Blessings from Heaven

I was coming home from my run this morning when the heavens, quite literally, poured blessings down on me. Maybe "chucked" blessings would be a better word.

In any case, I had just ran across the main road near our home, dodging a big white truck when I heard the distinct noise of lots of crap getting thrown into the streets. Living in a neighborhood where the residents normally fling whatever trash they have from their passing car or as they peddle their bike, I was at first super crazy ticked. I have spent A LOT of time picking up trash in the street and on the sidewalk near our house. I hate people who litter intensely. Almost as much as I hate the person that leaves the coupons in my mailbox, but that is an entirely different post.

So I turn around to see boxes of Special K snack bars in the road. My eyes then turned to the truck speeding off and the large crate of similar boxes. The guy had no idea that he had lost boxes. As usual when I see stuff in the road, I scurried to pick it all up before the next wave of traffic hit. Another man with a buzzed head and few missing teeth was also running towards the mess to help me in my efforts.

"He has no idea he's lost these!" he declared.

"And he wont know until he's gotten to wherever he's going," I started.

We both paused, our loot at our feet as we stood on the sidewalk.

"Wanna split them?" I said said with a smile.

Needless to say, he was all about my idea and we both parted with grins the size of footballs, though one was noticeably less toothy than the other.

Now James I are are pretty dang poor at the moment (see earlier post) and have actually had a hard time affording any groceries after our bills have been paid. It looks like I have a full time job starting in January (more on that to come) with a salary and benefits, so this is certainly temporary, but I have to admit, we've struggled to make ends meet and put food in our bellies. Seriously, this was such a huge blessing!

As you well know, James and I live in the ghetto. While I would normally look at food strewn across the street as something to avoid, I actually watched the boxes fly from their crates in the back of this truck and watched them fly across the street. It's like it was timed perfectly so that I would pass the exact right spot at the exact right moment. It's like the heavens tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Hey, want a snack?"

I haven't been home 30 minutes and James has eaten two bars already.

Sick

At home sick, ding the following activities:

1. Knitting James a tie for Christmas. He never reads this, so I'm not worried about spoiling the surprise here. What'll probably spoil the surprise is that we live in a 600 square foot apartment. It's hard to keep secrets. And, by the way, the tie is amazing. Looks a lot like this:

2. Popping Zicam every three hours.

3. Watching every episode on hulu.com of Modern Family, The Office, 30 Rock, and Community. I'm so grateful we don't actually have TV. I'd get nothing done.

4. Not writing my Master's Thesis and not trying to figure out standard deviation for my data therein.

5. Trying unsuccessfully to not eat all the super cheap Halloween candy we bought for trick-or-treaters.

Other than being sick and stressed (see number 4) life is pretty dang great. James is absolutely lovely. He really is. I never wanted to be that cheesy blogger who is like "My hubby is so amazing blah blah blah my life is so great blah blah blah my kids are so cute blah blah blah" so I guess that's why I haven't written lately. Because my hubby really is great. And it makes my life pretty great, despite stress and a totally blown immune system. Being sick isn't so bad when you've got someone who wakes up with you every time you do in the night trying to make you more comfortable and gets you medicine or tea or whatever, even though he has an 11 hour work day waiting for him when he wakes up and then visits with the elder's quorum presidency. He's adorable. But I'll stop now.

I have been knitting up a storm. I just learned and have been making pretty rad stuff. I'll post pictures soon (or not soon, let's be honest). We're pretty poor right now until I start making $ after my master's and student teaching stuff is done. So we're making our Christmas presents. We don't want to give crappy cheap gifts (what we can afford) so we're going to make stuff. And while the recipient might find them "crappy," homemade crap always trumps store-bought crap. No contest.

We're living on love and James' intern salary. He's a school psychology intern at a school here in Mesa. He is basically the school psych there, but gets paid like a 16-year-old working a summer job at Baskin Robbins. He'll finish his doctorate in May (ish). I'm finishing student teaching and my thesis (in theory...). I'll graduate with my masters December 16th from ASU. I've heard it said that a diploma from ASU is like monopoly money. So there you go.

