paper armour

Fill in the Blank Friday

2012-02-10T11:27:00.002-06:00

Fill in the Blank Friday, along with the image below is brought to you by the little things we do.

1. I started my blog because I can't remember! I started it years ago. When I started writing more frequently, it was to have a record of things, to share my life with friends and family, and to have a creative outlet after graduating college.

2. One thing I love seeing on other blogs _is how other people enjoy their lives, what they do to be happy.

3. Something I love about blogging _is the responses I get from what I write, and the rewarding sense of putting my feelings to words.

4. A favorite blog post of mine is probably _Zach's Proposal. I love telling our love story.

5. Something my friends in real life know about me that I've never before mentioned on my blog is _...I have no idea actually. Friends? What do you think? Let me know in comments :).

6. My new favorite blogs to read are _I love The Frugal Girl. I'm also a huge fan of Hither and Thither .

7. Some things I tend to avoid doing on my blog are _being unhelpful.

little known fact about me

2012-02-08T11:09:00.005-06:00

You might not know this about me, but I love Alfred Hitchcock.

image source

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a film historian when I grew up. This has become a rather comical fact because, having married a film major, my husband can run circles around me with his film history knowledge.

Watching Rear Window and then learning the techniques Hitchcock used to film it made me realize what filmmaking is all about, and gave me a strong thirst to learn more. After that, I couldn't watch his movies fast enough.

I even taught a film history class in my local homeschooling co-op. It was more of a film appreciation class with a focus on old movies, but it was a ton of fun. Especially the one time we met at my house and I used the entirety of the course registration fees on pizza for everyone. (shhhh don't tell)

I have an impressive collection of Hitchcock's films, and have seen most of his body of work. But I think I overdosed on them? Maybe? I'm due for a refresher. I'm really excited to watch my collection of "Hitchcocks" (as I call them) with Zach. I want to share this old friendship with him. (Kind of like how I want him to fall in love with the North Atlantic, just like I am.)

I also have an impressive selection of film history books I own, but haven't read. Starting with my hefty Hitchcock biography. I think that'll be next on my list. Umm...once my parents visit maybe? It's back home.

In case you're wondering what I'm reading now that I've finished The Hunger Games, I'm reading Ender's Game. Zach loves this book, and has been recommending it to me for a while. I'm reading his well-worn copy. As he was reading The Hunger Games for himself, he told me that if I like this series, I'd like Ender's Game too. I'm loving it.

no one gets what I do...literally

2012-02-06T11:30:00.005-06:00

So...I know I just posted my big "I'm breaking up with my blog!" post. But I have a funny little anecdote for you.

My job is impossible for people to understand.

I have a basic generic answer for when people ask me what I do. My company is a small division of a larger national (and more well known) association. So I say I work for that association, and most of the time I get away with it.

It's when I get asked "and what do you do there?" that I run into trouble. The next step is "I'm an (insert job title here) for a branch of (insert big company name) that focuses on (a specific area of healthcare.)"

What people don't get is that I work for a member group. So people who work in this specific area of healthcare are members of my association. What people think I do is work in that specific area of healthcare. But I don't. I support membership, education, and marketing FOR and directed TO the people who work in healthcare.

It would be a lot easier if I worked for a member group targeted toward surgeons or something similarly visible like that. But what makes it even harder for people to "get" is that my member group is for people behind the scenes. (example, another member group on my floor is for healthcare engineers, people who design hospitals and such. see? behind the scenes. occupations most people don't think about often.)

When I told someone at the Super Bowl party I was at last night that I work for the big association that my group is part of, she asked if they were hiring nurses. I knew that no matter how hard I tried, she wouldn't understand my job. It's hard to be in a conversation when you kind of give up trying but they keep asking you questions but you just keep trying to change the subject.

change of pace

2012-02-06T09:08:00.002-06:00

Blogging isn't really fitting into my life these days.

When you spend eight hours a day looking at a computer, you don't want to get on a computer when you get home. You want to sit on the couch and spend time with your husband. Sure, you might watch a lot of TV, but you're doing it together.

I've been blogging out of obligation lately, rather than using it as an outlet for creative expression, which is how it started.

