in which we dye

Two days before Easter, I stopped by the store and bought a dozen eggs. Plenty for dying.

The night before Easter, we stopped by Costco and bought two dozen more eggs for that purpose. 

I underestimated Carson's desire for being creative.

The excitement grew as we waited for the colored tablets to dissolve.

The "magic crayon" at work

This is one of Carson's creations. My favorite.

"Dinosaur" eggs:

I got this idea from a blog:

lightly crack a hardboiled egg all the way around, then dye it. 

...when you open it up, it looks like this!

So anyway, we're eating mass amounts of egg salad sandwiches this week. Good thing it's my favorite!

Where Are Your Eyes?

I find myself often looking ahead.

This isn't a bad thing; it's perfectly fine (and often smart) to plan ahead.
And looking ahead while, say, driving, is the best thing to do.

But I'm talking about the looking ahead and wishing the present weren't the present.

Last year at this time, I was engaged. We were engaged for nine months, which is fairly average, I believe. But it's also a pretty long time. During that time, I moved twice, attended a semester of school, worked a couple of jobs, lived on both sides of the state and oh, planned a wedding. It was a busy time. It was a transitional stage, which was quite often not the best of places to be.

I struggled quite a bit with discontent during that stage of life. I guess it was pretty obvious that that would happen, given the fact that Carson lived six hours away from the months of January through April, and then 3,000 miles away from April till we got married in May. I got tired of thinking of weddings and wanted to just start the life we'd been talking about for nine months. Talking about something and waiting to do it gets old really fast. (side note: I really respect the people who have dated/been engaged longer than I did/was because I have no idea how they did it.)

This year, I'm married. And I do love the life we're living. The apartment, the people I'm around, the church family we are a part of, the school community. Seriously, we've got it made.

And wouldn't you know it, I still struggle with discontent:
"I love this life... but..."

It's the "but" that's the problem. The little areas where I'm not satisfied, not 100% okay with what I've been given. They're so small but terribly tricky.

And for the sake of transparency, here are a few:
...but I wish I had the time to run more. I really do. I love running but running before work is ew. And running after? I'm tired and it's dark.
...but I see my friends who are pregnant and a part of me really desires that. Yes, really, Mom and mother-in-law and people who are praying for this to happen. (there's also that part that screams with reminders of my own childishness)
...but I wish Carson and I had more time together. Our schedules are not optimal. And for this being our first year of marriage, perhaps we shouldn't have committed ourselves to so much... oh well... live and learn.
...but I want to be near _____ (friends and family who live really far away and I haven't seen and won't see for a long time)

These things aren't bad.

But these things are NOT where God has me right now. It's not the life I have been given, so there's no point in trying to live in hope for that.
Right now, my hope should be in Christ.
I should live in light of what He's done for me.
I should be thankful for the abundant blessings given to me.
I should praise Him for being so faithful.

I have not one thing to complain about (except too much stuff... bummer... being so provided for?). Not one thing to express discontent about.

I'm human. I'll find things to wish for and get upset about, but where are my eyes looking? Toward Him or toward what I want?

(and do I really want to answer that question?)

resurrection day

Easter morning began in a tent. More on that coming soon. 

I woke up before Carson and took that time to make his Easter basket and hide eggs. 

I hid them in easy spots because otherwise, I wouldn't remember where I put them.

The chocolate bunny is a tribute to my childhood because I always got the ones that looked like this. 

The other chocolate just looked good. 

The Peeps were so cute on a stick (and we kind of love them).

And the puzzle was because we don't have any, the $ store did, and it looked like fun. 

Carson woke up to this on my pillow. 

Told you they were easy to find...

Before church, Carson ran out and grabbed milk for later. 

...and an Easter basket for me. 

We exchanged them after church. 

Which, by the way, was so great. He had to work in the nursery, so I enjoyed it without him. The sermon was convicting and good, and the church was packed. 

A Peep kabob 

I made oreo balls for our Easter dinner that afternoon. 

A package of Oreos, an 8oz package of cream cheese. 

Dip them in chocolate and cover with sprinkles.

I luckily already had springy sprinkles.  

(thanks, Becca!)

They look a little strange, but they taste so good!

After church and after dipping in chocolate, we took pictures on the porch. 

