random

Confession....


I'm addicted to Coke. Not Pepsi, not Dr. Pepper, but the real thing. Coke.


I used to only drink it about once a week. and then i started having one every day. I've been trying to cut back, but apparently that requires self control, which i don't have.


all i think about is Coke, and how good it is. how the carbonation always makes me feel good. It fills me up, which in my mind, means i'm eating less. it's clearly healthy for me.


When I realized how out of hand my addiction was getting, i made a sign for my desk at work to remind me to stay strong. I first put no sodium, bc i thought it had lots of it. THEN i realized it actually is the sugar that is not good...hmmm... go fig.

random thought #2:


Daniel and i were talking before bed the other night and he said something that rocked me to my core. it was shocking. it was life changing.

HE HAS NEVER SEEN E.T.!!!!

I mean, you think you know a person!!!!!!

I immediately started saying famous quotes to help remind him that maybe he really had seen it, and was just confused. no. my Daniel is just weird.
Daniel is 30, he is  the prime age to see ET...he even used to have a crush on Drew Barrymore. i'm still in shock about it.


we are planning to watch it soon so that I can help him enter normal society. i feel like i've neglected a duty as a wife......clearly something we should have talked about in our premarital counseling......

weekend rewind

This weekend was a little bit of everything.

My mom and dad drove up from Texas to stay the night with us. My mom hadn't been to our place since before we were married, so i was excited to show her how things had changed!

But first, here's me driving in the car. (we can dress cashz on fridays)

There were some leftover peonies from an event at work, so i took some home to appreciate them all weekend! they kep getting bigger and smelling SO good!!

I met the fam and Daniel at Marie Callendar's. it's one of my mom's faves, and they don't have one in their city. i wish i could say my food was good.....but it wasn't. everyone elses was though so i nibbled off their plates. But of course dessert was yummy! (forgot to take a pic of that...)

mom & dad

Friday night we just hung out and caught up. We made a Target stop, and i tried on some new shades.

I ended up buying a pair, then returned them today, cos i had doubts. I got some new ones at JCP that are more flattering :)

Saturday we pretty much just hung around the house.

Daniel & Dad talk theology and my moms cleans anything she can find.

Saturday, i made my FIRST ham!!! It was SOOOO good! and we have enough leftover to eat for weeks, hahaahah! But meat cutting is the man's job. Daniel got to use our electric knife for the first time. it was pretty fun!!

My parents had to leave Sat afternoon after we ate cos my dad is a pastor and well, the pulpit calls :) We had a great time with them, just relaxing and hanging out. I love that we didn't have a ton of stuff to do, but just got to enjoy each other.

Side story: Sarah, Mike and the boys went to Florida this past week, and watched the shuttle launch. Grant was SO excited!!! But he thought he was GOING  on the shuttle, and was crushed when he found out he didn't get to go up in space too.

here are the boys enjoying the  beach:

We're having severe weather again here, but so far not too bad at our house.

On Monday nite, we had tornadoes and i was NOT a fan. Cell phone service wasn't great and Daniel and I both couldn't get home till about 7. I was glued to his side from the minute i got home that nite. seriously, he wasn't allowed to leave the room.

that's our life........ hope everyone had a good weekend!!

love
laura

6 months of pure bliss

Today we celebrate 6 wonderful months of being married! And they have been WONDERFUL months!!!!!

A lot of people told us how hard the first year is, blah blah blah. I keep saying that if this is as hard as it gets, bring it on! ahahahh

but seriously, i know that there will be hard times, i'm just enjoying these times that aren't!!!!

HAPPY 6 MONTHS, DANIEL!!!!!!

I love you so much and cannot believe that you chose to marry me! Thank you for all the ways you love me, serve me, and take care of me!! you are my best friend and the love of my life!!!

 I can't wait to have kids together, grow old together, and live the rest of our lives loving each other!!!!!

From 0 to 4

I keep thinking back on my journey and how i said that i want to keep going. part of me wonders, what does that even mean??


Almost 5 months ago, I was working out consistently but if you had talked to me about running, i would've blown you off and said i'm not someone who can run. I had put running in my impossible category. I appreciated other people who had the physical ability, but God gave me the gift of eliptisyzing. or so i thought......

