Employed!!!

So... I got the job!!!!! :)

I now work at the Gateway Arch, on behalf of Photogenic Inc. I take pictures of the 3.5 million people who visit the arch every year. I am SO grateful to have a job that is fun and approximately 6 minutes door to door from my house. Amazing.

I had orientation this morning from 10-2. I came home for lunch and to see Todd for a bit before he left for work. In an hour, I'm gonna head over to the rec center, because tonight (and last night) we helped/are helping a non-profit org called Kingdom House with a program called Affordable Christmas. Using the gym at the rec, volunteers organize thousands of articles of clothing, toys, household goods and appliances, baby stuff, etc like a store. Locals can come in a pay a small amount per item and actually shop for their families for Christmas, rather than receiving a handout from a charity. It's really cool, but the "store" is open from 10am-6pm and when it closes, it looks like the Bargain Basement at Old Navy on Black Friday. Hot. Mess. So we're folding/organizing clothes. I secretly love it, because it's like doing laundry, only you don't have to put it into drawers/hang it in the closet.

I also have my 2nd to last Coke Zero event tonight at a SLU Basketball game... I hope it goes quickly because it's hella cold outside.

I'm also realizing that this whole having a job and keeping a house in order and cooking and being a puppy mom is going to be no joke. I'm going to HAVE to organize my time or I'm going to seriously run out of it! Speaking of that... I gotta finish the laundry. Holler.

Ketchup

So, I know I'm behind on posting now, but I still have time to catch up. :) It's been a busy few days!

On Sunday, Todd and I had an awesome day of relaxing together (we were both a little under the weather... Todd's recovering from bronchitis... and I have some kind of cough now, I don't know if it's from him or not...) anyway, Sunday night, we had a great night at August Gate worship service. We went to eat at Chava's (our fave Mexican joint) after church, and then drove out to Illinois to look at Christmas lights! Delicious and beautiful, respectively.

Monday, I spent a good chunk of the day at an amazing coffeeshop in Benton Park called The Mud House. I drank orange sencha green tea and worked on our upcoming newsletter. Later that night, we had an amazing time of fellowship at our very first August Gate covenant members "induction". We're officially at 14 members, with a few more to join this coming week. It was such an awesome time of encouragement and affirmation for all of us who have committed to this adventure. I look forward to many more of those meetings over the years!

And then today... I had a job interview! :) It's with a company called Photogenic Inc who's based out of Chicago, but they have branches in several other large cities with big landmarks (NY, DC, Boston, Chicago and now STL). They're the ones taking the pictures of families and couples in front of said landmarks. So they're JUST starting up at the arch in St Louis, and they're hiring photographers, supervisors and managers... and the group interview went really well, so we'll see!

After that, Todd and I went to buy ear candles and puppy things! Both very exciting. We bought Gotham a collar and tags with his lil name on it and some food and a toy football with a tug-of-war rope in it. Super cute. We could not be more excited for our pup to come home! We moved our pickup date so we can spend as much time with him as possible before Christmas. He gets his last shots tomorrow and he turns 6 weeks old tomorrow too! So, Sunday morning at 9:30am, we're going to pick him up! Can't wait!

Okay, I want to say more, but I'm so tired. I'll catch up soon.

www.jonahrocks.com

I promise you want to watch these.

This is definitely the coolest kid you will see all week.

If you haven't already, meet Jonah Rocks...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RffBbMN7Rw

He's 4. FOUR!!! He's not even in school yet!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieXjnfTumn8

I can't stop watching them. He's amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3wf0azrzcM

There's a ton more videos too... Here's the bio from his website:

Way back in 2008, at the age of 3, Jonah Rocks was lining up his Play-Doh cans to make a drum kit. He would sneak all the baby spoons from the cupboard, and use them as drumsticks. His daddy asked him if he wanted a real drum kit, and of course, Jonah said "YES!" Once he sat down behind that kit, and held that first pair of 7A's in his hands, he has never put them down, playing as much as he can, whenever he can. Jonah is completely self taught, never had a lesson, and if you've watched him play, you know he absolutely loves it.