So I'm not shutting down my blog, but I'm not constraining myself to a schedule. I'm not going to obligate myself to follow in the footsteps of bloggers who are more popular or successful than I am. And I want to let you, my very few readers, know that I'm making this change. It means so much to me that you read my words, and I want to thank you for that. I don't want you to get worried, I know several of my faithful readers are family members. (Hi Moms!)

The guilt over not blogging "enough" has been holding me back from getting other things done. I want to let that guilt go. So I'll blog when I feel inspired to blog, and let that be my only parameter.

Fill in the Blank Friday

2012-02-03T09:38:00.003-06:00

Fill in the Blank Friday, along with the image below is brought to you by the little things we do.

1. If money wasn't an issue, the first thing I'd cross of my life list is getting myself a pair of Frye 12R Harness boots. I mean...paying off our student debt. That's the right answer. :P Then I'd take Zach to Ireland and go to Sweden too. Both heritages in one trip .

2. Mayonnaise on french fries is something I like that other people think is weird.

3. If my life were a movie right now, the title would be ...I'm drawing a blank on this one. Sorry folks .

4. Three things I am looking forward to this month are Valentines Day , getting our banking situation reorganized and purging my closet and hopefully getting some new clothes at a clothing swap I'm going to next weekend .

5. My favorite song to sing in the shower is Summertime or Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas .

6. If I found out that the production of Sam Adams' Black Lager was ending this month, I'd go out and buy as much as I could tomorrow. (recent discovery, current favorite beer that's not on tap)

7. One thing I'll never grow tired of is saying goodnight to Zach .

Weekend Productivity

2012-02-02T09:40:00.002-06:00

I said that I'd be focused on knitting last weekend, and I was! I haven't finished either of my current projects yet, but I made a lot of progress on the scarf.

I also totally reorganized our bathroom/toiletries. As in, took everything out of their baskets (we store our bathroom stuff in baskets) and sorted them (face wash, body wash, hand lotion, body lotion a.k.a. that super thick lotion you use on your feet) and then put them all away. We got a bunch of small bath supplies for Christmas, and hadn't really taken stock of what we have. Let me tell you, it's going to be a very long time before we have to buy any bath/shower supplies again. And first aid stuff too. We have two fully stocked first aid kits. I think we have enough band-aids to handle raising five children without running out. I'm not kidding.

This weekend we'll be traveling up to Wisconsin to visit Zach's family, and then coming back to Chicago in time to go to a Super Bowl party. It sounds like a perfect weekend to dedicate to more knitting, right?

Another goal for the coming week or so is to start reorganizing our bank accounts. We have separate checking and savings accounts, so we want to condense those. We also want to put our savings into a higher-yield account like ING's savings accounts. We've got the first step of saving down, actually having money set aside. The next step is finding the best place to put that savings, and while our current situation isn't harming things (charging us lots of fees), it isn't improving things either. Know what I mean? I'll keep you updated on that too.

An Open Letter to Young Wives (of faith)

2012-01-31T09:54:00.005-06:00

This might sound a little hypocritical, since I've only been married for half a year, but I've learned an important lesson already that I really want to share.

Don't stress out if your marriage doesn't look like the marriages of couples you admire. Yet.

About two months into our marriage, I went on a women's retreat with ladies from our church. It just happened to be at the end of a really really rough week in which I realized that I (and Zach) hadn't been turning to God for pretty much anything. We'd been coasting. So when we hit said rough week, we had very little God in us to "spend". We poured out the last of our God-given resources and were basically sucked dry spiritually by the time I left for the retreat.

Now, the retreat was a tremendous blessing. I was able to open up to a few wonderful married women who were able to counsel me and comfort me about adjusting to married life. What started me on a mental tailspin, however, was when one of my aforementioned friends gave one of the teachings that weekend, and she started off telling us about how her husband had prayed for her and for us at the retreat before she left.

And all I could think was: my husband didn't pray for me before I left.

That opened the gates to: I wish my husband had prayed for me before I left. Why didn't he? Why aren't we this fabulous couple that I want us to be? Why aren't we as devoted to God as I want us to be? Why am I feeling so spiritually dry and far away from God? Is it because my husband isn't praying for us enough? (side note: I am aware that both partners in a marriage should be praying for each other. I'm not trying to represent these thoughts as rational.)

