My Lovey Dovey Love Story

In honor of Valentines Day, I want to share my love story with my Husband of 4 and a half years. So, if you are ready for a little kiddy roller coaster, here we go... WEEEEEE!!!

Back in March of 2010, I was a lowly college student. I was in my second semester of College. I had just gotten my first job at a Day care. I loved my job and, turns out, I loved it so much that I changed my major shortly after I started it. Anyways, I was happy. I was just living my life and content.

Then, one Sunday, as I sang in the Choir at my church, I looked out at the congregation (as I did all the time) and spotted this tall, skinny guy in his NSU Navy uniform. Of course I saw him from far away, but I thought even from far away that he was pretty cute and I wanted to meet him. So, church went on and I kept thinking in the back of my head "Man, I hope I get to meet this guy" (Yeah, I know. I should have been focusing on Jesus. Judge me now.) After church was over, I casually made my way over to him and introduced myself. Turns out, he was fresh out of Boot Camp, had just been granted special liberty to leave base, and was recommended this church by his Pastor back home. We talked a while and then had to part ways because he needed to get back to base and I had friends wanting me to go out to eat.

A few weeks later he came back to church. After church, he found me and made some sweet small talk. We invited him to go out to eat with us and he graciously accepted. I drove him because the poor guy didn't have his truck (it was stuck back at his parents house in VA). Our food at the restaurant ended up being late and we had to hurry up to get him back to base by curfew. Turns out he was a few minutes late, but right before he got out of the car, he said "Hey, can I get your number? So that I can text you and make sure you get home alright." HOW CUTE! (Insert little teenage girl squeal here). About 30 minutes later, I got a sweet text from him telling me how thankful he was for the ride, and making sure I got home alright. He was the sweetest thing.

Short story, this went on for a few months until he went home on Memorial Day Weekend to get his truck. When he got his truck back, I guess he didn't need me for rides anymore ( to the mall, church, hangouts) so he kind of stopped talking to me (I know, jerk right?!) I tried to not let it bother me. I guess we never were a thing, but I did have a major crush on him. I thought he knew that, but then again, maybe he didn't. About 3 months went by and I hardly heard from him. Since we were Facebook friends though, I had seen that he found himself another girlfriend (Knife to the chest) and seemed to be very happy with her.

In the meantime, I just kept on keepin' on. School, work, and church. One Sunday, I came into the Sunday School room I was working in. One of the ladies in there saw me come in, and lit up. She said she had something to tell me. She told me that she had a dream about me. She said that she had a dream that it was my wedding day. She said I looked beautiful (ego boost, right?!). My immediate thought was "WHO DID I MARRY!? I asked her, and she said " Oh, I don't know. I didn't recognize him. All I know was that he was tall, dark and Handsome. And he had a good stable job to provide for you". My immediate thought was to John. I knew he was tall, had dark hair and was handsome. I also knew he was in the military and that is a stable job. I had to be kidding myself though. He had a girlfriend. Ugh. All the thoughts. I put the dream to the back of my mind and had to move on. I had too much going on, with finals coming up.

about 2 months later, my birthday was right around the corner. Sunday was the day before my birthday and all my friends had already told me they wanted to take me out after church for my birthday. During church, I noticed someone who looked like John in the back of the church. "That couldn't be him", I thought. "He hasn't been to church in a long time. I thought he was long gone by now." Turns out it WAS him. I planned on talking to him after church. Maybe invite him to go out with all my friends for my birthday. After church, I casually went over to him and welcomed him back to church.

John accepted our invitation and went out with us to Buffalo Wild Wings. He ended up sitting next to me (SSQEEE!!....Teenage girl squeal) and he ended up insisting on paying for my dinner. During our conversations I casually added, "Oh and How is your Girlfriend?" I hoped he would say he hated her and he was breaking up with her. Unfortunately, he said she was good. They were good. (in my mind: Dang it!...But at least he didn't sound smitten saying those words. I wasn't convinced he was happy). When dinner was over, He said he owed me for taking him so many places, being so nice to him and he said no one should have to pay for their meal on their birthday. Mixed signals, right? GRR.

About two minutes before midnight, John calls me to tell me happy birthday. He said he wanted to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday. Then two minutes later he sends me a text. The sweetest happy birthday text. (Geez, this guy is killin' me!)

The next week he asks me to hang out. Here's what happened. We end up driving an hour to find somewhere to play pool that wasn't in a nasty bar. We then gave up, got Sonic and went back to my house. He insists on paying for the food (Hmmm, this isn't a date, right? I couldn't be on a date with someone else's boyfriend?). Any who, we go back to my house and we watch this movie about the coast guard. It wasn't my thing, but he seemed to enjoy it. We sat on opposite ends of the couch, like good kids. HA! He ended up telling me that he hadn't talked to his GF in about two weeks and that he was going to break up with her. "Oh, I'm sorry. I hate it didn't work out for you two", I said ("YAY! Oh, heck yes. Its about time he broke up with that dang girl. I knew he wasn't happy.").

