Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree......

I've been all in the Christmas spirit this year, which is rather abnormal for me since I've always been kind of a grinch.
Anyway....we put our Christmas tree up and it was exciting! I had forgotten about some of the cute stuff we bought on the clearance rack the day after Christmas two years ago that have been sitting in a box in the basement ever since.
Last year we went to visit my family for Christmas, so we didn't do any decorating whatsoever.
So....there were lots of giggles (from me of course) when I opened to box of Christmas decorations and saw some of the cute stuff we had purchased for what felt like the first time.

We were like the freaking brady bunch (only without all the kids) putting our tree up while we listened to cheesy Christmas music all the while smiling and laughing. I think it's official that I'm becoming one of those cheesy people that I've always made fun. I can't even imaging what I'll be like once we have kids. It's SO scary! We sure did have fun though!

Giving thanks for a GREAT weekend!

We had a great Thanksgiving! It was nice to actually be home this year. I’ll be honest I wasn’t really looking forward to Thanksgiving for a few reasons. I love the company of my in-laws, but not only do they REALLY like to eat but they really like to sit around and relax while eating. A normal “family” day for the Rodriguez’s would be to watch as many movies as possible (literally sometimes the in-laws go rent about 6 or 7 DVD’s for one day, and or course while you’re watching these movies you have to be eating the entire time. This family likes to eat – just look at how much weight I have gained since becoming one of them and that should explain it.

Anyway….so for the above mentioned reasons I haven’t really enjoyed family holidays so much. I just can’t spend that much time in front of the TV without getting stir crazy – half the time I have a hard time making it through even one movie before I get sick of sitting around and want to do something a little more relational.

This year though was nice. We actually spent time sitting down at the table TALKING to Steve’s parents and I really enjoyed myself. They’re such great people and so full of wisdom so I really enjoy quality conversations with them.

After the family Thanksgiving extravaganza Steve & I headed off to Kansas City for the weekend for my friend Shira’s wedding. We had a great time! It was good for us to get away and I had a blast reconnecting with a lot of old friends that had also come to town for the wedding that I haven’t seen for awhile.

It’s crazy to me how whenever I’m around old friends of mine from Montana I’m reminded of just how special they are. Montanans are really a special breed of their own, and I mean that in a good way. Steve always happens to mention it as well whenever he happens to meet any of my old childhood friends. They are all such great people and whenever I’m around some of the old peeps again it really makes me miss Montana. Not for geographic reasons, but more for relational reasons. I really miss some of the friends I had growing up and one thing I love about them is that they’re relationships that you can just pick up where you left off. I’ve had a lot of great friends in my life that I really love, but it seems that once distance enters into the picture it’s just too hard to keep with each other’s lives and then once you DO finally get to connect again it’s just weird. Am I the only that ever feels this way?

Sometimes it’s especially hard for me if it’s a friend that I haven’t seen in a REALLY long time because it’s just to hard to catch up on what’s going in life. How you do you sum up 10 years of life in just a short amount of time? I’m a very detailed person so for me that’s impossible; not only to catch someone up on my life, but also to feel satisfied that I’m really filled in on everything that’s been happening in their life.

Maybe I’m just weird. Anyway….so that was our Thanksgiving. It was good and so great to catch up with some of my old homies!

Feeling bad on Turkey morn.....

It's Thanksgiving and I should be sleeping in, but I can't.
I've been laying awake in my bed for the last 2 hours feeling horrible and thinking to myself "i'll be really thankful this year if my husband doesn't wake up with a black eye."
I somehow turned over in my sleep early this morning and elbowed him REALLY hard right in his eye. I could tell it hurt really bad, and Steve could tell that I felt really really bad so he tried to downplay the pain.
I feel so bad that I can't even fall back to sleep.
I'm really hoping he doesn't wake up with a shiner.

To make things worse, an old friend of mine from Montana is getting married this weekend in Kansas City so we're driving over there tomorrow for the wedding and I will feel SO horrible if I have to introduce Steve to all these old friends of mine that I haven't seen in a good 10 years or so and say, "this is my husband, he has a black eye because I did this to him." Great! I went from Jenny the upbeat, easy going girl to Jenny the husband abuser all in a matter of minutes.

Anyway.....so Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I think I'm feeling a little more remorseful than thankful this morning. I am thankful that I have such a nice husband that tries to make me feel better about the fact that I beat on him while he's sleeping.

It's time to get on the soap box!

I’m ashamed to admit I have kind of a “secret indulgence” with a certain show on ABC that I try to watch occasionally…..Grey’s Anatomy.
I’ve really just started watching the show last year. So many of my friends and coworkers watch this show and seem to constantly be talking about so I decided I’d see what all the fuss was about and got kind of hooked as well.