But here's the thing. We'd just been married for two months! I was holding my husband and our marriage to the standard of a couple who had been married for two years! Here's another example: I follow a blogger who lives frugally and sacrificially so that she and her family can give a large amount of their resources to those who have less than they do. I wish I lived the way they do, but I just found out today that they've been married for seventeen years. I can't hold myself to that standard, I can only hope to grow in that direction. I can't expect my husband to pray for me before I leave for the weekend after two months, but I can start hoping and praying that we grow in that direction.

This really isn't just a lesson for wives who have recently gotten married. I think it's a lesson for all of us, but let me direct it to you, young wives. Don't worry so much. If things aren't the way you hoped they would be early on, that doesn't mean they'll stay that way. People grow. Zach and I pray every day before I go to work now, which is a practice I'd seen in another couple that I'd envied earlier in our marriage. I'd tried to force it, but Zach didn't have the vision for it so it wasn't genuine and it felt forced. I let it go for a while and now we've grown and it's part of our daily routine.

Comparing ourselves to others can be incredibly hurtful when we let it run rampant in our hearts. Instead try to take it as an opportunity to grow, but don't be hard on yourself if you just aren't there yet.

It's my prayer that you find the freedom available to you, freely given by God. Those times when I realize that I'm on a path that God has made for me and that I'll get to the place I'm meant to be (instead of feeling jealous because I'm not where I want to be) are the times when I feel real freedom. Freedom from comparison and self-critique, freedom from being really really hard on myself. (and hard on my husband, who doesn't deserve that)

Weekend series

2012-01-27T16:21:00.004-06:00

I'm starting a new approach to my "This Weekend I Will..." series next week. I'll post the upcoming weekend plans on Thursday, followed by a report on how I did the weekend before in the same post.

Some weeks I'm great and post twice a day, others only once a day. And sometimes I have a drought in which I don't post for two straight weeks. Because of this, I didn't want my weekend posts to take over two full days of posting.

So I don't have an official weekend post for you this afternoon, but I'll let you know what my goal is...

I hope to knit up a storm.

I have two projects I'm working on right now. A pair of gloves for Zach that I was going great guns on until I hit the fingers, which aren't hard but are certainly tedious. This has kind of deflated my momentum. My second current project is a Christmas present. For 2011. It's a Ravenclaw scarf for my best friend and the original "get it done in time for Christmas" plan got derailed. I've also forgotten how long a scarf can actually take.

So before I take on any other projects, I really really need to finish these. Hopefully they won't be next week's goal as well.

Fill in the Blank Friday

2012-01-27T09:04:00.003-06:00

Ugh. It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry guys. I just wasn't feeling it. But I suppose the best way to start doing anything again is to just start doing it. So here we are again, on a Friday morning.

Fill in the Blank Friday, along with the image below is brought to you by the little things we do.

1. My favorite place I've ever traveled to is Ireland .

2. The Holy land is somewhere I'd love to go someday.

3. I pass the time on a plane (or bus, or car ride or train) by watching something on my computer (plane. can't read much.) knitting (car ride.) reading a magazine or book or playing a game on my iPhone (train. every. single. day.) .

4. My three must-haves when I travel are water , snacks and hand lotion.

5. My favorite travel companion is my husband, Zach .

6. The craziest thing that ever happened to me while traveling is hard to pick. I was in England on a tour with my choir when the London bus bombings happened. One night on our honeymoon there were winds up to 70 knots blowing directly at the side of the ship, we couldn't sleep because the ship was listing so hard to the side we could feel it. Once I was waiting in line to board a plane and the gate attendant announced "well, as you might have noticed, a piece of the plane just fell off...so we're just going to switch gates and get on another plane." .

7. The most exotic food I've ever tried while traveling is frogs legs, when visiting Chicago before I moved here. BAD IDEA. NEVER EAT FROGS LEGS, you guys. (it's like soggy chicken) .

8. If I could live anywhere else, I'd live in Ireland .

9. I have been to twenty-eight states in the U.S. (plus the district)

Fill in the Blank Friday

2012-01-13T08:35:00.003-06:00

Fill in the Blank Friday, along with the image below is brought to you by the little things we do.

1. The last thing I ate was a small piece of a chocolate chip cookie with a glass of milk. You caught me at a bad time, I brought my real breakfast (oatmeal) to work today .

2. The last song I listened to was the credit music at the end of Tangled, which we watched last night. Other than that, I have the "J G Wentworth" jingle stuck in my head .

