The word Perfect...

So I wanted to share a funny story -

I was so kindly complimenting my husband yesterday, and said that he was perfect. Yes, I used the P word.

If you knew my husband - you'd know he over exaggerates everything. His exact words were "So you think I'm Jesus."

Fast forward to today. "I told everyone today at work that you think I'm like Jesus, that's not being prideful - you said it."

Note to other wives - think twice before calling your husband perfect. Even if you think he is :)

Cathy

Last of the holidays....

So here is the last holiday post. I know that was so 2 weeks ago but I never got to post our holiday card and I have a few hilarious (I looked like a scumbag) pictures from Christmas.


Our first Holiday Card :)

And a few from Malone....

Us on Christmas morning :)

My father in law rolling in all the wrapping paper. :)

Ross surprised me with the Cake Decorating Kit for my class that started two weeks ago. (blog soon) :)

Truman (Ross' Dog) before going to open presents. LOL.

Bach playing video games.

TONS of food.

It was a really great weekend. We loved it. :)

Now I'm off to finish cleaning the house and MAYBE finally getting around to making pillowcases for our bedroom.

**You might be asking, "Wow isn't Cathy supposed to be at work right now? She doesn't even have time to make breakfast most days." WELL you see the Capital region woke up with this view from their window this morning...........

Picture above = snow day for Cathy.

Have a great day!

Cathy

I'm Resolute.....

res·o·lute

   

[rez-uh-loot]

–adjective

1. firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion
2. characterized by firmness and determination, as the temper,spirit, actions, etc.

This has been a humbling year for me. Getting married for me taught and continues to teach me so many things about myself that I need to work on. It has been a great year in so many ways but it has also told me many times that I need to CHILL out and enjoy life! I wish someone would have told me that when I got engaged. Or told me to elope. But it's been great. Married life has it's good and bad days but Ross and I work really well together so we get through it like champs. :) I'm looking forward to a great next year with a few goals of my own...

-Read my scriptures everyday

-Lose all my post wedding weight!! Jeeze - who knew I'd put so much on so fast!

-Meditate as much as I can to calm myself down and to learn more about the "inner" me.

-And lastly, anticipate the future. I want to start looking forward to the rest of my life. Set lifetime goals and dreams and really cling to them.

Of course there will be plenty of other things I will work on but those are the main ones.

Completely out of order but we had a great Christmas. We had our own little thing here at our apartment and then we spent Christmas weekend in Malone with my in-laws. I'm beginning to really love them. I couldn't have asked for a better family to marry into. They completely spoiled us. More food then I have ever seen, present after present, and just abounding love. It was just a weekend full of eating, relaxing, sledding and sleeping. : ) Perfect.

Side Note: I should make another resolution to read a book a week because I got a TON for Christmas. Amongst my favorites are The World According to Mister Rogers (one of Ross and I's favorite TV shows as children) and Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh. Lots of great reading in the near future.

Ross is watching the Russian version of Tom and Jerry - very distracting. : ) I think I'll end there and watch some cartoons with my adorable husband.

Well I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Now back to real life!!

Cathy

CHRISTmas....

So this year - being our first Christmas being married, I wanted Ross and I to buy each other's stockings -Something that reminded us of each other. I really didn't think Ross was really all that into it but he called me about an hour later and said that he already ordered mine. So I had to go searching for what reminded me of him. I looked through TONS of stockings. Hockey ones, Russian ones, Big Green Tractor ones, Jack Johnson ones, Big, small, short, long. You name it. But I finally found the right one and he surprisingly loved it. It was from this etsy seller.

His is burlap - Eco-friendly. :)

I loved mine. Of course -Vera Bradley. Who wouldn't. My sweetie knows me very well. :)

We also got our personalized Christmas ornament. We really want to make this a tradition every year. Something that symbolizes the "big" thing that happened in that year. So obviously, this year was us getting married. I thought it was adorable. A pain to pick out, but totally cute.

