Seven!
Well, this week turned out to be significantly (read: INSANELY) more hectic than I thought it would be…hence the lack of a post on Wednesday. (Good thing I only said I’d “hopefully” post something then, right?) But the good news is, it’s FRIDAY, I’m off of work, and I’ve decided to get something posted before I even get out of bed.
Of course, due to the fact that it’s been such a crazy week and I’ve got a busy couple of days ahead (yay for a WEDDING tomorrow!), my brain is basically mush, so all I can give you are a bunch of bullets. Wait, scratch that. My good friend Lucy does this thing called “7 Quick Takes Friday” where people just list 7 things on their minds. That sounds like a good number to me, so here we go.
ONE!
I have a million unread items in my Google Reader (okay, maybe just 230), but I just can’t stomach the thought of “marking all as read” because what if I miss something amazing from one of my favorite bloggers?! So what I’ll most likely do is go through the short stuff first (like the comics, nerdy riddles, and kazooisms), then browse all the shared items, and then go through each person’s newest posts (because yeah, some of you have written two or three that I have yet to read) and at the very least, skim them. Except I’ll probably end up reading just about everything, because THAT’S WHY I’M SUBSCRIBED TO YOUR BLOG, duh. Google Reader really has become an enabler for my obsession with finding new blogs, and as much as I love and appreciate it, there might come a time when I have to painstakingly pare it down to the absolute gems because, honestly, it’s quite the time-sucker. But it’s such a fulfilling time-sucker, dangit!
TWO!
I’m ridiculously excited about tomorrow, because my brother-in-law (Joe’s brother John) is getting married!! He and Kelly have been together for like seven years, and I’m thrilled that I get to be there to see them officially tie the knot. I even get to announce the whole wedding party at the reception! (Let’s hope I don’t get all nervous and stutter or something.) Tomorrow also happens to be the one-year anniversary of the day Joe proposed to me. I still can’t believe how quickly time flies. I mean, on top of tomorrow being the proposal anniversary, I’m turning 25 in a week and a half, and two weeks from today will mark EIGHT MONTHS since we got married, and a month after that is the two-year anniversary of the day we met! Talk about crazy, right?
THREE!
Linking to our “engagement” blog in the last one reminded me that it still exists and we had been talking about resurrecting it someday. In case you weren’t around when we were engaged, Carbonated Jeans is what we called it, and you can check out the (very few) posts that are up there if you’re interested in the planning and excitement over our then-upcoming wedding. But what I really want your help with is this: what kind of stuff could Joe and I use Carbonated Jeans for? We were thinking of maybe a vlog series, since people seemed to like this one so much. But if we did that, what should we DO or SAY in the vlogs? And what else would you like to see from the silliest newlyweds you know?
FOUR!
I’m reading a book for the Goodreads Santa Barbara Book Club I’m a part of, and I basically LOVE it (the book AND the club). The book is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley, and it’s a mystery! It’s written from the perspective of an eleven-year-old girl who is a chemistry genius, and I just love her voice, the writing style, and especially the intriguing storyline. I’m terrible at summarizing a book (especially when I’m only partway through it), but I can already tell you that I would highly recommend you check this out. It’s a really fun read, and I’m learning a lot of new words, believe it or not.
FIVE!
So my 25th birthday is coming up (as previously mentioned), and my poor husband and family have been asking me for a wish list for over a month. I don’t know why, but it’s been so hard to come up with things I want that aren’t either a) way too expensive (hello, new car) or b) booooring (hi, seasons 4 and 5 of Numb3rs). I finally pulled together like six or seven things I might like, but I have to admit that I also like the idea of letting people surprise me completely with their gifts. I mean, cheesy as it sounds, the fact that I get to spend my birthday with Joe, his parents, AND my parents is going to be more than enough to make my 25th birthday fantastic. Of course, I won’t be turning down any spa packages or Borders gift cards. Noooo way, Jose.
SIX!
Joe and I are leading a new series in our couples’ small group, and it’s on the Song of Solomon, which — if you don’t already know — is all about dating, sex, marriage, and love. I think we’re both pretty excited about it, but I’m also kind of nervous about how it will be received by the other couples. Will anyone be willing to open up about stuff that intimate? Or will it end up being kind of surfacey like previous studies? Only time will tell, but the DVDs we’re following along with should at least provide a few laughs and some food for thought.
SEVEN!
I’m finally (just about) done with Cari’s wedding jewelry, and if I do say so myself, it is AWESOME. I think I might actually revive Wearable Joy long enough to share some photos and stories about the process…hopefully. Oh, and speaking of Wearable Joy, I got some free business cards in the mail yesterday, thanks to my brother’s handy advice about this place called Moo.com. If you click on this link, you can create custom designs and receive 50 FREE business cards! I’m hoping that Cari’s wedding jewelry and these great cards will combine to give me enough motivation to get serious about my beading website and my etsy store.
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Well, that’s all for now, friends. I really, really do hope to resume more frequent blogging next week! I’ve missed it so much!
