Now, on to the post.

One of the local thrift stores, The Open Door, has a weekly silent auction. It’s fun to look at what people are willing to bid on random things (like cookbooks from the ’80s and giant Barbie dolls), but Josh and I have never taken part before. Well, today we hit up The Open Door looking for something to go under the smaller window in our living room. (we have a black chair from IKEA by it, but it still needs…something)

While looking around we found a solid wood china cabinet up for auction. No one had bid on it, the starting bid was $20, and the auction ended today. Shocked that no one had bid on it, we decided to bid $30 in the hopes of scaring off other potential bidders. Our plan worked! (or they were deterred by the bad paint job and massive ammount of dirt and mildew) We went back at 3, when the auction ended, and a lady from our church was running the register. She kindly offered to let us borrow her husband’s truck, which I found hilarious and very sweet.

We got the cabinet home safely and into the kitchen. It has been scrubbed down with bleach water and will be primed tomorrow. We are planning to paint the exterior red and the interior white, mostly because we have the primer and white paint on hand already. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk Josh into getting red paint tomorrow!

Pics to come…

• I walked at December graduation, but didn’t graduate. It was no fault of anyone but myself, and I’m still kicking myself in the butt about it. I am finishing my degree this summer, thanks to my amazing adviser and the dean of the school of science.
• I got married! (will do a more in-depth post including pictures later this week)
• Josh and I went on an amazing honeymoon cruise (see note in parenthesis above)
• Before school ended, Josh was offered the pastorate of a small church outside of Waynesville, NC. We moved in the second week of January. I saw more snow in the first week here than in the past two winters in Clemson. (six times in one week!) I love the people at our church, and I can’t think of a better place for Josh and I to start our ministry together. The parsonage is literally attached to the church, which is interesting. (pictures to come)
• I have applied to a gazillion jobs. Yes, a gazillion. I have heard back from 10, all negative. I’ve been really struggling with this and not doing so well at trusting that God will provide.
• Josh and I went down to SWU for the spring musical. AMAZING! It made me miss Melanie, my SWUdad, and Charlotte so much. The cast and crew did an incredable job, it completely blew me away.
• We adopted an adorable cocker spaniel mix puppy from the local shelter and named him Nigel. Sorry the picture is blurry – you try to take clear pictures of a two month old puppy. See? Not that easy, is it?

Nigel looking around the home office the day we brought him home

• We joined the Haywood county community choir, and it’s been a blast! The concert is this Sunday, so I should probably go practice…
• I’m turning into a UNC basketball fan. Josh is concerned by how much I yell at the tv when a certain player is not on, yet still shoot 3s and keeps missing. Thankfully that certain player was having a good night when they won the championship.
• I was talking to the clarinetist for our community choir concert and found out that there is also a community band, and the clarinetist has an alto clarinet he’s willing to loan me, since Em has my bass. I’m going to practice Thursday to look at the music and meet the members.

That’s all I can think of at the moment, plus I need to go do dishes. (Santa, if you’re reading this, could you please bring me a dishwasher for Christmas? kthx.) I should probably do something productive after that, too. I am way to ADD to be a housewife.

What I’m thankful for (in no particular order):

• a beautiful God
• my dad
• my mom
• my sister
• Josh, the love of my life
• an amazingly wonderful, huge, loving extended family
• the Tietjes (and Meagan!)
• my apartment mates – Jess, Kristen, and Kindel
• my girls
• sales on gluten free items
• any sale, really
• SWU
• that perfect pair of jeans
• cornbread and pinto beans/squash casserole/fried okra/fried turkey/turnip greens/southern cooking in general
• sweet tea
• every day
• being diagnosed with Dermatitis Herpetiformis
• being healthier
• ADD medication
• TNT, USA, Food Network, TLC, and Jerry Bruckheimer
• the numerous people who have been spiritual mentors to me
• everyone helping with my wedding (thanks for keeping me sane!)
• my back-room coworkers in admissions
• google (do I really have to link that one?)
• the people I have “met” by stalking them on google reader – there are so many amazing people out there who take the time to write powerful, thought-provoking posts, thousands of recipes, and find the best deals out there
• growing up in a home where books and playing outside was emphasized
• books
• amazing authors
• fantasy
• fiction
• noticing a theme?
• knowing all of my grandparents and two sets of great-grandparents
• summers spent on the farm in Alabama
• Christmas Eve church service
• Advent devotions
• family traditions
• color
• cameras
• fun decorations
• my adoptive parents
• ethnic food
• the chance to travel
• girls’ night in/out
• movie marathons

…and much, much more.

I did the same thing when I was watching an episode of Law and Order: CI and the murder victom suffered from Gaucher’s disease, which my fiance Josh has.