The next few weeks we hung out almost every night. He would comer over after he got off work (which was usually very late) and we would sit on the couch and watch various movies. Our conversation would usually go like this:
Me: What do you want to watch tonight, John?
John: Oh I don't care. Its up to you (He was such a gentleman).
Me: Okay!! How about Rent or Sound of Music, or Phantom of the Opera, or The Notebook? ( Yes, I made him watch all of these. I knew this "we can watch whatever you want to, baby" phase was not going to last long, so I had to get all the good ones in! Ha!
John: sure, whatever you want to watch, baby.

Eventually I stopped torturing him and asked if he liked That 70's Show. He said he did so that's what we watched for the next few months. Each night when he came over, we watched 3 or 4 episodes of that show. There were 8 seasons worth so it took a long time to get through them all! But that's what we tell people now. We fell in love watching That 70's Show.

By March, I was convinced we would get married, but I just didn't know when. I never pictured myself being one of those people that had a wonderful, long, drawn-out engagement. Late march, we had planned a trip to Jacksonville together. We were going to visit my sister there. Sophia (her daughter) was turning 2 at the time and we were going there for her party. We went down on Thursday evening, had Friday to explore Jacksonville, and Saturday morning was the party. Poor John kind of acted funny all day and I didn't know why. I wasn't worried or anything, just didn't seem normal. After the party, John wanted to check out to the beach so off we went. He took a different way than I told him to (typical guy) and it ended up taking us longer than it should have to get there. We went through some fancy hotel to get to the water ( I had some fascination with fancy hotels). I kept wanting to go outside to see the water, but he insisted on staying inside for just a few more minutes. Right then, he took my hand.
John: I'm going to need you to take off this ring for a minute ( I was wearing a birthstone ring on my left ring finger)
Me: (FREAKING OUT) um sure. Why?
Then John proceeded to say some mushy stuff that is just embarrassing and asked me to marry him. OF COURSE, I said yes!
He put a beautiful ring on my finger that belonged to his mother. It's been there ever since. Its such a beautiful ring =)

Turns out, the reason why he wanted to stay in the hotel, was because Michelle, my sister, was hiding and was taking pictures of the whole thing! Such a sneak. That's also why we took a longer way. It gave Michelle and everyone else, time to load up and get to the beach before us. We went a few blocks up and met everyone (my parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece) for some celebratory pizza.

We spent the rest of spring and summer engaged and got married on September 10, 2011. It was a beautiful day =)

My sweet sister made this for me about a year after we got married. I have a small print of it in the house, but I think I am going to get a large one done, too =) 

One of my favorite pictures from our Wedding Day =) 

A favorite from our first trip to DC together!

This was the day before John deployed. I was 12 weeks prego and had no idea when he would be home. 

This is the first picture we had together as a family of three! Taken about 12 hours after Eleanor was born. Makes me get emotional every time I see it. 

And because we are still all kids at heart, this is us riding Go Karts on our 4 year anniversary. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentines Day! And I just want to say, you don't NEED your significant other around to have a good Valentines Day. I have spent three of the six Valentines Day's alone because of Johns work schedule. It used to really bother me, but all in all, its just a day. A day that has been over commercialized (like all the other ones), to get people to buy cards, candy and presents. Valentines Day should be spent with people you love. Your friends. Your family. Your kids. Your Fur-babies. Love them all! 

Book Case Tutorial

I'M BBACKKK!!

I took (more than a few) months off from this blogging thing and I think I am ready to get back to it. But before we get back to ME blogging, my husband has been begging me to post this little Gem. A few weeks ago he made a project and then wanted the "Pinterest world" to see it. And since this is the easiest place to post it......Here is my Husband with his first "Guest Blog". Enjoy, Ladies and Gents! 

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A couple of days before the New Year I did what I said I would never do and created a Pinterest account.  So just like any guy in that situation I immediately questioned my manhood and wondered if I should turn in my mancard.  I began to “pin” things to my “board” like DIY projects and workbench ideas for when I have a garage. After all of this “pinning” I needed to get back to being a man. So after careful consideration, I decided to go to Lowe's and buy some new power tools to reestablish my manliness.  I had plenty of gift cards from Christmas so I got a new four piece Proctor and Gamble 20V set with a circular saw, rotary saw, drill and light. 

Now that I had the tools I needed to build something, which would further reestablish my mancard.  After looking on Pinterest for some time I couldn’t decide what to build and then my wonderful wife came up with the idea for a bookcase for Lil E our amazing little girl who loves to read.  So I turned back to Pinterest to find a DIY kids bookshelf, let me tell ya there are a lot of ideas out there, but none of them on the small scale that we were looking for.  