The Bays

Rachel, Isabel, Lindsay

eleven months

In April of 2010, 

I was living in Olympia

I was packing for South Carolina

I was addressing wedding invites

I had lots to do and a brain that thought "WEDDING" 24/7

I was enjoying cherry blossoms

I was experiencing a need for rain boots

I had my first bridal shower

April of 2010 was my last full month sans Carson. 

I saw him twice that month: once for Easter and once the day I left to go home (he took me to the airport)

A year ago today, I had thirty days to go until I was his bride. 

whew, he had some shaggy hair! he was kind enough to cut it for the wedding

Today, I have thirty days left before I've been his wife for twelve months. 

We've learned a lot. 

Grown a lot.

Fought a little. 

Loved each other more. 

Being engaged was great. Planning a wedding was great. But having that behind us and being married? So great. 

Plus, no stress about it raining on the wedding day this way :)

our table runneth over

Our living room is a long room that's essentially three in one - office, dining room and living room. Four, if you count the fact that it's also our foyer.

Anyway, with the room being so multifaceted, it's become something of a habit of ours to let things pile up on the table. Papers to grade, mail, books, keys.... 

I've been wanting to make the table look a little prettier. The hope is that things won't pile up but since we all know that's not going to happen, the fact is, I just wanted a pretty table. 

So this weekend, I made a table runner while Carson was away. 

I planned to use these three fabrics but stuck to the green and orange ones.

I ironed (on the floor because our ironing board died and was thrown away)

I sewed

I made a really long runner (yes, I did know it was uneven)

And somehow broke a needle in my machine

In the end, the living room looked like this:

(that's Singing in the Rain in the background. I watched two movies while sewing, pausing them when I ran the machine so I could hear.)

I cut and sewed and lined up and reinforced 

It was this time when I finished

But here it is in the morning, underneath my glass bowl

(yep, those are gumballs. they make this apartment popular in the building)

This was the time consuming part: the other side is a bunch of random fabrics stitched together.

So here's to hoping the pretty will make a bad impression on all keys, papers and books that try to hang out on the table.

company

Two hours after we got back from Sandpoint, Carson's parents drove into town for a visit. 

They've been here before, but the last time was actually the day of our first date, so I wasn't there.

We went to the Wall Street Diner for lunch.

We drove around Spokane

And to a spot where you can see the whole city

(and the bad weather took a break for the weekend!)

We went to a fabric store (guess which "we" I refer to)

while the other half of us went to Bowl and Pitcher

I now have a nice collection of beautiful fabric!

Then we rented a couple of movies (one was a backup in case the other was lame)

And got two pizzas

And went back to the house we were staying at (we were housesitting)

And watched the movie that we weren't sure about. 

It was okay... but really long so we didn't finish it that night (carson and I did the next day)

The next morning, we were going to have Abelskivers, but the pan didn't work, so we had pancakes instead

And then we went off to church

After that, drove downtown for lunch (Panda)

And Carson and Mike went to walk down to the Falls

While Danita and I made the more fun decision of going to Madelines for coffee and hot chocolate.

And that was pretty much it. 

A really short visit, but great. We're glad that they made the long drive for a short stay!

getaway

Spring break fell on the last weekend of March. I got the last three days of the week off to have a break for spring break, and we went on a little trip!

We went about 1.5 hours away to Sandpoint, Idaho. I'd been there before for a little daytrip with friends, but it was new to Carson!

The first thing we did was take a nap. I woke up first... 

 This was the view from our balcony room

I took a similar picture to this one when I went two years ago and Dad asked if I was going to take another. I did!

Carson has said that if he could be any animal, it would be a lion. So here he is embracing his alter-ego.

...and his inner child

 Yes, he's taller than me but not that much... I held the camera at arm's length and shot up.

Stormy

Sunset 

(there would be a sunrise picture but we were on vacation with black-out curtains... no light = more sleep)

Morning

Dinner. This sounded better to us than the nice meal we'd planned on. 

We watched a lot of TV because it was raining and because we don't have one of our own. 

Really cloudy

I remember buying these but not eating them... it was right after the pizza.

Things we did on this trip:
-walked around and looked in cute little shops
-ate mexican (I wasn't feeling hungry so I had a salad... I hate having salads at restaurants because I feel high maintenance)
-made Carson's maiden voyage to a dollar store that was well-stocked (he didn't want to initially but ended up finding so much stuff)
-ate stuffed-crust pizza
-ate gelato
-walked around the beach
-visited a fun little shop with danish and finnish things (that's Carson's heritage)
-went to a yummy cafe for breakfast and ended up with lunch food