I promise there'll be more substance to the blog in the coming days. But Jonah deserved a blog post all to himself.

Things I Love/Am Slightly Obsessed With Right Now...

• This commercial.

• This commercial.

• Fritos. Just regular kind. I know, I know. But I love them. I always have.

• Honey Bunches of Oats with soymilk.

• The color orange.

• Speaking of... my amazing new puffer jacket. Thanks, Mom & Dad.

• Orange Sencha Green Tea.

• Caramel Apple Cider.

• Glee. And probably The Sing-Off.

The Minutes of 12/10.

So yesterday was crazy.

What I Did...

• Woke up and told my husband "Happy 2 months!!!"
• Ate breakfast, got ready and loaded the car up with the broken trash can I keep forgetting to return to Bed Bath & Beyond.
• Drove with Todd to pick up our car from the shop. Praise the Lord for insurance.
• Picked up car with shiny new hood and paint job, parted ways with Todd at the shop and headed to BBB.
• Spent roughly an hour destroying the clearance section of curtains, hoping to be able to clothe my kitchen and living room windows for $4.95 a panel. Almost doesn't count.
• Hunted through the entire section for 2, non-existent "63 inch panels. At first I had a style and color in mind. I finally just went with whatever I could find.
• Also wound up buying 4 panels of chocolate brown blackout curtains for the living room, 2 tension rods, and a set of toys for Gotham.
• Ran out of gift cards and had to put $89.00 on my credit card. NOT good.
• Went home, made lunch for hubs, sent him to work and put up curtains. Discovered I only needed 2 panels for the living room.
• Gathered extra panels, an unused crock-pot (i'll buy another eventually) and an extra shower curtain, along with the packaging from everything I'd just bought and opened.
• Drove my butt back across town to BBB.
• Returned and rebought enough stuff to put all $89.00 back on my credit card AND receive $32.64 in store credit. Score.
• Contemplated buying a few poster frames to complete a few creative projects i've been pondering.
• Realized that I probably won't have time to finish them in the near future and so I shouldn't spend the money.
• Resisted the urge to go into Trader Joe's.
• Came home. admired curtains. Cleaned the living room and then headed to the kitchen to make the aforementioned baked potato soup that didn't happen the day before.
• Who knew freaking potatoes would be so frustrating. I didn't cook some of them long enough and ended up microwaving them while trying to brown onions and garlic without burning the butter and blah blah blah. Not a good experience.
• Finished the soup. Ate the soup while watching the Office. Was not impressed by the soup. Drowned it in bacon bits an sprinkle cheese.
• Cleaned the kitchen that I destroyed.
• Wrapped a couple of presents for Todd.
• Checked facebook, gmail, and university job sites. then facebook again.
• Spent some time organizing our 8000 wedding pictures until Todd got home.
• watched Late Night shows with Todd while editing our upcoming newsletter.
• Re-edited Christmas eve service invites and emailed them out.
• Photoshopped a picture of Buddy The Elf for our Rec Center Love event.
• Marveled at the fact that I've yet to watch Elf this year.
• Quit marveling and went to bed at 1:15am.
• Realized that I didn't write a blog.
• Realized that as long as I write 2 today, I'll still be caught up, staying on track (for the first time ever!) with my goal of blogging 31 times this month.

Slightly About Max.

First of all, why are there no Ranch Style Beans in St. Louis?

That is so weird to me.

Here I am trying to make chili because its freaking frigid outside and when I ask my husband to grab two cans of Ranch Style Beans, he looks at me all crazy.

"What's that? Like made with Ranch dressing?!"