Running for me isn't very consistent. I reached 2 miles faster than i thought i would. and stayed there. I felt like i only ran 2 miles forever. And then i finally hit 3. Again, i stayed at 3 for what seemed way too long.

Last Saturday I ran 3.5, and it was rough.


Today, I ran 4 miles and loved every second of it.

TODAY I RAN 4 MILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We went to the gym last night, but only had about 20 minutes. So i sprinted a mile with an incline and did weights.

Tonight, i was all about the running. My parents are coming in town this weekend, and i knew work out time would be limited. So i wanted to have my 'long run' either tonite or tomorrow.

sidenote-i like to talk about my long runs as if i'm in training (which i TOTALLY believe that i am),  and i secretly want to sound cool.

anyways.......

As we were walking into the gym i was psyching myself up for a 3 miler. I repeated TPG and Sarah's voices in my head, telling me i could do it. I also thought about my friend, Shelly, who is also a new runner and is on an AMAZING journey. She posted today about changing our mindset, and it was pretty much right where i was at.

Sorry, back to the gym.....

So we start running, me on my smallish incline, with my man next to me. My goal for the nite was just to run 3 miles. I'm shocked to actually say this, but the first mile is pretty easy now. (who woulda ever thought?)

when i reached 1.5, i started my countdown to 3. But then i realized that i was feeling pretty good. I started listening to my body and felt like i could go further. it was a VERY strange and yet welcome feeling :)

I ran 3 miles and didn't feel out of breath, out of control, or even hurt anywhere. I felt amazing!!!!!

My thought pattern went a little like this:

-just run a 5k, you know you can do a 5k

-really? you can do 3.3. it sounds so much cooler than 3.25.

-ok you've run 3.5 miles before, what's stopping you now??

-you feel SO good, keep going, keep going

-omg, you've got this, you're going to run 4 miles today!!!!

-omg omg omg you're going to run 4 miles!!!!!!

The last half mile i was grinning from ear to ear because i felt SO good and knew 4 miles was going to happen. Daniel kept watching me, waiting to see what would happen.

I hit the 4 mile mark, yelled out 'YES!' and high fived Daniel several times. Then i talked 90 miles a minute about how great i felt, how much i had just accomplished, and basically just let all the endorphins take over.

I am 2/3 way to running a 10k. WOW!!!! Now i DO NOT want to seem prideful. My goal in talking about this is not to toot my own horn, i share this all because i know exactly what my journey has been. I know how hard it was to run for 2 minutes at one time. I was the person on the other side saying that running is for other people.

Tonight was the first time i ran and felt completely amazing afterwards. I can tell the difference in my physical ability and the shape of my body. I am confident that if a bad guy was chasing me, i could run for 48 minutes without stopping. (i may not outrun him, but let's think endurance :))

i love love love love running! 

i hope it's an addiction that will take me far (hahahahah)! but seriously, i want to keep going....

love
laura

college, cupcakes, & corsages?

We had a great weekend. i really feel like i could write a couple of posts right now, so we'll see where this one takes us...

Friday night was interesting. I bought locally grown tomatoes and avadacoes for quacamole! i was mega excited! little did i know how to pick out an avacado. so i went with what was natural, the hardest one was the best one. (we've made quac before and i think just lucked out) So when we started cutting the avacadoes, we ran into some trouble. I learned later, much later after trying everything i could including making a weird salad thing in the blender-that they weren't ripe yet.

SO we went on with our dinner plans and made black bean quesadillas. you haven't lived until you've had these!!! we added grilled chicken, peppers, and tomatoes. yum yum yum!!

Saturday I hit the gym. I was pumped and ready!!! i ran 3.5 miles!!  and I felt amazing!!! def felt all the endorphins kickin in. Then I did my weights and boogied home where Daniel was making sausage and pancakes!

We ran some errands and went to Academy. I just looked at everything and drooled. and then went home and updated my amazon wish list, hahaahahahhahh!

We decided to go to Shawnee, where Daniel's alma mater is. I had been there once 11 years ago.

We basically just walked around taking pics of ourselves. very normal.

what's funny is that i almost went to school here. I applied and even visited the campus. but then i saw the dorms......

(sometimes i try to be artistic)

Then we headed to Starbucks for happy hour!!!! Check it out at their site, it's for another week!!!!