I have to say that I really have a love/hate relationship with the show though. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I hate that I love this show. Some of the episodes occasionally end up having a really good message, but it’s the fact that none of the character really seem to have any morals that really gets on my nerves

Last nights episode really got to me though. I’ve been so ticked off over the storyline of George and Izzie as I watched the show the last few weeks. For those of you the don’t watch the show George recently decided that instead of being in love with his wife (of just a few months) that he was instead in love with his best friend Izzie. George & Izzie decided to have an affair and George promptly told his wife that he no longer wanted to be with her. Mind you, all three of these characters work together so he was flaunting his new love right in front of his wife everyday. As the last few episodes have progressed George & Izzie have been so exited to finally be “free” to be together.
Last night’s episode made me secretly happy though. George & Izzie are realizing that maybe life just isn’t perfect now that they’re together and that they both kind of enjoyed just being best friends. Well….DUH! You were married and left you wife for someone else OF COURSE THINGS AREN’T GOING TO BE PERFECT! That’s what happens when you act like an idiot and screw things up! That is precisely why when you get married you make a life-long commitment to your spouse to love them and them alone! Obviously when you mess things up because you’re caught up in your selfish emotions and decide that the vows you made to your wife just a few months earlier no longer should apply things are not going to be perfect like you think they will be.

I know, I know, it’s just a show but this kind of crap makes me so mad. Yet still I watch the show. Shame on me I guess eh?

Anyway….so I can’t really decide if I should be happy or disgusted with the writers of the show. Happy that they showed that infidelity isn’t as perfect of a scapegoat as it may seem, or disgusted that they showed the infidelity as acceptable if it feels right.
I guess for now I’ll just ride the fence and wait it out to see what happens next week. If everything is back to “perfect” again then I’ll be disgusted!
For now though I’ll just get off my soapbox!

Running the Race.....

Can ya'll believe that November is almost over already? I remember when I was a kid, it seems like I was always wishing my life away until I could be an "adult" and my granda (who was perhaps probably one of the worlds greatest men, in my opinion) would always tell me "just wait until you get older kid, then you'll wish you could slow time down."
At the time I couldn't fathom feeling that way, but now in just my 28 years of life I completely understand what he meant. Life really does pass you by if your not careful. With every passing year, I inch closer to 30, and after that I'm sure I'll pick up the pace and jog a little quicker on to 40.
I have to keep reminding myself to stop and smell the roses.
I always get to thinking about this time phenonmenon when I think about events of the last year. For instance last year at this time Steve was a groomsman in Nathan and Jamies wedding. I remember that day - it was freezing! Missy & I were practically sprinting (in our high heels mind you) to get out of the cold from the parking garage down the street a few blocks away from their reception at Windows on Washington. When I look back to that day though it seems like it was just weeks ago not a whole year.

Steve was also in another wedding last Thanksgiving in California. When he mentioned the other day that he'd like to go visit his family over there in California I remember telling him "we were just there a few months ago, can't we wait awhile till we make another visit?"

Time is crazy ya'll! Don't let life pass you by! I find myself thinking about this at least on a weekly basis. It causes me to constantly be re-evaluatiing my life and what I'm doing with it.
I find that it sometimes is a tug of war and I keep being reminded of the story of the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race, right? I understand that life isn't a race, but I always seem to find confusion between living life to the fullest today and preparing for the life that I'm going to have tomorrow. I'll be honest and admit that I don't really "love" the life I'm living right now. I'm unsatisfied with a lot of things in my life. At the same time though, I feel that this is where God has me for now. That's why it's sometimes a struggle. I know that God must be preparing to bring rain to the drought I'm kind of feeling in life right now.
Maybe that's why I'm reminded of the tortoise and hare....because just around the corner is the finish line for this season. At least I hope so.
While I continue on in this leg of the race for this season of life though, I can't help but be unsatisfied with my unsatisfaction. Does that make any sense whatsoever?

I want time to slow down, but I still seem to find myself wishing it away, just like I did when I was a kid, just so that I can enter a different season of life than what I'm in. Really....I'm just waiting for another race. A race with struggles, joy, triumphs and defeat.
Will life always be this way? I feel like I'm constantly stopping to smell the roses, just so that I can say I did, but in my heart I'm really just waiting to see what life has in store for me just around the corner.
It's seems kind of ridiculous doesn't it? Maybe I just need to set more goals for my life, maybe I just need to show more follow through with the goals I have set right now.

I'm not really sure about many of these questions, but I do know that God is faithful and He has me in this season for a purpose and I really am learning a lot. Because of that it all seems worth it......at least at this exact moment in time, just because I'm feeling optimistic. :)

just another weekend......

Steve & I lounging in the "the beer garden"

We had a great weekend!
We help lead the music ministry at our church and normally our music teams meets on Saturday mornings, but we recently moved our meeting days to Wednesday nights and it has been SO nice to finally have our day off really be what it's supposed to be! These last few Saturday of sleeping in and doing whatever we want has been so good for us. There really is a reason why God commands us to remember the sabbath and take a day for rest. Because we do so much in the church, Sunday's are absolutely crazy for us and relaxing is not word that could even barely describe our day, so we have really loved having our Saturdays free.

