Christmas decorating!

Our first Christmas as The Powells and in our house.  We had so much fun decorating!  Here are some photos of the house with decorations.  We did a real tree with blue lights and silver, blue, and white ornaments.  I love the sparkly snowflakes!  In the archway from the living room to the dining room, we twisted some lights around some garland and draped that with a silver bow in the middle.  Check out the blue glowing snowman, the stocking I made Jon last year, and the Christmas gift cookie jar on the corner shelf!  We also did some colorful lights in the dining room curtains and I love how that looks!

And the last photo is of my little winter pillow covers.  I think the dogs have claimed them!  Merry Christmas!

First sewing project

My first sewing project is now completely finished!  I just had to share these photos, because I'm so proud of how great these pillows look!  (And because the dogs are so cute. I think they like the new pillows too.)

Journal Topic: My life today

My life today...

I have no complaints today.  There is nothing wrong in my life today.  I have a job that, while sometimes frustrating and not exactly ideal, is a job nonetheless and I'm doing something I love to do with good people who seem to like and respect me.  I have a home with lots of space, filled with things I like to use and things I like to do.  I have two furbabies who are like children - in that they frustrate and fascinate me at the same time.  They are loving, rambunctious, sweet, crazy, and have their own personalities and ways of doing things.  I have a wonderful family and a great set of friends and acquaintances.  I have hobbies that enrich my life and my brain.  I have lots of creative projects in the works, and I am always trying to learn new things.

And last, but certainly not least, I am married to the most amazing man on the planet.  Seriously, if I had been able to build the perfect man, he would be just like Jon.  He's intelligent, kind, loving, and gentle.  He has a great sense of humor.  He's handsome, playful, and compassionate.  We love spending time together.  We have some fun little inside jokes and games we like to play - we love playing with words - using puns and such to amuse each other.  We will do that until we are laughing so hard we can't even talk anymore.  Nobody else in the whole world would be this amused at our little jokes, but we totally are.  I love that about us.


So yes, right now I have no complaints.  I've been through a lot in the past 15 years.  Some would say too much for any one person.  But it has all led me to this place where I have no complaints.  And that's pretty awesome.

Sew Much Fun

So Jon got me a sewing machine for my birthday, and I've been having a lot of fun learning how to do simple things.  Having absolutely no previous experience with sewing, I got a good beginner book: Me and My Sewing Machine, and read it cover to cover before getting started.  I also found a great youtube channel, The Crafty Gemini, which has video tutorials for some simple beginner projects.  She also has a blog here on Blogger.

I've used two of her tutorial videos to make small projects and it has been so much fun.  They are far from perfect, but for first attempts, I think they are pretty good!

I have these pillows that I bought to take to college with me (the first time I went in 1995) because they were cute and went with my sun, moon, stars comforter that I had just purchased.  I still have the comforter and I still have the pillows.  They have recently become pillows for the dogs, so they are pretty hairy.  Even after washing, they had dog fur on them, so I thought I might make some covers for them - removable so they can be washed - and in a seasonal pattern to go with our Christmas decorations.  I found this video and watched it all the way through, then started following the instructions.  The photos shows the result - pretty pillow cover right beside old pillow.  Sadly, after washing, these pillows were in such bad shape that I've decided not to use them after all.  Must go buy a pillow form that fits my new cover!  A trip for the weekend!  Then I will do the other one and these pillows will sit on our couch all year round, with new covers for every season and/or occasion!  Yes, I intend to make a bunch of different ones!

Last night, I had to work late.  When I got home, I found a post-it on the door telling me to check my computer chair.  I went inside and found a cutting mat sitting on my chair with a post-it on it telling me to look in my yarn basket.  Inside my yarn basket was a square ruler and a post-it telling me to go to my stocking.  I found inside my stocking a rotary cutter and a note telling me "merry early Christmas."  My husband is so amazing!  Oh, and he was also in the kitchen cooking dinner!  So here are my early Christmas gifts, which I took advantage of last night.

Again, I consulted my new friend, The Crafty Gemini, and discovered this quick and simple project that actually incorporates some great techniques that I hadn't learned before.  There are actually three parts to this tutorial, but it's totally worth it to watch all three before starting, then go through it step-by-step while you do what she does.  Finished product: an eye pillow made from some pieces of fabric I purchased all bundled together when I first started playing with my machine, and an old head scarf that I have no current use for, but is a really nice material for the back of an eye pillow.
So those are my first two projects.  I really like sewing so far, and I think it will be a fun and useful hobby.  Now to learn how to hem pants...

Oh, and just for fun, here are some of my first attempts at some of the stitches on my machine.  I know they are not quite straight, but for a first attempt, I'm feeling pretty good about them!

Birthdays

Another birthday has come and gone.  I turned 35 this month.  I won't go into all the ways that turning 35 sucks, in my opinion.  But I will mention the one that is weighing most heavily on my mind.  "Advanced Maternal Age."  If I see that phrase one more time, I may just freak out on someone.  I have wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember.  When my first marriage didn't work out, I figured it would only be a matter of time until I found the right person and we were able to settle down and start our family.  But of course, our plans don't always count for much, do they?