Happy October!

Amen, Brother

http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/08/07/jackson.same.sex.marriage/index.html?hpt=C2

How grateful I am for voices like this in the midst of the nasty voices so prevalent these days.

And I'm back...

I've been a little MIA as of late. A lot has happened. I got married and then started some crazy rigorous masters classes. It's been a little nuts. But luckily I married a guy who can handle my kind of crazy.

So here's the full update on everything:

This is the man that made it all happen.

Friday April 30th was the day before the wedding and that evening we had the groom's dinner. There were so many important people there.

The amazing Nicki Preece and Megan Boud. I'd fight flood waters for you guys any day.

The most magnificent and talented Nicki Schmidt (who made my BOMB anouncements), Jessica Leilani Harris (who taught me how to wear makeup and can make my retarded eyebrows look fabulous), and Holly Hansen (who is the only person who ever rock climbs with me anymore).

I love Sheryl. She came a really long way to see me. And all because I was clever and made her promise years ago while we were driving across the country that she would be at my wedding and dance at my wedding reception. She came through o all counts. Dancing like Michael Jackson at the wedding. Watch the video and experience the magic.

May 1st

Then we got married. And I don't really have pics yet. But James' AMAZING friend Rob made this incredible video capturing everything in about 7 minutes or so.

The Honeymoon--Carmel and San Fransisco

Us at the beach in Carmel, the lovliest little place.

Alcatraz

Alcatraz again. And I'm actually wearing James' pants. I sort of had a lot on my plate before the honeymoon and wasn't totally smart when packing. I didn't bring anything but a couple pairs of shorts and a dress even though it was super freezing. So the morning we were getting ready for alcatraz, I was despairing until I noticed James getting dressed.

"Hey babe, you're not going to wear your black pants today, right?"

The picture doesn't do them justice. I folded the bottoms up and they were adorable on me. We have magical traveling pants that miraculously fit us both.

James took me to see Wicked (my 4th time and his 1st) and it was MAGICAL

The end of the Honeymoon

So I accidently hurt my husband when we were packing the car up at the airport in Phoenix coming back from the honeymoon. I closed the hatchback of my Mazda3 on his head. Yeah. Lots of blood. Pouring down his face. I was freaking out, tearing through my luggage looking for anything to stop the bleeding.

Since he refused to use my dress to sop up the blood, I was forced to frantically flag down one of those economy parking buses--you know those buses that don't stop for anyone unless you are at one of the designated stops. Well, turns out they stop if you run in front of it flailing your arms. Just so you know.

The driver reluctantly opened the doors (as I must have looked insane--I was a little upset thinking I had killed my very new husband) and I ran in and started explaining what happened and that I needed a first aid kit or something. At this point everyone on the bus looked at me and then turned their gazes to James who was at this time, lying back on the VW bug parked next to us, blood running down his face, and then back to me. A man from the back came up to help me as the driver spoke very little english.

"So what exactly happened?" he asked

I answered like a blubbering idiot mumbling something like "honeymoon...hatchback...didn't mean to.." while he nodded understandingly, like this was something that happens to everyone. He then calmly asked the driver for a first aid kit. Once the driver located it, he handed me 2 knuckle band aids. I pushed him out of the way and grabbed the entire stock of gauze and ran out of the bus to aid my wounded husband.

We jumped in the car and I was sure that James would need stitches so he called his dad (a doctor) and told him that he'd been hurt. Naturally his parents were concerned. Luckily the bleeding stopped and when we got home, I was carefully cleaning up the blood caked in James' hair searching for the actual gash.

While I expected something grander, the gash was about 1-2 mm in length. So it really wasn't a big deal at all.

But the next day, we went to his parents and they wanted to know what happend. So i confessed to having been the culprit.

At his big family reunion in CA this weekend, people would come up to me and ask to tell the story when I almost killed James.

Basically, we're off to an awesome start.

Whoa

I am getting married in approx 63 hours. Insane.

