Mr & Mrs Peters

Being married for nine months now I feel it is safe to say I made a good choice in asking for Mel’s hand…

She is as good of a wife as I imagined her to be. In fact, in some areas she goes above and beyond all of my expectations.

I would make up a list of my own in response to Mel’s last post, but being so close to our one year anniversary I will wait to do so. I don’t want to sound redundant when I make a 12 point list…

This Sunday marks 9 months of Justin and I being married. I am all about celebrating even the smaller events in life, so I thought that in honor of this occasion I would create a list of the top 9 things I have learned in my time married to Justin, thus far.

9. Apparently, men do not find it acceptable to “just have a bowl of cereal” for dinner.
8. The whole “let’s take turns giving each other back massages” thing NEVER works out to be fair. (I always get jipped with a 2 minute massage)
7. Letting your alarm go off six times in a row while repeatedly hitting the snooze button is not a good way to put your husband in a good mood. **Technically I learned this one from my college roomies, but I am being reminded of how much people hate it.**
6. My version of clean is totally different from Justin’s. (his version of clean requires a lot more attention to detail than I am willing to spare)
5. No matter what justification I come up with, I am going to be in BIG trouble if I wake Justin up for no reason when he is on a day off. (I really hate being awake in the morning by myself. I guess I am like a 5 year old in that respect)
4. When you have an uber-friendly husband like Justin, you must always be prepared for people to come over to your house. This means it is a good idea to always have some sort of easily made food in your pantry or freezer.
3. Being a homeowner is super hard work! But, with the right attitude and an idea of what you want to accomplish in mind, it is totally possible to make your house a home… even on a newlywed budget!
2. I always used to get confused with turning up/down the water pressure on things. JP taught me this really cool saying that has totally changed my life… “Rightie tightie, leftie loosie.” (I am not kidding when I say that I whisper that to myself multiple times a day now)
1. Marriage (to the right person) is one of the best things in the world. Having Justin as my partner on a day-to-day basis makes everything more fun/enjoyable. God is good!

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Oh, and for all of you that are wondering… I SO gave in and ate the donut at work on Friday. And it was so good that only half of me felt guilty (that would be the half that had to come home and do a zallion ab exercises before bed to avoid feeling like a pig all weekend).

I am currently in the middle of a fairly sizable crisis. It involves a pact that I made, my self control, and one incredibly yummy looking powdered donut.

Here’s the situation- as any of you who work in an office setting know, it is nearly impossible to avoid the daily barrage of baked goods (i.e. cookies, donuts, coffeecake… the list could go on forever). My boss and I had gotten really bad lately about eating donuts so we decided that we would sign an agreement to abstain from donuts. I chose to do so for a year, he agreed to avoid them for a month. We signed the agreement on June 9th, and he gave in approximately 10 days later. I have been strong for 18 days. (Which means I still have 347 days to go) The problem is this… someone brought in store-bought powdered donuts today. As many of you would agree, those might be the best donuts EVER. And really, when I agreed to abstain from donuts I was thinking about the kind you get from the donut store, the ones that are super greasy. To give you an idea of what I am facing here, I took a couple of photos just now with my phone…

So, what do I do??? The donut is practically begging me to eat it, but if I do I will have to take down my sign and my boss will probably insist on re-posting it with the word “WEAK” written across it. (Which is only fair considering I did that to him about a week ago)

My final year in high school, each senior had the opportunity to submit their favorite quote to be published under their picture in the yearbook. My friend Nikki’s quote was: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” To be honest, the main reason this quote still sticks with me is that Nikki was a horendous speller and when she submitted the quote it said, “booty of their dreams.” As the Assistant-Editor-in-Chief, I was tempted to leave the misspelling in, but realized that it would only make my editing skills look bad. But, before I digress further, I will get to the point I originally set out to make…

When you were little, did you have a dream of what you wanted to be when you “grew up”? I vaguely remember wanting to be an animator at one point- apparently I thought that stick figures would cut it in that field of work. Besides that, I can’t remember having a huge dream of what I wanted to do when I got older. During my time at Biola I felt a bit of frustration as I saw classmates move into majors that led into clear-cut career paths such as teaching, nursing, etc. Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed my Communication Studies major, it didn’t exactly line me up for a specific job route. All I have ever known for sure is that I want to start a family of my own. So, now I have my wonderful husband Justin and my semi-child Skyla (I count her as a child in that I have to feed, bathe, and clean up after her… I know it isn’t really the same as a human).