I did find the right person and I couldn't be happier about who he is and what he means to me.  But it took too long.  Way too long!  My divorce was final in the month before the year 2000.  It took 11 years to find Jon and for us to make our commitment to each other.  I'm glad it happened the way it did.  I'm glad he and I took our time getting to know each other and becoming friends first.  I'm so happy with our relationship - I've never loved or felt so loved this way before.  Before the wedding, we talked a lot about kids and our expectations for the future.  We both want 2 children and while a girl and a boy would be ideal, we have pretty much decided we will be happy with two healthy children.

So I started doing some research.  I had no idea that 35 was some kind of magic number when it becomes harder to have children.  I'm trying not to let it bother me, but still.... if I waited too long, I'm going to be very upset with myself.  I know... I know... having children isn't everything.  But having a family - our own family - is very important to me.  I want a little girl or boy with his eyes and my nose and his brains and my musical talent. I want to watch and experience a little person developing into the big person that he or she will be.

So that's what this year's birthday meant to me.  I was dreading it.

But you know what?  When you dread something, it can surprise you.  I had a really nice day on my birthday, and a wonderful weekend after it.  Jon was amazing.  He took me out for dinner, and he got me a sewing machine, which I've been wanting forever, and he got me roses and a cake.  And his mother and cousin took me out for dinner during the weekend.  And I had lunch with my parents.  So it was a very nice time.

So I've decided to stop researching and being obsessive.  Stress makes it harder to conceive anyway.  So when we start trying, I'm not going to stress about it.  Because that won't help at all.  :)

Honeymoon Recap: The End

We did a lot of other things on the boat - saw some shows, had some photos made, ate some wonderful meals, but really do you want all those details?  Probably not.

After the two days in port, we had a day at sea and then the next day we were back in New Orleans.  The last day at sea wasn't as nice as the first one, since we were heading back to cooler temperatures and it was very windy.  We spent most of our time indoors, looking around the boat and taking some pictures.  I'm posting a few of those at the bottom of this post.

Advice for people who are going on a cruise, especially with Carnival:

- If you drink soda, do the "bottomless bubbles" program.  It's only $30 and gives you unlimited soda the entire trip.  We really liked being able to have coke with dinner and the one time I felt a little seasick, it was great to be able to go to the bar and get a ginger ale.

- They take your photo ALL THE TIME.  Be prepared for that.  I didn't really wear makeup, except when we went to dinner every night.  I would have probably used it every day if I had known they were going to take so many photos.  I didn't bring the every day stuff I normally wear and didn't want to put on my "night" makeup for day use.

- Make friends with your dinner companions.  We had some very interesting and fun people at our table.

- Don't worry about looking stupid.  You will never see these people again.  I should have done karaoke.  :)

- Shore excursions are great.  Do them if you can.  They are pretty expensive, but worth it because they maximize your time.

- Eat something different every night and try things you haven't tried before.  I had Baked Alaska and a souffle for the first time ever.  The Baked Alaska was lackluster but the souffle was amazing.  We both regret not trying the lobster.  :(

- Enjoy yourself!  Take the time to do NOTHING and relax.  Read a book, listen to music, talk to the people you came with.  Don't try to do everything because you will run yourself ragged.

So here are some photos of our boat, and then my honeymoon recap will be complete!

Honeymoon Recap: Cozumel

Cozumel was beautiful.  We were pretty exhausted from the previous day's adventure to the ruins, so we decided to just chill in Cozumel, do some shopping and just look around.  In the touristy area, just after we got off the pier from the boat, there was a nice shopping mall with this beautiful garden.  We stopped and took a lot of photos in this garden, especially of the flowers, which I am not including here because there are a ton of them!

We both posed in front of the garden and took photos because we thought it was so pretty.  If you can see just behind us, there was a sculpture of a snake.  Jon thought it was funny to have the snake in the photo with me, considering how much I don't like that particular animal.  He's so silly.

This is just a wider photo of the garden.  I really loved it - the flowers were different from the ones we have here.  And yet, some of them were the same.  It was pretty cool to just sit and look at them.

This is the shopping area that we were in when we got off the boat.  The shops were all these little huts with the thatched roofs.  I loved it - so picturesque! Each one had different music and a different feel when you walked in, but they all looked so cute and uniform when you looked at them like this.

These guys were pretty amazing!  We stood there and listened to them for a few minutes on our way out of the shopping area.  It was very entertaining.  We also watched some guys playing while we ate lunch at a real Mexican restaurant (the food was amazing - so much better than the stuff we get here!)  so that was pretty cool.

We didn't sign up for any excursions that day because we just wanted to relax.  So we left the shopping area and walked around a little.  This was the outside of the shopping area.  I loved that bizarre plant right in the middle of the photo.  What in the world is it?  I never did figure it out.  We set off walking in one direction just to see what we could see.  We had kind of hoped to find a beach, but we never actually did.

We walked for about a mile and a half and found this little sea wall area where we could sit and watch the water.  So that's what we did.  We took a few pictures of this little area, but I liked this one the best.  While we never got to a sandy white beach, this one was pretty neat with all the rocks and the absolutely gorgeous water.  After sitting there for probably 45 minutes, just talking and enjoying the view, we headed back to the pier area.

They had some nice lounge chairs set up under some palm trees close to the restaurant where we wanted to eat lunch, so we sat there for a little while, looking at the water and watching people come and go.  This was the view of our boat from those chairs.  After lunch, we did some shopping - purchased a few more souvenirs for ourselves and family members, and then got back on the boat.  We decided that next time we would go diving.  I just have to get certified first!