lately

according to my iphone...

yep, that about sums it up

the same, but different

a common phrase that i heard coming from the mouths of my parents growing up was "you are just like your mother", or "you are just like your father". sometimes they couldn't even come to an agreement on who i really belonged to, and would lay blame on each other for whose genetics were responsible for my actions at the moment.

but this i know for sure,

my mother is responsible for:
- my fair skin (andrew and cass got my dad's dark, easily tanned skin)
- my road rage (mom, you know what i mean)
- only being able to describe something as being "stupid" if it just won't work for me
-  my matchy matchy nature. to this day i can't bring myself to wear a blue t-shirt and jeans, the blues just don't match!
-always having an opinion about something, i may just not want to share my opinion
- all of the furniture in my living room, ha!

my father is responsible for:

-my thick, dark hair (most days, i thank you)
- my ever changing eye colour
- my twisted sarcastic nature that most people don't really get, other then him.
- chicken scratch like hand writing
- ability to sit and read a book for hours on end
- all my handy man skills, that quite frequently surprise dennis.

i could go on

but there is a major part of who i am that is uniquely my own. it is something that i definitely did not inherit from either of my parents, and none of my siblings really have this quality about them. my parents even thought that me and my sister sharing a room would cure me, but it had the opposite affect, it rubbed off instead, causing her to take on this trait for a short time as well. but it's ok, she got her own room when andrew moved out, so the world is back on it's proper course again.

this ladies and gentlemen would be...

my absolute hate for cleaning

yep, that's right

cleaning, a curse that you would think had been sent to me straight from hell. we go together like oil and water. like i said, i don't know where it came from, both of my parents are very clean people, my mom maybe more so then my dad with most things, but man, he sure can get your car cleaner, and and white shirt whiter then the day you first bought them.

cleaning has just never been my strong suit, since being married though i have gotten a lot better. i normally clean about one room a day after i get home from work, but it is usually just a quick once over. i get the essentials done on a weekly basis, but maybe not as much as others would. please don't think my home is a pig sty, it really isn't. maybe my mom just set the bar really high, yeah, let's go with that.

but there is something else that goes along with this little trait. about every few months, all of those dormant cleaning impulses that have been laying low all of a sudden wake up, and shout out "i gotta clean!"  

and so i clean

i clean like a horse with blinders on, and i don't stop until i have reached the end.

this past saturday was one of those days. it helps that we have a fairly small apartment, so it only take a few hours to thoroughly clean from top to bottom.

i am now wishing that i had taken picture of what it looked like after we were done, because it sure isn't going to look like that again for another few months.

i love the feeling that comes with a clean home, it almost makes me think that i should just clean more frequently, so it feels like this more often.

almost.

it happened

well i had a pretty good streak going, but sadly it all came to an end this morning.

for the first time since dennis placed my beautiful engagement ring on my finger, i forgot to put it back on in the morning after getting ready for the day.

and i feel completely naked without it.

i have also been experiencing temporary moments of panic when...

 ...my thumb goes to twist it around my ring finger, like i do absentmindedly about a million times a day. but when all it finds is soft skin, instead of the hard metal the world all but almost ends.

...i wash my hands (i normally take my ring off and place it beside the sink, or hold it between my lips) and i can't find my ring to put it back on my finger.

... put lotion on my hands

.... use the hand sanitizer

... look down at my hand to stare at my ring (yes i still do that) and find it not there. that is normally when i proceed to go back through the lists of what i did that day, until i realize nope, it is at home on the dresser.

you get the idea

it has almost been two years, so i think i have done pretty good

well i guess tomorrow i am all the way back to day 1

it's monday

so you know what that means?
it means that the weekend is over, done, kaput (is kaput really even a word?).
sunday nights are always a little depressing for me, because that means the next morning i can't sleep in until i can't sleep anymore. i can't lounge around for as long as i want until i feel it absolutely necessary to get in the shower, and even then i may not even completely get ready for the rest of the day. i can't spend hours upon hours on the internet mindlessly passing time by, oh wait, i can do that at work (sometimes).

now i don't do this every weekend, it is just nice to have the option to do it if i ever wanted to. but this past saturday was turning out to be one of those "i haven't done a thing, and it is already 4:00 pm" kind of days. but all that was put to a jerking halt when dennis came home from reffing 5 games (that is a lot of running around people) and declared "get dressed because i am taking you out", and to that i said OK.

instead of telling you what we did

i will just show you, so here..

looks like fun right? that's because it was. 

and all the credit goes to dennis for getting my lazy butt out of the house. 

i shot the sheriff...

please que the eric clapton playing in the background now...

hands down, one of my favorite games is a little card game called bang. now remember when i said i'm not allowed to try and explain games? well i think this game is where it all started. ever since i was first introduced to it down at byui i was hooked, my roommate alica and i spent many a sunday night over at her sister and brother-in-law's playing this game, that and catan, but mostly bang. the unfortunate thing is that you either love this game or hate it, and as luck would have it my whole family turned out to be the side of those that hate it. awesome. but the other lucky thing is that dennis is a huge game person, he took to it with as much enthusiasm as i did, and also now loves it just as much as i do (just one of the many reasons he is so perfect for me). 

and so last night my younger sister cassie and her boyfriend bryce came up for dinner, and then some game playin', so of course we suggested bang and they agreed! oh happy day! we had such a fun time playing with them, getting to know bryce, and them as a couple. 

check out cass's sweet vest. doesn't it just scream beetlejuice. beetlejuice beetlejuice!

if you're ever interested in playing with us we are always looking for new people to beat.