winter blues

I hate winter. Have I mentioned that? I love the look of snow falling. I love the snow on the trees. I love the beauty of it. I even love the fun (sledding, snow ball fights, snowmen, etc). But even all of that love isn't enough to make me want put up with this. I can't stand the cold. It makes my fingers ache. I feel like I haven't been warm in 3 months and like I have Raynaud's Syndrome. Although, there are 12 other serious health issues that have cold hands as a common symptom. The interesting ones are Marine turtle poisoning and Naked brimcap poisoning. Since I haven't eaten any turtles or wild mushrooms lately, I've crossed those two off of my "potential disease" list. But I digress... Winter and I don't get along. It makes me hurt, and I make cruel statements about it for 7 months. So here I am in January, getting bitter about the negative temperatures (today's high is 14... the low is 4... and it's been much lower than that recently), and still having 4 more months of this.

Other than the temperature and ice, I'm doing well. The puppy (henceforth "Tequila") is growing fast. And she's quite a fiesty little one. She is in the process of learning (and relearning and relearning...) not to bite or growl or bark at us. She wants to play all the time (and particularily at 5 AM).... we're teaching her to "sleep in" till 7 as well. Chief has finally come around and has begun to play with her, which is adorable. But when he barks (playfully) she gets scared and runs and hides, only to stick her head out from under the chair and growl and bark at him... as long as she can get out of his reach quickly. But she's mine, and an adorable little ball of fluff and energy. I love her to death.

Last weekend we went on a wine tour with Guy's family (mom, sister, cousin and cousin's bf). It was an ice wine tour... I'm not a huge fan of ice wines. It tastes a little bit like drinking honey. But it was fun (and cold!). Guy and I got stopped at the border (we were in Canada) on our way home and they searched our car. Fun times. This next weekend my company is having their winter party. I'm trying to convince Guy to wear his kilt for it, but I'm having a hard time being persuasive enough... Although he has promised to wear it to our friends wedding in March that he's DJing (and I'm photographing).

Other than work and sleep, life is slow here in the Arctic. We're working on our summer travel plans, which I'm pretty excited about (July = wedding in PA, then NC for a week to check it out, and back home - hopefully incorporating visiting some friends in there as well). Until then, I think life will continue to be pretty slow...

...fall?

This weekend was spent mostly in our house. Sleeping. I don't know how both of us managed to sleep as much as we did, but it was lovely. Both Saturday and Sunday were rainy, fall-feeling days, and Guy and I spent them as such. I did do laundry, and dishes, and we reorganized our kitchen cupboards... But that's about it. On Friday we went out with some friends for karaoke (which Guy loves and has been wanting to do for weeks now). Saturday we slept in, took a long nap and watched movies. Sunday we slept in, cleaned a bit, then finally kicked ourselves out of the house to go visit Guy's mom (and use her hot tub!). So nothing of much importance to report.

This next weekend we're going to visit my family. My mom is visiting my brother, which is halfway between us and her. He also lives about 10 minutes from my dad, so we figure we'll get to see everyone at one time. Otherwise that's about it.

We got some pictures other people took at Josh and Sarah's wedding last weekend... This is one of my favorites of us:

House Searching and Fawns

Two nights ago we went looking at houses. We didn't really find anything we loved that we could also afford (although we found many in either of those catagories). We did, however, run across a deer with her twin fawns. They weren't scared of cars or people at all, which worries me somewhat. But they were cute. They knew enough to stay off the road... at least while we watched. But I guess that's what happens when you're a deer growing up in a housing complex.

We rearranged our back room (again) and finally hung up some of the picture frames I've been wanting to hang. Since we're still waiting on wedding pictures to come back from the photographer, most of the frames have fake people in them... But at least they are on the wall where I want them! I also finally hung up my massage therapy license, our dart board and put a new battery in Guy's clock. I can actually see the top of my desk, but only small areas of it. We are getting somewhere though.