3. Using the letters in my name I can spell [elspeth] peel, let, these, the, pee, thee, see, seep, ...I'm sure there's more but I'm no good at this. .

4. If I had to dress in one color for the rest of my life I would pick blue. Lauren was right, it's really versatile and it allows me to still wear jeans. It also makes my eyes pop like no other color. .

5. If you were to look in my bag right now you'd find my wallet, a spoon and a fork for lunch, a pen, a bible highlighter (basically a crayon, so it doesn't bleed), my CTA pass, a Kathy Reichs book that's tiding me over until Mockingjay arrives in the mail, my glasses case, a snack, and my "essentials bag" with a small first aid kit, lotion, lip balm, hair ties, pain meds, the works. See this post. The bag has changed, the contents haven't really .

6. When I finish filling in the blanks I'm going to check email and get to work! .

7. My all time favorite song to dance to is Single Ladies? I don't know really, I haven't danced since my wedding. Sad but true. There were some awesome songs at the wedding though, including a great mix of Dog Days by Florence and the Machine .

Come back later for a new This Weekend I Will... post!

Our Wedding: the first week of planning

2012-01-12T12:00:00.000-06:00

Once we were engaged, we had to share the news! We called everyone you're supposed to call, texted everyone you're supposed to text, and then made it "facebook official." I've always loved the tradition of engagement announcements, but a newspaper announcement wouldn't be effective. We wanted a way to tell a large group of people who don't all live in the same town. Here's what we came up with:

Zach designed it (we both love owls,) and we both made it our profile picture. Then we changed our relationship status to engaged.

A few decisions were really easy to make. We knew we wanted a relatively short engagement, about six months, so we knew we wanted to get married that summer, in Chicago, in our church. Once we had the date decided, early July, we asked our pastor. Our church has two locations, but not only did one not have air conditioning, but it also would have been much more expensive to rent. That made choosing our location quite easy. The basement of our church is divided into two rooms that would make for perfect dining/dancing rooms, so that was great too.

Here were two locations I dreamed about a little first though:
The Narnia estate. Gotta love the name, and the landscape is beautiful! Zach nixed it almost immediately because it's not his style. Too "fairy tale."
Ravenswood Billboard Factory. An old industrial building in Chicago. Super gorgeous, super expensive.

One thing I learned very quickly about wedding locations is that they charge you extra for everything. If we had our reception at a beautiful location in the Chicago Parks District, we would have had to pay for security guards on top of fees for bringing in caterers, bartenders, and everything else we would have had to rent (tables, chairs.) Our church rental included use of their tables and the payment of our audio tech who was also the building manager for the day. These details add up quickly, and it was wonderful not to have to deal with them.

Another really easy decision was our photographer. It was several weeks after Zach's proposal when we signed the contract, but she was honestly the only photographer we considered. We knew her from church, and I'd looked at her work before. She has a wonderful gift for showcasing her subjects' personality and not making their photos look like "every other wedding photo" (which was basically my only requirement.) I was also really excited to see that every price package of hers came with an assistant and an engagement shoot. These were two things I'd heard were great to have, but I'd been thinking we wouldn't be able to afford an engagement shoot.

You know those budget calculators? The Knot.com has one where you put your total budget in, along with number of guests, and number of bridesmaids/groomsmen, and it tells you how much you should pay for each part of the wedding. I'm going to admit that we spent far more on our photographer than the budget calculator told us to, but we were able to cut corners in other places to make up for it. Having a great photographer was something that we knew was important.

One of the best pieces of wedding-planning advice I received was this: think about what you want, and go for it. Make it important. Do it yourself, or pay more for it, whatever you need to make it a special part of YOUR wedding. Now think about what you don't want. Don't do it. It's not worth it, and it'll free you up to spend more time and money on the parts of your wedding that you really value. I'll talk about this more in the future.

(The exception to this advice is when you don't care about something, but your fiance does, or your family does. In situations like that, find ways to compromise. My advice is regarding things that you and your fiance can agree just aren't important.)

all photos by Roya Jade.
owl design by Zach Harris.

Pantry reorganization

2012-01-11T09:08:00.009-06:00

I'm so glad The Frugal Girl suggested a link up for this, because I've been meaning to reorganize our cabinet and shelves for a while now.

