Proof of Life

No need to alert the media. 
All is well on the home front.
It'll be alright.

The last few days have been cray cray and I'm got so much to talk about, but today isn't gonna be the day for that sort of thing.  But trust me, I've got good things coming!

Until then, the pic below pretty much sums up what we've all been looking forward to since getting off the plane last week...

Foolishness #blogtober14

I have a pretty high tolerance for which I can embarrass myself for the sake of a good laugh!  For whatever reason... Matt is most embarrassed by my shenanigans! 

This face always get's a head shake and eye roll from Matt.  You can feel sorry for him, it's cool!

Someone is not impressed with their hat.  And it's not me!

I'll do just about anything to embarrass Maggie.  Even steal kisses.

I mean it's a Dale Earnhardt car.  It's a given.

Another classic.  Just look at poor Matt!  Ha!

Surely, I'm not the only spouse who does ornery things just to poke the one they love?

 

Linking up with Helene and Taylor.

Happy Happy Happy #blogtober14

There are many things in the this world that makes me as "Happy, Happy, Happy" as Duck Commander patriarch Phil Robertson...

Bella

 Sweet potatoes

 Vacations

Pinterest

Brownies and ice cream

 Matt

 Instagram

Adult beverages

 Louie

Playing Catchphrase

Costume parties

 Making lists

Dairy Queen

Hanging out with pals 

 Decorating for the holidays

Mexican food and margaritas

 

Linking up with Helene and Taylor.

Four {ever}

So I'm already dropping the ball for #blogtober14, but honestly it's for a good reason!

Today is Matt and I's fourth wedding anniversary!  Four years?!?!  Wow. 

It's been a great ride and I look forward to many more to come!  A few years back I did a bit of a recap with all the details and if you want to read more you can check it out here.  Without getting all sorts of lovey-dovey, which is not my jam, I really am a lucky girl. 

Matt loves me despite my flaws and let me tell you there's a host of them!  And I'd be lying if I told you everything was always unicorns and rainbows.  There are days when we fight like cats and dogs and I wonder how I haven't killed him yet?  And I know he feels the same damn way! 

But the good days far out way the bad! 

Happy Anniversary, Matt!  I love ya more than my luggage!

Oh Boy

This graphic cracks me up!  I know that when I'm speaking to other women I can describe the color yellow by saying 'butter' or 'lemon', but to Matt that's just yellow.  I've learned the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) method is by far the best way to go about talking about colors to most men!  This morning at home was no different, but it still didn't go my way.  Let me set the scene...

I was in the kitchen eating my breakfast and Matt was getting ready to leave for work.  He went to grab his coat out of the closet so he could head out.

Myla: "Would you grab my blue jacket while you're in there?"



Matt: "Sure."
Myla: "Thank you."  Hears the closet door open.
Matt: "You mean the purple one?"
Myla: "Um, no.  The blue one."
Matt: "I don't see a blue one.  There's a purple one."
Myla: Heavy sigh.  "Okay, it could be hanging on the back of my door at work?  Wait, does this purple coat have a stand-up collar and a flower pin?"
Matt: "Yes."
Myla:  Rolls eyes and shakes head.  "That's the one I want..." 

On the upside he did come out with a coat for me to wear because there's been instances when he forgets the one thing I ask for.  So I should chalk up it as a win.

Surely this has happened to other women, right?!?  I can't be the only one.

Ten Favorite Things

I'm not always the best good, okay fine... the truth is, I'm not good at ALL with vocalizing how much I love him and why.  It's not my Love Language.

I love the man dearly, but I tend to not express it in a way he, or anyone else for that matter, understands.  I really need to work on that!

Ten Favorite Things: About My Special Someone.
 