I took yesterday off of work in order to get new tires on my car (they were completely bald) and help Guy fix his truck's power steering, which is dead. We didn't get the truck done because Guy needs some other sort of tool to pull something off before he can get to the power steering box. But I have new tires! Yay! Tread! While waiting for my car to be done, we wandered through bed, bath and beyond with some gift cards we had.... So I also got a shoe rack to hang on a door, a new wine bottle opener set and a fogless mirror/clock/radio to put in our shower. Now my shoes are organized, wine bottles are opened with ease, I can dance and sing in the shower, and Guy has a much easier time shaving. Then I dragged him to the new Barnes & Nobles that just opened in that mall, fell in love with some photography how-to books, desperately wanted to buy a few fiction books, and managed to walk out of there with NOTHING. That is no small feat for me... to leave a bookstore without buying anything?? Insane. But I was trying to convince Guy that we really should buy adobe photoshop for me, because it will be super useful and I could do so much more with it... But even with all my great reasons to buy it, price generally wins out, especially when we have two very large car repair bills loaming ahead of us.

Last night I went out for dinner with Missy and Sara (Guy's cousin and cousin-in-law) for Sara's bday. It was nice to hang out with just the girls. So we drank some wine, shared some gossip and then came back to our house to drink more wine and share more stories. It was very chill and very nice. And although I love them to death, I also find that I am needing friends outside of Guy's family. His family is so great, and they get along so well. It's easy to just spend time with them. But if/when Guy and I ever get in an argument, or if I'm even just foolishly frustrated with him, I can't talk to them about it. I always get told he loves me and doesn't mean to annoy me... "that's just Guy". Well of course it is! It's probably one of his annoying traits that I know I can live with (face it, we all have those). But sometimes you just need to vent to someone, and have them agree that "that is annoying!" or tell you you're being ridiculous... His family takes the "oh don't get annoyed... he really loves you" route. I know he loves me. He loves me to death. I love him to death too. But does that mean that we don't annoy each other? Does the fact that he's annoying me or I'm annoying him mean we love each other any less? What's funny is that it's not like Guy and I are having problems, or that he frustrates me all that much (I'd be lying if I said he didn't at all... but I frustrate him too). Sometimes it's just good to talk to someone outside of the situation... Someone that hasn't know him longer than they've known me. So I guess I need to just branch out and make friends. Life seems to be settling down now, so maybe I'll have time to do that sometime soon...

birthdays!

Saturday we got internet at home (and yes, we did get the back room cleaned up a bit). That's my bday present to Guy. His birthday isn't until August, but I decided to get it early for him. I have internet at work, he hasn't had it for about 2 years now. The only time he gets online is when he's at his mom's house. And she has insanely slow dial-up. So they came and installed it Saturday before Guy got home from massages. He came home and tested it out and was astounded at how fast it went (being DSL). I thought that was cute, because I'm used to fast internet at work.

Guy with a sparkler

Sunday was my dad and brother's birthday. Guy and I headed out to the lake house Saturday night to visit and spend their birthday's with them. We lit sparklers, played in mudpuddles, had cake, visited the farm, and thorougly enjoyed our time away. It was great to spend time with my brothers family. They just moved back from living in Maine. It was too far of a drive to make often. But my neice and nephew have grown tremendously. My nephew used to be super shy and not talk to anyone at all. This trip he was following me around and showing me all of his toys and just loving that we were there.

With my neice and nephew at the lake

Then we came home late last night, got very little sleep, and started off a new exhausting week. But our house is getting more organized, and more like we live there. It's only taken 2 years to get to that point. Now that we're married and looking to buy a house, I feel like we should get this one in good order. Throw things away that we don't need. Spend time on the projects that need time spent on them... Like organizing my photos, for example. I have so many pictures, and photo CD's, and photo albums... I need to just go through all of them and organize, and put pictures in the frames we have that are waiting to hang on the wall. We have so many empty frames, and so much empty wall space. I just need to finish things!

My nephew with the sparkler

Me and dad at his farm

The mutant black-eyed susan we found

I've never added pic's before.... So this is my test run. :)