After sleeping in till about 8:30 (which is REALLY sleeping in considering we both get up at 5:00 every morning) we went into the city to have some Breakfast at the South City Diner for breakfast. I love this place because whenever I go there I seem to run into friends that I haven't seen in awhile. This time I ran into Chuck - one of my old favorite "regulars" from Starbucks. It was great seeing him as I was actually telling Steve on the way over to the diner how much I missed working at Starbucks and getting to see my favorite customers every day. I actually even mentioned that I missed Chuck and needed to email him, so it made me happy to see him a few minutes later.


We spend Saturday afternoon at the Lau Nae Winery with Dale and Missy and had some really yummy wine and pizza. One of my friends had told me that this winery was really cool and had a great little beer garden with a martini bar and so I was expecting a realy cool place (I'm one of those people that's all about the atmosphere) and was a little dissapointed. The beer garden wasn't really cool at all and the martini bar wasn't really much of a martini bar (not that I tried one anyway since I don't like martini's) but the wine and the pizza was FABULOUS! Missy, Steve and I bought a bottle of the Marechal Foch to drink and it was one of the best wines I've had in a long time. Granted.....that's not saying much as I'm not much of a wine connoisseur. When we buy wine (which we do pretty often) we almost always buy the $2.99 bottles of "Charles Shaw" that is exclusive to Trader Joe's. In my opinion it's some pretty good wine, and you can't really beat the price. I'm really glad that I'm not really into wine like I am coffee, because that would be one expensive habbit.

Anyway....so that was our weekend. It was pretty dull, but that's just how I like it!

just crazyness

I can't believe it's only thursday. For some reason I have woken up every day this week thinking to myself "it's gotta be at least thursday", but to my dismay realize that it isn't. I don't have any huge plans for the weekend that I'm really anticipating, nor has this week been any worse than the rest, but for some reason it just seems like it will never end.
I've been living in this "thursday dreamworld" now for the last 3 days and so you'd think I'd be happy when I woke up this morning and realized that it FINALLY was Thursday, but really I'm just dissapointed because now I just want to it be Friday.
Does anyone else's mind work like this, because sometimes I'm starting to feel like I'm insane!


Anyway....on to other topics. Holiday shopping.
Another reason I feel like i'm going crazy is because for the last week or so I've really been stressing out about my Christmas shopping. Yep....I do realize that it's just November 7th. No need to remind me. Let me preface by saying that I know Christmas isn't about gifts. I just didn't want ya'll to think that I'm really as shallow as I sound.
Now that we've got that taken care of....I just don't get why I'm stressing out. Normally I kind of do my Christmas shopping at the last minute and then stress out about getting all the gifts to my family in the mail and to them in Montana by Christmas time. All that stress is unnecessary and really just because of poor planning on my part. Regardless though, I'm thinking about it NOW, and am stressing about getting this crap in the mail - almost 2 months before it has to be there. What is wrong with me?

I am one of those people that get REALLY annoyed to hear Christmas music or to see anything that has to do with Christmas in the stores before Thanksgiving. Every year it seems like Christmas seems to come earlier and earlier for all these retailers wanting to make lots of money. I remember walking into Costco a few weeks ago and hearing the Christmas music blaring while people were just barely getting ready for Halloween.

All that is to say I'm not sure why I'm stresssing about Christmas this year. Literally every day I find myself thinking about who I need to get Christmas gifts for and what they'd like. I feel so pitiful and don't know why I'm thinking about this. I'm acting like the kind of people that I like to mock. Is it just because I'm getting older? Is this normal? I can't figure it out.

I think part of it may be just being married to Steve. I've always been somewhat of a planner, but he is totally NOT at all. He likes to fly by the seat of his pants, lacks follow thru, and half the time doesn't even know who we got a gift for and what it was. Could it just be REALLY overcompensating for his lack of planning when it comes to this stuff? I've never been like this until I got married. I would like to think of myself as healthy planner.....you know the kind that plan and like details, but not too much where it's unhealthy and you don't freak out if plans happen to change? Now though, with this whole Christmas planning feeling I'm starting to feel like a real pyscho planner stressing out about Christmas gifts and details with our schedule when Thanksigivng is still weeks away.

Anyway...so those are the pitiful thoughts running through my mind on this fine Thursday, nope, not Friday yet....still just Thurssday.

Halloween Pics!

Halloween was fun. I just love giving those kids cavities! We had a lot of little ones stop by the house and actually were able to meet some of kids that live on our block for the first time. That's pretty sad considering that we (technically more "I") have lived here for 2 years now.
I have to say though that some of the costumes these days are pretty scary! We had some friends and thier kids over to hang out and I kept trying to comfort Hannah as she got really scared when she saw a few of the costumes, but I have to be honest that I was a little scared too!
I'm a loser I know. I don't think I'ver ever in my life watched an entire horror flick. In another sense, I guess that's something I'm kind of proud of too though because they're pretty gory and not really worth watching anyway. I don't think I know anyone that's watched a horror movie and walked away saying "wow I feel so much better and so optimistic about life now!"

Anyway....here's a few pics.
Ava - The Cutest Pumpkin Ever!

Waiting for the Kids to Show Up!
Our Little Dracula!
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!