*shakes head*

It is SO cold here today. It's been flurrying snow all day and the wind is unforgiving. As I said in my facebook status update earlier today, the wind is blowing like it got in a raging lover's spat with Chicago and stormed out in the middle of the night to terrorize the Gateway City. You can hear it wailing as it bashes around town, destroying all of Chicago's love letters, leaving little specks of white floating in the air. At least that's what popped in my head when it woke me up this morning. Our spare bedroom window is NOT properly sealed so it was freezing in there when I got out of bed today.*

*I've decided that the bed in the Spare Oom is more comfortable, so rather than moving it, we've been sleeping in there. We'll move everything around once we finish painting... which I hope to do before we pick up Gotham.

Speaking of Gotham, I actually had to tell my husband "No, we cannot afford two puppies right now!" multiple times today! Me! Saying no to puppies, can you believe it?! I can't. We made the mistake(?) of going by another animal shelter today and 10 seconds after walking in, Todd spotted this adorable, 4 month old, "mostly" housebroken, brindle, boxer/pit** mix.

**there are usually an overabundance of pits and pit mixes at the St. Louis rescue shelters because the breeds are a fave of many of the irresponsible, thuggish men in the area. I'm sure some come from grave circumstances, but many of the pits are pups who are rescued after the mother is abandoned and a lot of the mixes are also abandoned as pups. This one was from a guy who had a boxer that mated with a pit and he kept this particular puppy, but then decided he didn't have time for the little guy, so he surrendered him.

Anyway, Todd sort of fell in love at first sight. The pup's name is Maxwell (or just Max, though he looks and acts more like a Wild Thing). Actually, he was pretty well-behaved for a puppy, he's just VERY affectionate (tongue. flying. everywhere.) and really active. With a little time and some discipline, I'm sure he'll grow up to be a very sweet, well-behaved dog. The thing is, as I said yesterday, we can only afford one dog right now. And if/when we do get a second one, I don't particularly want a pit mix OR another male dog. That is a lot of large, boy puppy to have in my house.

But...

(those were like the 5 individual seconds where he was moving slow enough to be captured on camera)

But NO! Sweet, yes. Really cool-looking, yes. Cute, absolutely. But we've committed to Gotham first, and I will not have TWO little boys peeing on my floor and bashing around my house, chewing holes in my throw pillows.

Lord, give me strength.

It's getting colder by the minute. I'm off to make this.

Mostly About Gotham.

- So, two of my last three posts have mentioned force fields. This was completely unintentional.

- Two months ago, I was 91% sure I was done with the restaurant business.

So please tell me why I filled out 3 server applications today.

I haven't given up hope by any means, and I'm still applying for jobs at universities, but bills are still rolling in, not to mention we'll have a new car payment and a 3 month old furry "baby", come January. I need income.

-I just realized I've yet to mention the "baby" on the blog as of yet. :) Now's as good a time as any!

So, this is Gotham.

Our sweet, little, floppy boxer boy. I love him. Obviously.

He'll be 5 weeks old tomorrow, and the plan is for Todd and I to drive over to Illinois (we're getting him from a friend of Todd's) 4 days before Christmas and pick him up!

Right now, he's learning to eat puppy food and chewing on his brothers and sisters.

Here are some of them. (G's in the middle.)

And yes, I know that's him because of various markings. There are 3 black pups in his litter; one of them has a white spot on his nose and white socks on all 4 feet, one kind of has a conehead, and the other one-- is Gotham. :) He has a little toe sock on his front left foot. You can see it in the first pic.

Actually we looked at/played with the little one 4 socked one next to him too. Very cute.

But Gotham fell asleep in Todd's arms so he won. :)

We want two puppies, but one is the wisest choice right now. We're planning on the other one being a humane society adoption. (We actually already found one little 7 month old girl who we love, but she's not available yet.) But for now, we're just excited to be getting a dog! Todd's had and raised dogs his whole life and he's a good trainer, so apart from the trials of teething and potty training and general puppy mischievousness, we're hoping he'll turn out to be a good boy.

Actually, he doesn't have a choice if he's going to live here. He'll adjust. :)

More pics to come in the next few weeks! Can't wait to bring you home, lil Gothamboy.