Super Sunday

I can't seem to decide what was the best part of yesterday.

It started out a little rough as I awoke to realize that the entire order of pasta from Cheesecake factory the night before was still in my stomach. But then James and I went to our soon-to-be new ward and it was lovely. Very diverse ward in both age and ethnicity and we're super excited. And so is the bishop. He pretty ran up to us right after the meeting and when we said we're new he gave a relieved smile and basically told us that he had prayed us there. Very nice experience.

But then we had peach cobbler for dessert WITH ice cream. Suddenly the title for "highlight of Erin's Sunday" was up for debate. Peach cobbler and ice cream basically has the ability to turn any day into the best day of my life.

And then I made some really rockin individual serving freezer lasagna for James and I felt pretty dang amazing for being so Betty Crocker. And it is super healthy lasagna--whole wheat pasta, super lean turkey, soy cheese, skin ricotta. I was feeling pretty dang amazing after that proving that I have a domestic side and that I can cook delicious healthy food (my confidence was a little shaken after a bad experience with some tofu pasta--don't ask).

Sounds like my day was pretty fantastic up to this point. Can it get better you ask? It did. Watching my mom laugh so hard she cried while watching Albi the Racist Dragon.

Our bomb photographer

We just got our engagements done and our photographer is AMAZING. Before viewing our photos, you should first understand that James is finishing his doctorate in psychology and is obsessed with his record collection. Also, I apparently cannot ride a bike very well. The pics will make more sense now.

It was so fun too. So let me know what you think of them!

Isn't James adorable? And isn't his hair ridiculously amazing? Oh, it is. Trust me.

I finally got a ring. And sorry to sound so cheesy, but I have the best fiance. Ever.

Honesty may or not be the best policy

You can always trust an Israeli to tell you exactly what they are thinking. As Americans, we think awful things about people, we say awful things about people (behind their back, of course), but we would never ever say exactly what we thought, right when we thought it, and right to the person's face who we thought it about. We think that would be rude.

But other people, thank heaven, are different from Americans. Other people like my Israeli friends Dina and Eli, an older couple who run a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. We've been good friends for a few years now. I've even cleaned their house in exchange for humus and pita.

Today I went in to share the news of my engagement. I walk in am greeted by Eli who forgoes "hello"entirely and expressionlessly says "You lost some weight."

"Yeah, I lost a little weight. So anyways (flash ring), I'm engaged!"

"You lost weight," Eli repeats in accented English.

By this time, Dina had come out from the kitchen, takes one look at me and says, "You lost weight. And in all the wrong places too."

She then told me that I need to eat more machacha so I can get my chi-chi's back.

By popular demand

and an influx of questions, I have decided to shed a little more light on the last post. I kind of sprung it on all you folks, but trust me--it sprung up on me too.

And yes, it's for real. On May 1st I am going to marry the man I love in the Mesa, AZ temple. I am completely and utterly thrilled. I'm also about 99% sure I am the world most annoying roommate right now. My happiness is absolutely disgusting. I fully admit it. And really cheesy things have been escaping my lips as of late. And I'm becoming something that sort of resembles "tender" and "sweet." It's very very weird and my family is still in shock from the transformation. What's weirder still is that it feels so natural to be so cheesy now. Creepy, huh?

So this is James Clayton Reeder (and me, of course).

And I love him. I am absolutely in love with this guy. He's 30, from Mesa, went to BYU for his undergrad and is in his last year of his doctoral program in clinical psychology. And yes, sometimes I AM afraid he is going to psychoanalyze me. He's incredibly kind, incredibly smart and very genuine. In fact, at first, I wasn't sure I could date him because he had no "jerk" in him at all. I found myself in completely new territory and basically didn't know what to do with him. I met him in my singles' ward and my dad met him first (temple recommend interview) and yes, he approves. In fact, a couple weeks ago he basically told me to "not blow it" with James.

And yes, things happened a little fast. A lot faster than the next three months is going to feel. Of that I am sure.

So I'm engaged

I know. I stop posting for a little bit and look what happens.