(it's kind of a dark picture, but it's a bride and groom in a car-looking at them from the back)

I also wanted to blog about this holiday -What it means, how we should celebrate and what we should remember on Christmas day and all through the Holiday Season. I don't do blogs about my feelings usually - because to be honest I don't like thinking about my feelings. They confuse me at times, so I just choose not to talk about them. But I felt like this was an appropriate time to tell all the people out there (or my sisters, my mother in law and any other random people that read this) how I feel during the holidays. I feel a HUGE amount of gratitude. Gratitude for my family and friends. For the experiences that I've been through - Bad and good. For the blessings that I have received and for the freedom that we all should cherish. I think about all that comes along with this time of year - Cold weather, which always makes me think of warm homes - Family, which always helps me get passed how wacko mine can be and really understand and appreciate everyone of them - thinking about the past year, all the hard times that I've been strong enough to get through and all the good times that I've been blessed with. AND most of all. Jesus Christ. I wish I thought about him more and that's why I wanted to do this post. To show my appreciation to him for his life and for the sacrifice that he made for all of us. So that we can have family, friends, love and happiness. And also so that we can live with him again. He helps me get through my hard times and he helps me enjoy my good times even more. So let's all try to think about him and his life - and try to not think about our own as much this year. Think of others and always remember what he gave so that we could have what we love.

Merry Christmas Everyone! (or happy holidays to my Non-Christian readers)

Cathy (& Ross)

The Tree of Life....

I wanted to post about my birthday and our Christmas decorations, like I promised. I had such a great birthday. My husband completely spoiled me all day and then made all the food for the birthday party. His family drove 3 hours and my family drove 2 to spend the evening eating, talking, and celebrating my birth. It was very special to me and I appreciate everyone that came. We all had a lot of fun.

Here's the Coccadots cake - SOOO good :)

Here's all the food -

I was completely spoiled.

Here's the loot -

My sister Michelle got me a sewing machine! I am very excited about it actually. I haven't had the time to actually set it up yet but after the holidays I have a few ideas of what I can do with it : )

My sister Caroline got me a sewing kit, with

thread, pins, needles, and a pin cushion in a REALLY cute carrier.

My in laws got me the Micheal Buble Christmas album along with a scrap booking idea book. Which was awesome because I wanted to start a wedding scrapbook soon. They also brought done a Christmas ornament that Dave (my father in law) had as a child. We love it.

My parents and little sister got me a nice yankee candle and some M&M's - Coconut flavor (my favorite)

My co-worker Andy gave me card with a Subway gift card. He's know's me very well :)

And my amazing hubby surprised me with this.

Totally surprised! And he got all the "fixings" for living room shelves that he's going to make. (Blog later)

Here's our tree and a few other decorations. I wanted to keep things simple so we decorated with blue, white, and silver. (We didn't get a lot of pictures)

From this -

To this -

We also added a little Christmas cheer to our "tree of life" as my Dad would call it.

Hope everyone is loving the cold and the crazy drivers!

Happy Sunday.

Cathy

Greek Keys....

I wanted to share a picture of our new Dining Room rug :)

I'm kinda obsessed with this pattern!!! Someone stop me....I already want a pillow for my couch and trim on our curtains. This might be ugly. But I'm in love.

I also wanted to give you a sneak peak of our very subtle Christmas decorations.

We actually bought the tree yesterday but because (apparently) Ross doesn't do that without hot chocolate and eggnog, we didn't decorate it until today. So we'll have that posted later along with other decorating that we did.

*Ross has been busy getting ready for my birthday party tomorrow. I'm actually pretty excited. I don't know if it's because a big portion of my family and all of Ross' family will there, I'll be 21, or that Ross ordered a Coccadott's cake! So many things to look forward to.