Before I show you any photos, I want to make a small disclaimer. Our kitchen takes up one recessed wall in our living room. (you can see it in full here) Our dining room consists of a fold-up table that seats the two of us and usually serves as a second counter. Our refrigerator is in the living room, along with our "island" (butchers block, whatever you want to call it). I LOVE our apartment, but it's small, and it's basically three rooms. Bedroom, bathroom, kitchen/diningroom/livingroom. There. I said it. You know my big secret.

This is my first big food-related reorganization. You know how when you first move into a place, you have a big purge? You get rid of the things you know you don't need or want, and then find places for everything else. Then you have to let the dust settle and you also have to live in the space, get used to it and how you like to move around in it. Where things work and where they don't. Now you've arrived at the "big reorganization" stage. Welcome, it's nice here. I like it here a lot, it's where I shine.

This is what my cabinet looked like before. Most of what's in it (especially on the top shelf) doesn't actually get used often and once it is used, it won't be replaced.

This is what our shelves looked like before. We filled them haphazardly and there really isn't any organizational intent to them. The main problem though is that it's all the stuff we use all the time, and these are shelves I'd like to eventually get rid of. Keeping basic necessities isn't going to help that.

Here's the cabinet now. Pasta, rice, and beans are on the top shelf, and cooking/baking essentials are on the bottom shelf. God knows how we have three cans of bread crumbs but they're there too.

The left-hand column of shelves is sticking around. It has travel mugs and water bottles on the top shelf, the spare set of utensils we bring when we pack our lunch and a box of cookies on the second shelf, cans and jars on the third, and sweets on the fourth.
The middle two columns of shelves are being phased out. We plan to store our coffee maker, because we've upgraded to a french press. All the food on the shelves under the coffee maker are things that we won't replace once they're used. (this is very exciting for me, to have all that food out in the open and ready to be eaten and used up)
The right-hand shelves are staying around. They're actual wood rather than composite, and holds a lot of our very useful stuff. Sugar, cornmeal, oatmeal, a HUGE bag of rice, you get the idea.

I have another pantry in the corner by our front door, but I didn't reorganize that. It's MOSTLY hardware, i.e. mixing bowls, waffle iron, immersion blender. Everything that isn't hardware is tea or spices, and those are very well organized already.

Like I said above, I'm so glad I did this. It's helping my menu planning, and it's a key step in condensing our pantry. We have a LOT of kitchen supplies, so anything we can do to reduce that helps.

small depressions

2012-01-10T09:45:00.002-06:00

Remember that post I made when I was having the sad day?

paper armour

Fill in the Blank Friday

little known fact about me

no one gets what I do...literally

change of pace

Fill in the Blank Friday

Weekend Productivity

An Open Letter to Young Wives (of faith)

Weekend series

Fill in the Blank Friday

Fill in the Blank Friday

Our Wedding: the first week of planning

Pantry reorganization

small depressions

Weekend Update

This Weekend I Will...

Our Wedding: the proposal

Fill in the Blank Friday

reading again

Our Wedding: the ring

So...did she do it?

2011

This Weekend I Will...

Fill in the Blank Friday

Knitting for Christmas

Revelations of a College Graduate

Fill in the Blank...Saturday?

What defines my identity?

Fill in the Blank Friday

everyday frugality

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 22nd

be back soon

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 18th

Fill in the Blank Friday

Right now I'm...

playing catch-up

a common problem in the household

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 15th

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 14th

Christmas Cards!

Fill in the Blank Friday

Get to Know Me: day thirty

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 10th

Get to Know Me: day twenty-nine

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 9th

Get to Know Me: day twenty-eight

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 8th

Get to Know Me: day twenty-seven

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 7th

Get to Know Me: day twenty-six

Get to Know Me: day twenty-five

I could set my clock on this man

Fill in the Blank Friday

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 3rd

Get to Know Me: day twenty-four

Get to Know Me: day twenty-three

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 2nd

Countdown to Thanksgiving: November 1st

Get to Know Me: day twenty-two

Get to Know Me: day twenty-one

Fill in the Blank Friday

Get to Know Me: day twenty

differences and a lack of inquisitiveness

Get to Know Me: day nineteen

Wordless Wednesday: organization inspiration

Get to Know Me: day eighteen

Being glamorous

Pin-spiration

Get to Know Me: day seventeen

I've had enough.

Get to Know Me: day sixteen