Our New Addition

The other day I was singing Justin Bieber's "I Just Need Somebody to Love" (hey, don't hate on the Biebs) and I realized it was true: I do just need somebody to love. This epiphany lead me to the conclusion that we needed a dog. That very day, I saw on Facebook that a family from church was needing to find a home for their dog. I of course interpreted this to be a sign that this dog was meant to be mine. Now to convince Nate. As I'm sure you can guess, I'm the spontaneous one and he's the responsible one in the relationship so the key was tricking I mean enlightening Nate so he would know that getting a dog was the responsible thing to do. After all, happy wife equals happy life. :) After plenty of research, he reached the same conclusion and agreed to a "trial run" with the dog. Little Ollie quickly won us both over making it impossible to say no to keeping him. And so I'm pleased to announce that we've officially adopted the cutest schnoodle you ever did see!

For all you Harry Potter geeks out there, his full name is Ollivander! I wanted Hufflepuff but Nate said that was embarrassing.

 He is a year and a half so he's still young and playful. He has a lot of energy but also likes to sit and snuggle. We haven't had Ollie very long, but we're already finding many hidden benefits to having a dog:

1. Having an indoor pet encourages me to keep the house cleaner because a) I don't want to leave things lying around that Ollie will chew on and get into and b) I refuse to have a house that smells like dog. I will be busting out the vacuum and the mop much more frequently.

2. Dogs like to be walked much more than husbands do! I love going on walks but Nate never saw the point of it. Now, I take Ollie for walks every day and he loves it. Nate even willingly joins us some days because there is a point to walking a dog.  

3. I am actually on time to work. Normally I hit the snooze at least three times, but I wake up on my first alarm now because I feel bad that Ollie is waiting to be let outside. I let him out and play with him for few minutes and still have more than enough time to get ready for work. Amazing how waking up 15 minutes earlier makes a difference.

We've also discovered that Ollie was on his best behavior for his 3 day trial period and his "true colors" are shining now. Today,  Nate called me during his lunch desperately looking for the breadsticks we'd had the night before. Turns out while we were away, Ollie ate the nearly half a pan of leftover breadsticks and a bowl of marinara sauce! No wonder he had no interest in his bowl of food last night or this morning. I suppose I should be mad, but really I just thought it was funny especially since Nate was frantically searching the kitchen for them. Who knows what other surprises Ollie has in store for us.

When in Rome

Now that we've been in Arkansas for over a year and half, Nate decided it was time to make a drastic move to better fit in with the culture. He realized that he wasn't nearly redneck enough to consider himself an Arkansan. So........

He decided he needed to get rid of his front tooth! For those of you who know my husband well, you know he knocked his two front teeth out as a kid and has had fake ones every since. Over Thanksgiving, in a not very friendly match at the church turkey bowl, he chipped his fake tooth. He finally went in to get it fixed a few weeks ago. The dentist outfitted him with a temporary tooth as the lab creates a new one for him. The only problem, or not problem if you live in Arkansas, is the temporary tooth doesn't fit properly and keeps falling out. Bryson, Alyssa, and Derek were over for Sunday dinner the other day and Nate's tooth fell right out into his bowl of soup! He didn't notice at first and nearly slurped it up! Once he fished it out of the bowl, he casually put it back in without anyone noticing. Shortly thereafter, while eating his cheesy sandwich the tooth fell out again and he completely crunched it! He had to get a new temporary the next day. Being toothless has come in handy at times. Last night Nate had taken his tooth out to eat dinner (he learned his lesson after the soup incident) when the doorbell rang. Nate answered it forgetting he didn't have his tooth in. He scared that darn salesman right off! My favorite tooth incident happened one night while sitting on the couch. Nate had a giant sneeze that propelled the tooth out of his mouth and across the room where it bounced off the wall! I think Nate is more than ready to get his new permanent tooth, but I'm certainly enjoying all the funny moments in the meantime.

YouTube Rag Quilt

A couple of weeks ago I declared I was going to make a rag quilt. Nate laughed. I don't think he thought I was serious. I've never made one, but after watching a video tutorial on YouTube, I was confident I could. I got all excited to make it and then remembered I broke my sewing machine the last time I had a crazy crafty thought. Oh well, it was a nice thought while it lasted. Guess I'll continue living my happy non-crafty life. Just kidding! Well, not about breaking the machine (I really did that) and not about living a happy non-crafty life (crafts stress me out and I prefer to live stress free); I was only joking about the giving up part. Fortunately, my mom was in town last weekend and she fixed my machine, sort of. At least enough to get through the quilt without too many more mishaps than would be normally expected when I attempt a craft. My mom helped me buy the right amount of fabric and cut the squares, but I did the rest all by myself! I know I sound like a child who has just tied their shoes for the first time, but I consider myself a toddler crafter so this was quite the accomplishment.

 

Perhaps you noticed this appears to be a baby blanket, and perhaps you are guessing this means I am making an announcement? Well I am.... someone who is pregnant is going to be the lucky recipient of this blanket! If  you'd like to be considered for the role of the lucky recipient, feel free to leave me a comment. 