It’s a dreary day outside. The kind where it’s overcast and it wouldn’t be as bad if it would just rain. Sadly there is no rain, just wind. Days like this make me want to curl up in the big chair in my parent’s living room and read a good, long book. Like Twilight. I did want to re-read that again before the movie comes out. I find it rather humorous that mine and Josh’s book collection will contain religion books (his major, my minor), psychology books (my major), and my fantasy/crime drama/mystery fiction.

A while ago I mentioned that I should do a blog listing all the gluten free blogs I read. I read an average of about three posts a day from all these sites combined, and usually at least two of the posts are recipes. The amount of posting isn’t overwhelming, and I’ve favorited enough recipes to publish a book (which I wouldn’t do other than for personal use, as most of the recipes are developed by the bloggers or variations on recipes that are already published). Some of these blogs also cover casein, soy, and egg intolerance as well. At least one is vegetarian, and one or two cover kosher food with special posts about Holiday foods.

Here’s the list of blogs:

• Gluten-Free Bay
• A Year of CrockPotting
• Mrs. GF – Recipes for a Gluten Free Life
• Aprovechar
• Gluten Free Mommy
• Gluten-Free Girl
• Karina’s Kitchen – Recipes from a Gluten-Free Goddess
• Book of Yum
• Gluten A Go Go
• Delightfully Gluten Free (Cassandra just had a beautiful little girl!)
• Ginger Lemon Girl
• Gluten Free Gobsmacked
• Gluten Free in Georgia (and Florida)
• Gluten Free Sox Fan
• Gluten Free Heaven
• Gluten Free in South Africa
• I’m Gluten Free, Baby
• I Am Gluten Free
• kill.the.gluten (where I found my favorite pizza recipe!)
• Rachel’s Recipe Box
• The Gluti Girls (mother and daughter)
• Gluten Free Steve
• A Gluten Free Guide
• Gluten Free Day
• Elana’s Pantry
• Hey, that tastes good!
• Gluten Free Frugal

I didn’t list the ones that haven’t been updated in months. I have them on my reader so I can easily access all their posts and search for recipes.

I’m feeling more awake now, thanks to my ABBA channel on pandora. Don’t judge me. You can’t help but smile when listening to their songs.

Today will focus on my new favorite shopping tool, my google reader, and my new favorite jewelry site.

First off, Kaboodle.

From the website: With Kaboodle, you can collect information from anywhere on the web, put it into a Kaboodle list that you can share with others, and discover other interesting lists from like-minded Kaboodlers. You can also invite your friends to Kaboodle, where you can help one another with research, planning, or decisions on what to buy.

I like it mainy because it keeps my favorites folder from exploding. I used to have a wish list sub-folder, but it was MASSIVE. With Kaboodle, I can organize things into pre-made folders such as wish list, home and garden, style and fashion, if I had a million dollars, gadgets and gizmos, and gift ideas. Plus, if someone asks me what I want for my birthday/Christmas/whatever, I can send them a link to my wishlist.

Ah, my google reader.

I’ve blogged about my love for it before, but that was before I truely uderstood it’s greatness. The folders I currently have blogs under are advice, bloggity-blogs (people’s personal blogs), crafty, gluten free, wedding, eye candy, and humor. Obviously, some are more temporary (wedding), while others I can’t imagine not having (gluten free, humor). Some are more for inspiration and drooling purposes (crafty, eye candy). Here are some blogs I read:

Crafty: SC Etsy Street Team

Gluten free: I can’t choose even a handful of these to list. The last time I counted, I subscribe to over 30 recipe blogs. Maybe I’ll do a post listing all of them soon.

Eye candy: Apartment Therapy, Unplugged, Re-Nest, Daily Dose from Domino Magazine

Humor: Cake Wrecks, The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks, Apostrophism

My new jewelry love

Lulu’s also has clothing, shoes, and accesories. I’m feeling a store dedicated Kaboodle folder coming in the near future…

Cake Wrecks: when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks

Trust me, you’ll laugh.

On the wedding front (now it’s a battle?), things are starting to really fall into place, to the point where I am feeling calmer about it all. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still stressed, but not as bad.

This weekend has been a huge God moment for Josh and myself. Saturday night contained confrontation, forgiveness, a lot of prayer, and more than enough tears. Tom preached this morning at FWC/Alive about The Road Less Traveled: When Dreams Break. The scripture was 1 Samuel 21 and 22, where David, by trying to take control of the situation instead of leaving it up to God, caused the death of many innocent people. Here’s a link to the passages online. Tom listed off things that we do when we try to take control, one of which hit pretty close to home. Josh and I spent most of the sermon looking at each other and laughing; Josh made the comment that Tom might as well have been standing right in front of us. It was very obvious what God was saying, and we listened. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek God’s direction for us, and that we will not allow things to return to the way they were.