Sunday was mother's day of course!!! My parents are coming up this next weekend, so we stayed up here in Oklahoma. One memory i always have of Mother's Day growing up, is my dad buying my mom a corsage for church. Every year we would see the corsage sitting in the fridge waiting for my mom to wear it. There was 1 lady in SS who had a corsage and i just loved it!!!!

SS-is another post all in itself. (Code word-crowded loneliness)

I woke up this morning to a card that Daniel made for me. even though we're not parents yet, we're excited for it whenever it comes.

here's us this morning.....sidenote-why do my eyes always look like i've been crying? anyone?

After SS we went and had lunch with the fam to celebrate Daniel's mom! ummmmm did i take a single picture?!??!! ugh! as soon as we got in the car to drive home i remembered i had my camera. grrrrrr....

I was feeling very domestic tonight, so i made choc cupcakes (with flax seed!!!!) and homemade frosting. 2 KINDS OF FROSTING!!! Regular vanilla and almond flavored.

We tried a new recipe for dinner: whole wheat penne pasta with broc and sausage. it was good, but we forgot the tomatoes and i think next time i'll add almonds for some crunch.

We've got a pretty busy next few weeks ahead of us. we're travelling some, having family over, and running :)

hope everyone had a great mother's day!!

love

laura

week in review

This week has been busy with very little time to blog. I've had time to start new posts, just not finish them....

so let's see.....

Monday was pretty normal. Ran the 3 miles and we watched The Devil Wears Prada. I've seen this many times and have been wanting to watch it for quite some time. now, i try not to make Daniel into a girl, so i never require that he do all the girly things with me. I like that he is male.

But, he was sitting on the couch reading, and def got caught up in the movie too. I'm sure he's better for it.

Tuesday, i had the'great' idea to run during my lunch break. I really need to get in an extra run a week, and with my schedule it's almost impossible. So i brought my running clothes to work, headed out, and almost died. Running has brought so many near death experiences in my life.

It was hot out!!! and for some reason the entire mile and a half i ran was b.r.u.t.a.l. idk why, but it was so hard.  not sure if i'll be attempting this again or not. and it took me forever to stop sweating, which i'm sure was an extra blessing for all my coworkers.

TBL was Tuesday night and OMG!!!! i could not get over the shock of how Daris looks after his makeover. and i had NO CLUE about Sam & Stephanie. i'm still in shock.

Wednesday was the night to join my new running club! I was SOOOO nervous!!! We meet at a park about 20 minutes from my house. There are 2 groups: people running 1 hr, and people running 30. (30 min out, 30 min in, 15 min out, 15 min in)

There were about 15 of us, and about 4 new people to the group.
One of the other new girls was at about my pace, so we ran together the first half. she was running for the hour. and i didn't want to die, so i just did 30.and yes, i did do a mile in 11:30. my new PR!!!

i really enjoyed it, but hated running alone the second half. all the other girls were WAY ahead and much faster. so we'll see how it goes.

Last night Daniel and I decided to go bike riding instead of going to the gym. keep in mind we haven't ridden in almost 8 months. i'm thinking ' sure, a nice little bike ride, that will be fun.' apparently fun is the new brutal.

It's windy in Oklahoma!!!! The wind was i'm sure about 40mph last night. (i'm not exaggerating, it was very high winds!) The whole time we complained about which muscles were hurting. lame.

This is Daniel teaching me to ride my bike almost 2 years ago....this is when i'm sure he fell in love with me. also, please disregard the highwater pants, it's just the picture. they're not normally like that.

sidestory.....this little chihuahua started chasing us and getting VERY close to my tires. i FREAKED out and started yelling bc i was just waiting to hear the yelp and then know that i just killed someones dog. luckily we were faster than the chihuahua, but i still made a spectacle of myself for all the neighbors. AND why was this dog not on a leash????

Tonight??

Black bean quesadillas and spending the evening in.

Tomorrow is errand day, along with my attempt to run 4 miles. i haven't even broken the 3.5 marker yet, but a girls gotta have goals :)

hope everyone has a fantastic mother's day!!!!

love
laura

catching up

Since my last few posts have been somewhat serious, i though i'd do a recap of our last few days.

Last thursday I went to my MIL's house and got to play with Mary Kay! Her lady came over and basically let us play with make up. I did fall in love with the lipstick and gloss....maybe a future purchase?? hmmm...