A Room that Gives You a Hug

After owning the Ozark Inn for nearly six months, two significant events finally happened. We painted and had our first guests! The nice thing was those went hand in hand. It certainly goes a lot faster when your guests pay their bill via painting.
We were thrilled to welcome Nate's parents and sister and bestow the honor of being the inaugural guests upon them. They were welcomed with Andes Mints on their pillows and towel animals on their beds. Ok, I made up the towel part, but they did get mints. We were pleased to offer Stan and Lisa our newest sleeping accommodations with a brand new air mattress bought on Black Friday. They slept in the Doctor Seuss Suite so they could dream of future grandchildren. Kaley was lucky enough to take her rest in the Dwight Shrute Chamber where she learned that "chamber" implies drafty, cold, but still lovely! (Don't let this deter you from visiting, we're working out the kinks as we hope to be booked frequently this year.)
We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas! We felt pretty spoiled and loved and were so grateful to be together for the holidays. Highlights of the holidays included making and eating delicious food, watching cheesy Christmas movies (ie. A Boyfriend for Christmas!), hitting all the Christmas sales, playing Just Dance on the wii (Yes, there are pictures and video; No, I will NOT be sharing these on my blog), playing Uno Roboto several nights in a row, and feasting on fondue for New Year's Eve, to name a few.
As I mentioned before, the Inn got a face lift too. We painted our family room and guest bathroom. Both look great which is surprising considering Mr. Grumpy at Lowe's didn't listen to me, treated me like I was stupid and was causing him such an inconvenience to mix my paint, and then proceeded to mix the wrong color! We didn't realize it was wrong until we got it on the wall and saw that it didn't match the sample we had already painted. While it wasn't the color we wanted, it actually turned out pretty nice. Good thing too, or I would have gone back and given Mr. Grumpy a piece of my mind! The new color in the family room is so warm it almost feels like you're getting a hug from a teddy bear! Much more inviting then boring white walls.

Here's the finished result. Sorry the clutter is detracting from the teddy bear hug feeling!

The bathroom was hard to photograph without a wide angle lens, but this gives you an idea of the color at least.

In other news, my organ playing is improving.....I think. At least if I base that on the bishopric's responses. The first month I played, I received a thumbs up sign as well as these encouraging words: "We're all rooting for you!" "Don't worry, you can't make any mistake that hasn't been made before." Then I was given a key to the church so I could come and practice. The second month: "That practicing sure is helping!" The third month: absolutely no comment. I take this as a sign that I didn't suck so bad that they felt the need to cheer me up but not good enough that they could justify a genuine compliment. That's the goal for next month.

How NOT To Make An Advent Calender

Last Saturday Nate was sick in bed. I woke up wondering what I was going to do to entertain myself for the day. All of the sudden the most foreign thought hit me: I should make a craft today. What!?!?!? Did I hear my thought correctly. Did I really want to make a craft? I'm not sure I've ever had that desire, but it was there and I decided to follow through with it. I've been in the holiday mood lately and decided to make an advent calender. My mom has one that we hang on the wall every year that I used as an inspiration. I spent half the day on the phone with my mom making sure I was doing things right. Nonetheless, I managed to not do things right! Here are the four most important things I learned not to do:

1. Don't get lazy and not iron or pin the seam before sewing! I attempted to fold the top of the fabric over and sew it so there would be a place for the wooden dowel to go through. My laziness caused it to be so ridiculously crooked and bunched up that I finally just decided to cut the top off! Fortunately, I had left enough room that I could sew it again, correctly this time.
2. Don't buy a wooden dowel and then leave it at Hobby Lobby at the checkout stand! I know it only cost me $0.59 but I refuse to go back and buy another one.
3. Don't attempt to alternate red and green writing if you're going to get distracted and do two greens in a row!
4. Most importantly, don't make 32 pockets when there are only 24 days to count down to Christmas! I sewed 4 rows of pockets with the intention of making 6 pockets in each row but somehow got confused and made 8 pockets instead. I didn't discover my mistake until I was writing the numbers on the pockets. Good thing I have a great pair of fabric scissors! I ended up cutting off the bottom row of pockets. My calender ended up being several inches shorter than I originally intend due to my hack job on the top and bottom!

Despite my rookie mistakes, I think my advent calender actually turned out alright- especially for a craft from me. It was pretty simple too. I cut out a Christmas tree shape of green felt and sewed it on some white sparkly felt. Then I sewed the rows of pockets. Next, I poked some jingle bell brads in the tree to hang the ornaments on. My mom's calender has homemade felt ornaments with velco on the back but I knew I would never make 24 hand-cut ornaments so I figured out a way to hang some store-bought ornaments instead. Finally I used glitter glue to write the numbers on the pockets. Everything I bought was half off at Hobby Lobby, so I was pretty happy about that. Here is a picture of the semi-finished product. I need to get another dowel (ugh) and some ribbon to hang it. I also wanted to write Merry Christmas or Countdown to Christmas on it, but I'm not sure if I'll have enough room now that I've shortened it...

On a similar note I finally finished an apron that I started a year ago for Brianne's Christmas present. Just a little late.