 

one:  He mows the lawn!  Okay, I started with an easy one, but I've never once mowed our yard and frankly, I don't ever want to.  On top of mowing he is also in charge of most of the outside duties that home ownership bestows on a couple.  Gutters.  Tree-trimming.  Weeding the garden.  Not the landscaping, that's mine!

two:  Matt is satisfied with the here and now.  I admire his level of contentment with just being.  I'm always striving to 'be better' and 'do more', but Matt finds appreciation in how far we've come not how far we have yet to go!

three:  The guy is tenderhearted.  He LOVES Bella more than words can express.  He snuggles with her, not me, in the recliner every night!  He'd rather watch a funny or dare I say a romantic comedy than most gory movies.  Which is fine by me!

four:  Matt has a very strong work ethic.  I remember being so mad at him for returning calls to customers on our way to the airport for our honeymoon so that he wouldn't be leaving them hanging while we we're gone.  Looking back, he was just putting in a little extra effort and not trying to drive me crazy!

five:  I love his hair, right before he calls his barber for a trim, when it has grown out just past his ears and the ends are starting to curl!  I beg and plead for him to leave it long, but he says it's too "unprofessional".

six:  He is exceedingly tolerant.  He eats all the new recipes that I find on Pinterest without complaint, dresses up every Christmas for our annual party and puts up with my desire to travel even thought he's more of a home-body.  And he just goes with the flow as I try to plan out every adventure, weekend and bathroom break from here to kingdom come! 

seven: Matt is independent and is totally cool with the fact I am too!  Our hobbies often take us in opposite directions and I appreciate him being okay with me not wanting to sit in a duck blind on a cold morning, just like I'm okay with sweating my rear off at a horse show in the middle of August and him being at home to greet me at the end of the day!

eight: The hat tip.  You know when Matt has had a few or a few too many when his baseball hat gets pushed up and farther back on his head.  I don't know when it started, long before I came in the picture.  His buddies even make a game out of being the last one to notice when it's happened!

nine:   He's handy.  I can come up with countless projects and he tries his absolute best to comply with my sketches and ramblings.  We may or may not almost come to blows about the feasibility of what I picture, but he darn sure tries to make it work!

ten:  The guy has backbone.  If you couldn't tell from the level of snark and sass in this post, I can be bossy, opinionated and I tend to think my way is the right way.  Most days he puts up with all I have to dish out, but there are times when he calls me on my BS!  While I might not like it at the time, I couldn't imagine being with a guy who let me walk all over him all the time!!

eleven: Look at me go, I'm on a roll!  Matt is also faithful.  While he is a Believer, I'm not necessarily talking about faith in God here.  Matt is one of the most faithful Chicago Cubs fans I have ever met.  He is always looking forward to 'next year' and hopes to one day see them win a World Series!  I hope for his sake, they do too!

Welp, there it is.  Ten+ reasons why I love my 'special someone'!  It wasn't as hard or painful as I thought it would be to get that out... 

Love you, babe.

 

Family

Today I'm so thankful for my family!

All in all we're pretty cookie cutter.

Happily married parents.

Independent and intelligent little sister in grad school.

Caring husband that will do just about anything for me.
See, the hat is proof!

 And I couldn't forget Bella!  She's family too!

 

Even the extended family is a sane bunch.
I'm a lucky girl!

Celebrating Life and Love

Holy smokes!  Can you say slacker?!?  Good gracious.

Life has been nothing short of crazy around these parts since the end of September!

The craziness is thaks to school, work, personal obligations, yada, yada, yada...
And as a result my blog has suffered.  Severely!

So today I'm going to backtrack and discuss two important things, life and love. 

LOVE:
Two years ago on October 2, 2010, Matt and I were married.  We spent about 9 months preparing and planning the festivities.  To keep the mushy gushy stuff to a minimum, the whole day went off with out a hitch and was everything I had hoped for!  There were so many details I want to share, but your attention span is only so long!

Here are some of the biggies...

