Back on the West Coast!

It's official! I'm out of the east and back to the west. Everything seems a little bit better in CA. The people, the weather, the food, even the diet coke. I guess I've just been permanently homesick since college and now that there are no plans to go back to the east coast anytime soon, my mind, body and soul seem a little bit less torn. Nathan and I have been in the greater LA area for the past week and are headed up to Santa Rosa tomorrow. The trip has been pretty great! While any time you're on vacation brings some stresses, it's all worth it. We've gotten to spend tons of time with the nieces and nephews, who are about the cutest things ever, go to the temple and eat Jack in the Box tacos (Nathan's one requirement for this entire trip). Nathan still doesn't have orders for where we'll be after September, but at least I know for the next few months I'm going to be right here, living it up in CA.

Annapolis

Nathan and I had a wonderful weekend in Annapolis. We went down for a friend's wedding at the Academy and the Annual St. John's College vs. Naval Academy Croquet match. For those of you who don't know, Nathan went to the Academy and I went to St. John's, so all in all, it makes for a great time. The wedding was wonderful and Nathan had a chance to catch up with some old friends he hasn't seen since commissioning and it also gave us an amazing chance to enjoy the beautiful weather. While we didn't get a chance to go sailing like we planned, thanks to a scheduled regatta, we did get to spend more time with friends and have a wonderful weekend. Here are some pics.

Rainbows, Reading, Relocation and Rest

Yesterday was a good day. There were no significant events or accomplishments, just a nice day. Much of the day was partly consumed by my culinary delicacy of rainbow Jell-O. While it's definitely a little gross and more of a dessert for kids than Nathan and me, I craved it none the less and labored to create 12 perfect layers of Jell-O. During this time of Rainbow making, I picked up a book that I've read before and have wanted to read again, "The Poisonwood Bible". Sitting in my favorite corner of the couch I read for several hours, feeling any stresses of my life melt away as I escaped into the characters lives. After reading, I focused on relocating, my straight pins, that is. I never understood people who spent time making their own pin cushions. I couldn't see how it would ever be worth it to spend the time on something so incidental. My feelings have changed, as of late, due to my growing tired of pulling and poking pins from and into my generic tomato. Due to this change of heart, I made a flower pin cushion in order to give my pins a new home. At the end of the day when I was done with rainbows, reading and relocating, I laid down on the couch, stretched out and rested. It was a GREAT day!

My oh so flavorful rainbow jell-o

My favorite couch corner

Old

New

April showers bring...Aprons!

For the past month and a half I've been sewing a lot. A LOT! That being said, I've had little desire to complete the one project people were relying on me to do, the aprons for our easter house activity for Young Womens. I even finished my friend Danielle's Baby quilt completely, machine quilting and all (which I'm dying to post a picture of but should probably wait to give it to her first!), and she's not due for a few months. Last week I finally made a big step and made three out the eight left I needed and then last night, in true Amanda Procrastinating form I finished the last five, just in time for the activity this coming Tuesday. Like most things, once I actually worked on them I had a really fun time, especially since I had classic movies from my childhood like the Goonies on in the background. All in all, I'm happy with the result and am glad I could do a little something for my Young Women!

Three more months

After four months of thinking we'd be out of upstate NY in the beginning of May, we've been extended once again to the end of June. I've been so excited to have only one month left, but now it's three. While the time goes pretty quickly and I know it's not a huge deal, I'm kind of at the end of what I've got as far as patience goes. I'm so ready to move to a more permanent location, get a dog, a house, and hopefully a more stimulating job that this little delay seems huge. Oh, well, I have this sneaking suspicion that whether we're in the Navy or out there's a whole lot of uncertainty in life. At least it's beginning to look a lot like spring, despite the promises of another snow storm tomorrow, I'm almost done with my aprons I'm making and I've always got Nathan, even if I only get to see him for 20 minutes a day a lot of days. Despite this little set back, life's great and I'm still a happy girl. That's got to count for something, right?

Daylight Savings!!!!!!!

As hopefully all of you know, last night was the night we all lose an hour of sleep for daylight savings time. In the long run this is wonderful because the days last longer and everything seems a little bit better, but this morning I'm a little crabby about it. Unlike most cell phones, mine is not at all consistent as to when it will automatically change times with time zones, daylight savings etc., so Nathan pre set his alarm an hour ahead so it wouldn't matter. We went to bed way later than we should have already and when the alarm went of this morning it felt way too early, but I got up, got ready for church and went to get Nathan up, but he decided to sleep longer to prepare for his swing shift to midnight shift transition tomorrow. Still tired and running "late", I grabbed a breakfast bar, ran downstairs, hopped in the car, only to find that rather than reading an hour before I thought it was, my clock read two hours before it was supposed to. So, rather than be an hour early for church, I turned off the car, walked into the bedroom and a little bit crabbily informed Nathan of his mistake of setting the clock two hours behind(making just me get up an hour earlier than I needed to), to which he replied, "Huh, that's weird," and fell right back to sleep. Sometimes I'd go crazy if he wasn't so darn cute!

Wow I suck at blogging!

Seeing as how it's been over three months since I posted last and my backdrop was christmas themed until today. I think I can officially say I'm bad at blogging. Anyway, I guess I'll just give a little overview of what's happened recently. We're still in upstate New York and it's still cold. That much hasn't changed, but if all goes well, we'll be out of here in May and on to somewhere else (we're not sure where anymore!). I was able to take a trip to CA about a month ago and got to see my family, which was pretty wonderful. I miss everyone a lot and it's hard being so far away, especially from all the kids. Since I've been home I've been working on some sewing projects. It finally clicked that I could bring my sewing machine back to NY with me from CA, so that's what I did this last trip. It's been keeping me pretty busy and helping the winter to go by a bit quicker.
Fortunately Nathan and I have started to develop a little bit more of a social life. Last week we went to a Jimmy Eat World concert in NYC, Karaoke at a local bar, which I'm sure you can imagine was fun, but painful and I even got a chance to go skiing. I was a little bit nervous because I haven't been since high school, but thanks to my brother Jake being such a good teacher, I still remembered how and didn't have any trouble keeping up with the guys. All in all, things are going pretty well. We're having a great time being married, even if the circumstances aren't always ideal!

At the Jimmy Eat World concert. Not the cutest we've ever looked, but it's the only one we got.

My first completed quilt top.

The aprons I'm making for my YW that I copied from Jody and Jenny.

My first attempt at machine quilting. Thanks Jen Jen for the mini class in CA!!!