But sometimes when I start to daydream and let my mind just wander, I think about what I would do for a living if I could do ANYTHING in the world. (Have you ever had that same daydream??)  And I guess this is my question… If you have an idea of what your “dream” is, shouldn’t you do everything in your power to bring it about? If I have an idea of what might fulfill my interests, what might use the talents God has blessed me with, shouldn’t I get a-movin on it? It just seems like it would be a pity to look back 20, 30, 40 years from now and think “Wow, I wish I would have just taken a chance and gone back to get that second degree OR become proficient at using a sewing machine or started my own business.” (insert your particular dream in that previous sentence) So, that’s where my mind is today.

This Saturday I participated in the 20th annual Long Beach AIDS walk as a part of Team Hilton (there were 6 of us). We walked 5k along the beach and although it was really hot, it was a good event overall. The most entertaining part was that you could bring your dogs, and it was cute to see all the different doggies interacting. (Alas, Skyla did not get to come… She has issues when it comes to being around other canines)

A lot of the teams had matching shirts, and one team had well, let’s just say… costumes. I have included a photo of one of their walkers.

Today I needed to fill up on gas (I actually still had approximately a quarter tank left, but I don’t like to wait until the last minute). There is an Arco station right on my way home from work that typically has gas prices that are equal to or slightly above the cost we would pay at the Costco gas station (which is about 15 minutes from my house). At Arco, however, you have to pay a 45 cent fee to use your debit card, and let’s be honest, I rarely have cash on me. So, not wanting to pay the 45 cent transaction fee, and figuring that Costco would be cheaper, I drove past the Arco (where gas was $4.44 a gallon). So, you can imagine my horror when, after the 5 mile drive to Costco, and the approximate 5 minute wait in line, I saw that Costco was selling their gas for $4.49 a gallon.
According to my calculations, that means I spent 44 cents total more on gas than I would have at Arco. (Also, when you factor in the 10 mile round trip distance to Costco, I spent about $1.50 in gas driving there and back.)
So, if I just would have filled up on gas at Arco on the way home from work I would have saved myself roughly $1.50 AND 45 minutes of my time. That, my friends, is tragic.

As I mentioned before, Justin and I recently got new phones. They are Samsung Blackjack II’s. Unlike phones I have had in the past, the phones came pre-programmed with two games (usually you have to pay to download games). Much to my chagrin, Justin quickly became hooked on the game “Bubble Breaker” and would play it for hours on end (or so it seemed to me). Essentially, the game is all about trying to link together similar colored bubbles to “pop” them for a score. (The more bubbles you link & pop, the higher your score). Well, finally I decided that I would see what all the fuss is about.

Come to find out- Bubble Breakers might be the most addictive game EVER. I don’t know if it my intense nature of competitiveness (i.e. “I HAVE to get a better score, I will just play one more game.”) or maybe it just is a really fun game. Needless to say, I now have to take back all the rude comments I have made in my lifetime about people who sit and play games on their cell phones.

Working in the hotel industry, I come across some weird situations/people. For example, yesterday one of our guests used human feces to write out “Lakers” on the bathroom wall. Now, I get it- some people REALLY love the Lakers. Some people are so zealous with the spirit of competition that they will do odd things to show their team spirit (dying their hair, flying miniature flags from their cars, etc). But, really… wiping your own poop on the wall??

To be fair, maybe I just don’t understand the situation because I am not all that into sports. To put it into perspective I tried to think of a competition that I really enjoy. But, I have to tell you, even though I really wanted David Cook to win American Idol it NEVER crossed my mind to show my support by getting artistic with… well, you know.

Justin and I got new phones recently. Like most cell phone, they have a camera function. Unlike our old cell phones, the pictures actually turn out pretty nicely. Here are a couple of photos from my phone. (our friends’ son Bryson, beautiful Skyla, and some ducks that were going through my in-laws backyard).

For the most part, Justin and I really like our neighborhood. It is relatively quiet, and (usually) people drive at a decent speed limit. The only neighbors we talk to on a regular basis are the ones in the house directly to our right. They are a nice family- the dad is a teacher and the mom stays at home with their three kids. They have several golden retrievers, and Skyla likes to play with Osa, their female dog.

Yesterday, however, my patience was tested. When I got home from work the house was 85 degrees inside. Even after a couple of hours of trying to cool it down with open windows and fans it was still like a sauna inside, so we figured we would go hang out where it was cool- OUTSIDE! (ironic, huh?) So we are out in the front yard with Skyla and learned that apparently in the house to our left, the teenage son has taken up the electric guitar. (And of course, the garage where he practices is right next to our bedroom window).  Let’s hope he only likes to practice until 8pm!! Later in the evening the neighbors behind us (our backyard fences touch) started to set off fireworks. Apparently, they must have a stockpile of left overs from last 4th of July, because they have been doing this nightly for the last few weeks. So, the fireworks are not only loud and sound like gunshots, they scare Skyla and make the air smell like fire. Oh, and then of course we got the helicoptor going outside of our house (looking for who was setting off the fireworks). Needless to say, it was a LOUD and hot night on our street.