Happy Friday!
Oh, and be sure to check out some other Quick Takes today!
Happy Friday to you!
It was my favorite year by far!
And hooray for your upcoming 25th birthday. Big milestone
Enjoy the wedding/weekend and family time!
(how many exclamation points can I use in one comment!?)
Have you ever read the book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time? When you described the current book being a mystery written from the perspective of a kid, this book came to mind. I recommend it!
I feel you on the unread blogs… I can’t seem to stay caught up EVER, but I keep looking for new blogs to read!
I bet the study group goes well, you have an interesting topic, anyway. Although, I guess everybody isn’tt gigantic oversharers like us!
Have fun at the wedding!!
What happened to number 8: Spent a whole day down in the OC at Disneyland, which likewise sucks up a lot of time away from the computer this week?
I feel ya on the birthday gift wish list. Every Christmas our gift exchange is fairly straightforward: gift cards! It’s so simple, you know the recipient will find it useful and there’s no stress/headache of finding the perfect gift. Birthdays amongst our immediate little family are even more straightforward: we just don’t give gifts, period. Todd is really the only one whom we buy anything for (and even then it’s limited b/c we know the extended family will shower their only grandchild with stuff) We much prefer doing fun things together, like going to Disneyland, or having dinner at a favorite restaurant. So I totally understand what you mean by the enjoyment of time with family being the ultimate gift– it’s not cheesy at all
I hope you’ll blog more about the study as it progresses– I really enjoyed your post on the Rick Warren study, and it even sparked an IM discussion between me and another of the small group members.
I forgot to comment about the Carbonated Jeans blog:
Firstly, I’m probably in the minority here, but I hope you’ll stick with primarily text-based blogging, because I abhor vlogs. They are inconvenient and time consuming to watch. I like being able to skim text in my feed reader when I have a spare moment at work, and settle down to really read posts of interest when I have some more time. I like going back and re-reading relevant portions of an entry I want to comment on or just enjoy reading. It’s frustrating to know that there’s something interesting there that I want to see, but have to wait until I have a good chunk of time (which might not be till the end of the day) before I can sit down and watch. Whereas with text, I can read it anytime.
I’m the same way with interesting news articles I might see links to– I’ll click on it after reading an interesting headline, only to be disappointed that it’s a video and not an article,
and I’d simply close my browser window without watching it.
Of course, an occasional video is fine and is definitely entertaining (especially when used for suspense-ridden things like your giveaway drawing), but if a blog consisted *primarily* of videos? Not so much, unfortunately.
Secondly: I think you posed the question of content in a previous blog post… and I am pretty sure I commented, but I can’t remember what I said! I’d love to hear about what you are making of married life from your point of view (and Joe, maybe, can post his point of view). Daily foibles of married life vs. the single life. What’s it like to live with a boy? (Monica’s anguished realization: “I have to live with a BOY!!” when Rachel moves out to make room for Chandler comes to mind) Any challenges, and how have you overcome them? Funny stuff, just like Joe’s occasional FB statuses that quote his lovely wife
Oh, the list goes on. Basically, what I’m saying is that I’m sure you have/will on occasion blog things here that have to do with marriage/Joe, whether they are funny or serious, and maybe you can simply divert those posts to the Carbonated Jeans blog. It’s what I do with my blog– you’ll notice I rarely blog about Todd on heckledtrio, because all of his stories go on HIS blog 
YAY JEWELRY!!!
one! i have a hard time keeping up with MY reader that AT MOST has 20 or so items. i can’t imagine 10X that many! and not to brag or anything, but my recent posts are actually pretty good. though probably equally skimmable. haha.
six! james and i want to lead a premarried group next fall. the one that we’re in is SO surfacey and it is barely worth our time to be there. apparently we’re so far ahead of the curve that all we have is a straight line in front of us. this study just seems to be going over things that we thought people should ALREADY KNOW before they decide to get engaged. like how to talk to each other. how to compromise. things like that. elementary to just us? yeah, that’s what i thought.
seven! your jewelry is awesome and i’d gladly be a testimony giver about how wonderful you are to work with and how you take criticism so well and all sorts of stuff. i think you should do this more. definitely. and then i wouldn’t feel bad about buying earrings and stuff which i currently purchase from like… target. this way i’d have SWEET jewelry and would probably wear it. YAY!
I have a really hard time marking all as read too. I rarely ever do it — I’ll just go through them and skim instead.
That book is “in transit” at the library for me and I was looking forward to reading it before, but now I’m itching to get my hands on it!
Happy almost-birthday, and hooray for you being back. I’m missing you! Your couples group sounds wonderful – please let us know how it goes
Great post! You are one busy woman!
Tell us more about the study on Solomon. Are you using a study guide to help you go through it or are you two figuring out the study on your own? Sounds like it could produce some very interesting conversation.
I hope your 25th birthday will be a great day of celebration for you and all in attendance.
Love you,
Mom