenne; rub all over chicken. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium. Add chicken, and cook until browned on the outside and opaque throughout, 8 to 10 minutes per side. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine onion and lime juice; set aside. Just before serving, fold avocado chunks into onion mixture; season with salt and pepper. Serve chicken topped with salsa & pineapple.