After hours of scouring “pins” I gave up and decided to come up with my own design, and like most of the time I came up with something more complicated than what we needed.  It was then that Melissa came across a picture that was focusing on some wallpaper or design, but she noticed a small bookshelf/holder at the bottom of the picture and sent it to me on Pinterest. I decided to work on that one as it would be simpler.

(Note from Melissa): The website (as cute as it is) didn't specify (as far as I could tell) where the book case came from so John drew up some "blueprints".

  Just bear with me as this is my first DIY type of post, so now here we go with the DIY portion of this guest blog appearance. 

Supplies:

(4) boards 21/32” thick x 16” wide x 36” long that will be cut to :

·         (1) 7”H x 24”W (front)

·         (1) 10 ½ “H x 24”W (middle)

·         (1) 14”H x 24”W (back)

·         (2) 14”H x 10 ½ “W (sides) (these will actually be 14” in the back and 7” in the front)

·         (1) 25 ¼ “L x 10 5/8 “ W (bottom)

(1) box of 1 ½ “  finishing nails

Wood Glue

Wood Filler

Nail punch

Paint (any color you want) we used True Red for the letters and we got some pre-mixed white paint that was on sale for the bookshelf/holder itself

Paintbrush

Hammer

Putty knife

Circular Saw

5” Letters that Melissa got from Hobby Lobby

Drop cloth for painting

Straight edge for making straight lines and cuts

And 1 sleeping baby (for those of you that don’t have a dedicated garage for this type of work)

First we start off measuring the sides as these will require the most cuts and time:

Make your first measurement at 10 ½ “ from the edge of the first board, this will be point (A).  The picture shows 10 5/8 and that is because I added in the width of my circular saw blade.  

Next from point A measure up to 7” and make a mark, this will be point (B).

Now grab your straight edge and make a line from point A to point B.

Your next mark will be made at 14” along the main edge of the board (don’t forget to add in the width of your saw blade) and this will be point (C).

Next measure out 5/8” from the edge at point (C), this will be point (D).

Get your straight edge and draw a line from point (C) to point (D).

Use your straight edge again and draw a line from point (D) to point (B).

Repeat the steps to measure out the other side of the bookshelf.

The rest of the measurements are pretty straight forward just remember to measure twice and cut once. 

Once you have everything measured out it is time to cut.  Since I don’t have a garage or a dedicated cutting table I had to improvise and cut up some old fence pieces and make an area I could cut on.  I used my straight edge along with some clamps to hold it in place to make sure the cuts were as straight as possible. 

.  (Pic 6 is the sides, front, middle and back) (pic 7 is the bottom).

Now that you have things cut out and ready to assemble you have two options:

# 1 paint the inside part of each of the parts and let them dry before proceeding or

# 2 put it together and paint it all afterwards

I suggest painting the inside parts before you put it together (this is the voice of experience talking as I did # 2 and it makes for a messy situation)…….

….Now that you have decided what method to do lets proceed with the assembly of the bookshelf

During this process you will be using the glue on each piece to make each connection more solid and permanent.

Start by lining up the back panel on the inside of any side piece you want and nail them together using 2 to 3 finishing nails. Next nail the front panel on the same side piece, 2 finishing nails should be enough.  Now line up the opposite side piece and glue and nail that piece on.

Now that the frame is together, we will add the bottom to the bookshelf. Since the sides are cut at an angle I placed the shorter side on my knees to keep it level while nailing in the bottom.  I only used 10 nails along with the wood glue for the bottom.

The bookcase now looks this.

Now you are ready to place the middle piece into the bookshelf.  I placed the middle divider directly in the middle so you will need to use your measuring tape and find the center of your box.

At this point you can still see all the nails on the side of your bookshelf and that is a nasty site even after paint goes over it so break out your nail punch and get ready to hide those nails.

Place the nail punch on top of the nails and tap the nail punch with the hammer until the nails are below the surface of the wood.  Take your wood filler and your putty knife and fill in the holes

Once the holes are filled and the wood filler dries take some sandpaper and smooth out the filler. Now the holes and nails will not be visible when the bookshelf is painted.  Now you are ready to paint the bookshelf and the letters that go with it.  Depending on the color of paint you get you may only need one coat of paint, however, I suggest putting at least two coats for a better look.

Once the letters and bookshelf are dried, lay out the letters to get proper placement and glue

Let the letters dry and insert books and you are complete

Hope you enjoyed. Pray your family has a Blessed New Year.
John

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There you go, folks. Just 456,453 easy steps to your brand new book case! Basically, I don't understand anything that just happened, I just inserted the pictures. HA! But hopefully some of you building savvy people will understand. Happy building, everyone!