*My brother Brian came down for some training this week and stayed with us. It was alot of fun. But now he knows how busy and boring Ross and I are :P. We had Caroline and the boys over for dinner the other day so we all could hang out. The boys and I made Sugar Cookies. They loved it. A little too much :)

Side Note: The "Lunch Box" worked perfectly. Actually we've been continually doing it and we've saved so much money by not going out! We're geniuses.

Lastly, I wanted to do a special post before Christmas about the true meaning of this holiday and what it means to Ross and I. It's easy to forget what this season is about when you're busy with finals and buying gifts, eating and decorating. So I wanted to take some time to remember just that. So look forward to a post about that as well. Now that school will be out for a month maybe I'll get around to posting pretty regularly (?!)

P.s. It's Decemeber, NY, 20 degrees outside....... AND still no snow. What the crap?

Hope you're having a wonderful holiday season!

Cathy

Roasting Chestnuts

Don’t you love recaps?

Our last two weeks….. in a chestnut. A roasting chestnut….

*I started my new job this past Monday. So far, I really like it. I haven’t been doing much yet - probably because I’m completely incompetent but my sister Michelle has been a big help and everyone has seemed to be very patient with me so far.

*Ross and I went to this FBI seminar at Ualbany. It was exciting to listen to agents and what they do everyday and how they’ve gotten to be who they are. It made me a little more knowledgeable of what Ross wants to do and just a little more scared of how our life will turn out. But it’s something that he really wants. As for now we just need to work on making him stand out more from other applicants. Which in my opinion isn’t hard but as for the FBI he might need something.

*Karin came down last weekend because Caroline had to get her wisdom teeth taken out. I drove her there and brought her home and then Karin, surprising, did a very good job at making sure she was eating and kept up on when she took certain medications. It definitely gave me more faith in her abilities to live on her own. : ) She even refrained from taking naps! Pure amazement.

*We got to go to my coworker, Leigh’s wedding last night, which was incredible. She looked beautiful, her husband looked like he thought the same way and they both looked so happy. The night was filled with a very Catholic ceremony (which was something we don’t see often), seeing one of my old Accounting teachers, aaaaamazing food and Ross even asking me to dance. It was a great night. We actually left early because we were so tired. But it was beautiful and we wish them all the happiness in the world.

*And of course school work, followed by a side of tests and another side of quizzes. Aaaaand to top it off – the dessert…some lovely essays. You got to love school, right?! We are very excited to have a break for Thanksgiving. Then finals and then winter break! I can almost smell it. It smells like victory. At least, until next semester.

We've been getting ready for the holidays to start. Next week we’ll be going to my sister Caroline’s who will be doing dinner for the family. We’re bringing butternut squash soup and a maple cheesecake. I'll post how they turn out.

Some design fun –

I made a cute little wreath that I found here.

I totally stole her color scheme but I loved it WAY too much.

It was so cheap and it took like no time at all. It was a really nice addition.

Here's a how to:

You'll need:

1 Ball of Yarn

1 Straw Wreath

Felt

Burlap

Scissors

Hot Glue Gun

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wrap all the yarn around the wreath

Cut the felt so that it's wavy on the sides

Then cut the felt around so that it's in a strip and there's a circle in the middle

Then wrap the felt up starting with the small end and create flowers. Hot glue the circle at the end to the bottom of the flower. And then position the flowers on the wreath and glue.

Cut Burlap into leaves and something to hold up the wreath.

SOOO easy and cheap. And it turned out so cute. :)

Another awesome thing we did today..... a lunch "box"

Ross and I (with our busy schedules) find it hard to eat. Yea, that sounds weird.... but seriously. We never pack lunches and we eat out WAY too much.

Solution: The lunch box.

A ton of lunch foods that we can easily grab before we leave for work or class. We'll see how this goes. It could be gone by tomorrow. Thanks to Ross, not me. :)

Well that's it for now. We're watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off and I'm going to catch up on my magazine reading.

Have an amazing weekend and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Cathy