I didn't take a before pic, but here is me after. It was really windy that day, so that's why my bangs look all plastered.

yes, i know it's in black and white....but i forgot how much i love those!!

We all (everyone except Daniel) went out to dinner and talked about our upcoming Hawaii trip!!!!

here are Mike (BIL) & his friend Zach:

Friday, we had dinner at our SS director's house... she made this delicious italiam creme cake. I held myself back at 1 piece. Daniel made up for it with the 3, pieces he ate :)

Saturday morning Daniel was at a training thing, so i went grocery shopping alone. I had the best time! (not bc daniel wasn't there, but bc of the great stuff i got). Due to Sarah's annoying influence in my life, I bought flax seed, whole wheat flour, yogurt (gag), all natural peanut butter, fresh fruits and veggies, etc.... I was SO proud of my little grocery cart when i was checking out. I've already used the flax seed for the choc zuchini bread i made on Sunday nite!

Saturday afternoon we went to Gainesville!!!! i've been bugging Daniel about this forever. I really like their GAP outlet, and now that we have Dave Ramsey in our lives...it just makes sense!

Although I did not like DR very much on Saturday. I actually got mad. and annoyed. I'm not a huge shopper, but when i go, I usually don't tell myself 'no' very often. I had to tell myself 'no' a lot on Saturday. As we were leaving, Daniel had the nerve to say 'hey, we're living now like no one else, so that later we can live like no one else.' ohhhh if looks could kill!

Although I am happy now, and I KNOW deep deep deep down inside it was a good thing we stayed on budget that day, i still reached an unhealthy anger level :) (ok not really, i didn't throw antyhing....)

Saturday nite ended up being fun and relaxing, and we caught up on the Amazing Race, one of our fave shows.

Sunday night brought lots of cooking. I tried a new recipe, Spinach Manicotti. YUM!!

This was our last few days in a nutshell. We currently don't have any weekend plans, and i'm pretty excited about it! And i'm going to the eye dr tomorrow, which also brings me way too much happiness. how can a new eye rx not bring anyone joy??? bring on the dialation!!!

love

laura

Sanctification continued

I feel the need to give an update from my last post. I'm still learning and figuring things out, and a pet peeve of mine is when people share things, you pray for them, and then you never hear an update.

So...

Thursday nite Daniel was working and i was processing :) I put on some good p&w to listen to before going to bed. I love listening to some good worship before going to sleep.

the first song that came on was JJ Heller's (one of my FAVES!!) Only Love Remains.



Tears. I just cried. I hope that this is where i'm at right now. it's what it feels like. I feel like i'm being torn apart and being broken into pieces. I'm asking that it's Father who is doing it. I hope He is allowing the fire to burn away everything that is not of worth. because then i know the only pieces that are left are from and for Him.  

I know that being stripped of everything familiar and comfortable brings me to a place of peace and contentment in my walk. It brings humility. it brings desparation.....

I was reading one of my fave devotional books, that i've been reading daily for about 3 1/2 years. it's called '31 Days of Praise.' It's def a constant part of my morning.

Anyways, there are daily reads and topic reads. Friday morning I read about the importance of praise. and it said that sin masquerades as our master, poses as an essential part of us, pretending to be our true nature, and concerned about what is best for us.

Wow.

I hate the enemy. he destroys, he lies, and we believe him. One of the worst feelings is when you suddenly realize the thoughts you've been having have been lies straight from the enemy. but they seemed so safe. or so 'right.' It seems only 'natural' to want was is best for you....

About a month ago there was an area i was really insecure about. but i thought it was normal and every woman dealt with it....which in my mind made it ok. i was reading a blog and several women were chiming in on the subject, and the point of the blog was to get away from this insecurity and be free.

seriously, a huge lightbulb went on for me. you mean i don't have to deal with this?? i can stop buying into these lies that are thrown at me daily??? simple, but hard.

my point being, that i need to be aware of how the enemy will sneak in. am i believing that i have a sense of entitlement about things around me...or a situation that i feel i deserve....?

I hope that i'm being torn into pieces and used. I long to be used, even if I don't see it or know it. I ask that Father is using me somehow in the lives of those around me. I know i won't know till later, but i want to be open and willing to being completely broken and torn apart if it means Father is receiving glory and others lives will be changed.

love

laura