Matt's wedding ring was custom made by The Jeweler's Bench of Marion, Illinois.  For those of you who don't know, it is a replication of a duck band.  Often times ducks are caught and have a steel band slipped on their legs for identification and to track their flight.  FYI: Every waterfowler wants to shoot a duck or good with a leg band!  Matt was adamant that he got a duck band ring and I liked it so he would have a constant  reminder of our anniversary!  

 Yes, I wore cowboy boots under my dress!  The whole day, not just for pictures.  They were also my 'Something New'!  I'm a country girl, what can I say?

When my aunt and uncle were married in this church over 30 years ago they had their photographer take a similar picture.  In our family, it's referred to as "The Picture" and I wanted one too!  I think it's beautiful with the church all lit up and the windows glowing.

I loved my hairclip and birdcage veil!  I wanted the wedding and reception to have a rustic, vintage vibe and I think it was a success.  My necklace was my 'Something Old', purchased at an antique mall in Clinton, IL.  I also made the boutennier's that all Matt and the guys wore that day!

We got married in a late ceremony, just so we could exit the church and have everyone holding sparklers!  

Since I wanted a sparkler exit from the church, we had to do all of our wedding pictures before the actual ceremony.  So instead of Matt seeing me for the first time in church we did 'First Look' photos instead.

 

Our photographer, Alida, did an amazing job capturing moments I knew I wanted and ones I had no idea about!  She is stellar!  Since the wedding we've become great friends and are even in a book club together.  
Speaking of, Alida, have you read the book for this month?!?!

LIFE:
Our family lost an amazing lady two weeks ago when Matt's Grandma Betty passed away.  She passed away mear minutes from her 93rd birthday.  People came from near and far to pay their respects to Betty and the family, which told of the many ways she impacted the community.

Betty was a:

School Teacher

Church Organist

Sunday School Teacher

Wife

Mother

Sister

Aunt

And a wonderful grandmother to Matt!  He always speaks highly of her cooking, intelligence and wit.

She will be missed.

Chilly Pepper

One of these things is not like the others...

This morning I opened the refrigerator to find the pepper cozied up with the leftovers and bottled beer.  Just chillin'... chilly pepper!  If you hadn't guessed, my husband is the culprit of this particular occurrence.  Bless his heart! 

Do you find random things in the 'frige?  Besides the pepper I've come home to the ice cream nestled up next to the butter and sour cream.  I mean they're kind of related so I guess it makes sense.  Kinda... Okay, not really!

Happy Tuesday!

Planting Veggies

When we first moved to our house one of the first changes we made outside was tilling up a patch of the yard for a garden.  Matt and I were both fed from garden goodies growing up and knew that we wanted to keep that tradition alive.  Our garden square footage has managed to increase each spring as we have grander and grander plans.  This year Matt is actually tilling up a separate location for produce that vines out, he really hates it when they take over the other vegetables.  I think it might be one of his biggest pet peeves!  He's affectionately started calling this patch 'Garden #2'.

All summer long we harvest the produce that the garden provides.  Sometimes we give it away to friends and family, other times I use the fresh produce in recipes, I freeze things like pepper rings, onion rings, and shredded zucchini and we can a LOT of green beans and tomato products (salsa, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and bruschetta) for use during the fall, winter and spring.

So far we've got:

 8 Roma's, 1 Better Boy, 3 Super Fantastic's and 1 Yellow Heirloom

Green, Red and Yellow Bell Peppers

2 Watermelons

Cabbage

Jalapeno

In addition to all those goodies, we've planted spinach and lettuce and also have pumpkin, green beans, and sugar snap pea seeds, as well as sweet yellow and sweet red onions coming from Gurney's.  We will also plant cantaloupe, zucchini and cucumbers once Matt gets the patch for "Garden #2" tilled up.  And last but certainly not least, we have our strawberry and rhubarb patches!  It's a fairly good bet that we are going to be up to our ears in fresh produce and that makes me giddy just thinking about it!

Do you have a garden or raised bed at your house?  We love ours... if you couldn't tell!