A WICKED time in Nashville

For our anniversary this year in June, Nate bought me tickets to go see Wicked in Nashville, Tennessee. Ok, I actually got online and bought them myself but he told me I could :) Nashville is about a nine hour drive from Bentonville, so we decided to make a weekend out of it. After months of anticipation, our Nashville weekend finally arrived! We took Friday off from work and spent the majority of the day driving. We drove the back roads which took us a little longer but we wanted to do an experiment to see how good of gas mileage we could get with our new car. We averaged almost 50 mpg!!! We were very excited about that and actually ended up loving the drive because we were exploring the back woods of Arkansas and Tennessee. We saw probably 45 different "flea markets" along the way which generally consisted of two or three tables in someone's yard covered with junk from their homes. Basically, people just have year-round garage sales and paint a sign that says "Flea Market."

After seeing so many flea markets along the way, we found ourselves lucky enough to be in town for Tennessee's largest flea market of the year! What an exciting coincidence! When we found out it was only a couple miles from our hotel, we of course could not pass up the opportunity to attend. We scrapped our original plans for the day and hit the fairgrounds. When else would we have the chance to be a part of one of the Top 10 Flea Markets in the Nation?  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the flea market but let me tell you, this thing was huge! We walked around for a couple hours and didn't even come close to seeing everything. I was very excited about our purchase of 1400 count sheets for $25! We continued our treasure hunting for the day at Antique Archaeology, the store front for one of our favorite shows on the History Channel, American Pickers. We didn't buy anything but we went more to say we'd been there.

Nate was thrilled to touch an actual Picker van!

 Because our temple is about four hours from us, we generally try to include a session at the temple anytime we are on a trip to a city where there is a temple nearby. There is a temple in Franklin which is just outside of Nashville. I remembered my church clothes, temple clothes and recommend. Sounds like I was prepared and good to go right? Wrong! I forgot my dress shoes! I was ready to throw in the towel and cancel our temple trip but Nate was insisted that we were going so I better find something to wear. This is a picture of the result.

I thought the bright purple tennis shoes weren't conspicuous at all........

It's fair to say I was grateful and surprised they let me in the door!

The night of the show, we decided to make it a real date night with dinner and show. We found this little hole in the wall type Italian restaurant that was actually sooooooo good! There was no parking lot so we had to park at the gas station next door, and the restaurant building looked pretty shady but Nate and I agreed that it was the best Italian food either of us had ever had. After dinner came the main event: WICKED! It was my second time seeing it and Nate's first time. We both loved it! I would jump at the chance to go again someday.

Yes I'm wearing my bright purple tennis shoes with this outfit as well. I can always be counted on for classiness!

Airplane Encounters

It seems I can never have an airplane ride without encountering some rather interesting characters. Whether it be the large man who fell asleep on me or the smelly man who released noxious gas throughout the plane ride, I somehow attract the least desirable seat companions. And so it was with our latest trip home for Brianne's wedding.

Our first flight required us to wake up at 3:00 AM (or in Nate's case, simply not go to bed at all) in order to make the 6:00 AM flight out of Tulsa. We nearly missed it and barely ran aboard as they were closing the door! Needless to say, it was a very stressful and tiring morning, but we anticipated being able to at least get a couple hours of sleep on the airplane. The flight attendant dimmed the cabin lights and we were ready to slip away into dreamland when Mr. Obnoxious behind us apparently missed the memo that every other passenger on the flight was sleeping! He proceeded to talk (or rather shout) to his seat companion (whom he didn't know, poor girl) for the entire flight. He was one of those big, jovial guys with a booming voice and an endless supply of absurd stories. It was all I could do to keep from turning around and saying. "Listen up buddy; Nobody cares about how free you felt running naked on the beach, how beautiful the Elton John concert in Vegas was, or how huge your wife has become since gaining 30 pounds! Now zip it so I can sleep!"

We had a short layover in Denver and then boarded the plane to Salt Lake City with high hopes once again that surely we would get some rest on this flight. But alas, rest was not in the cards that day. A sweet looking grandmother sat down beside me and immediately introduced herself and asked how I was doing. Normally, when someone responds to that question by saying, "Tired. I've been up since 3:00 AM" that is a hint that they plan on sleeping for the duration of the flight. However, sweet Ruth took that opportunity to tell me how tired she was as well and continue talking until we reached Salt Lake. She was on her way there to teach the Mormons about Christianity. Much to her delight, she was able to practice her skills right there on the plane when I revealed that I was in fact a Mormon! In all seriousness, it ended up being a great experience for me. There has been so much hype in the media lately concerning whether Mormons are Christians or not, and obviously this woman was of the belief that we are not. I took the opportunity to debunk that myth for her. I am a Mormon- a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I believe in Jesus Christ. He is my Savior and King. I believe in his Atonement and that He suffered and died for me. I testify that He lives and because of Him I can live again. I am a Mormon and I am a Christian!

2007 Honda Civic Hybrid (No we haven't gone green, we just like to save greens on gas!)

We chose to buy a car in Utah, cancel our flights, and drive 1338 miles home to Arkansas rather than risk another plane ride!