four months

four months. i've been married four months. that feels a bit weird. sometimes it seems longer than that.
i've been having the urge to travel lately. france. i want to go to france. shawn can come, too. he's never been overseas. i really want him to experience life overseas.
so tonight is date night. we take turns planning dates. it's my turn. since it's our fourth monthiversary, i thought of a four-part date. start with dinner, go to worship (singing four songs; reading four scriptures), then to our 'homework' for our Bible study, then to dominoes (Mexican trains to be exact). should be fun.
i think Shawn might come by work today to 'surprise' me. he's only got one job in San Fran today so he'll have the time. that would be fun.
so yeah, that's about it.

random randomness

on my lunch break, i called shawn (usually do). he and ken (guy from church helping him out on fridays with work) were going to job #2. i was on my way to the grocery store. a girl from church is having some co-workers over. we're having a southern-style potluck. the latourelles (ahem, Loren since she's the southern one; southern Minnesota does NOT count as southern) are responsible for jiffy cornbread and green bean casserole. so as i'm gathering canned goods i hear a girl on her cell phone say, 'i think i'm four months pregnant, but haven't seen a doctor, yet.' um, ok. first of all, that's sad. second of all 'think'? four months and you 'think'? anyway, THEN the other highlight was getting hit-on by the cashier. solid gold that is. yikes. maybe if he were the fireman in front of me in the line...just kidding (i think).
last weekend was the reception in SC. i'll try and figure out posting pictures on here from shawn's mac. it's not my favorite thing in the world...
we started a couple's Bible study (that's a bit weird sounding to me still). there are three other couples. should be good. home builders is what it's called. this week is on oneness. there's homework and everything.
i'm procrastinating at work. it's friday. i'm ready for the weekend. we're not doing much, but still. i've become addicted (again; i'd stopped for a while) to grey's anatomy cause i can watch online. since we don't have a tv, that's my only choice. pretty happy. i'm catching up from when i was on teh hiatus. at least i didn't cry watching the last two episodes i viewed.
one day perhaps i'll get shawn to post something...
he made my sandwich for today's lunch. he's a great one, i tell ya'.
back at it, i suppose.

writing

a friend sent me another person's blog. this person had, in alpha order, a list of 18 links to all kinds of notecards and such. how fabulous.

http://www.cavallini.com/products.html

http://www.finestationery.com/

http://www.graphicimage.com/index.html

http://www.katespaperie.com/store/productView.php

http://www.lovelydesign.com/

http://www.luxepaperie.com/

http://www.papercupdesign.com/index.html

http://www.paper-source.com/

http://www.russellandhazel.com/ideas.html

http://www.seejanework.com/

i'll make them usable later. get to meet a friend from high school for dinner (shawn's coming, too)

san francisco

while we don't live IN san francisco, we live near enough to go into the city for dinner whenever we want (we met friends at this amazing Chinese restaurant called Old Mandarin there Wednesday night) and actually the lady from whom we're buying the golf is in san francisco.

i'm a bit bummed, however, that i won't get to vote for mayor in the upcoming November elections. check out this list of who's running for mayor:

Candidates in the Nov. 6 San Francisco mayor's race:
Harold Brown, retired teacher and blogger
George Davis, nudist activist
Tony Hall, former supervisor
Lonnie Holmes, San Francisco Juvenile Probation Department manager
Harold Hoogasian, flower shop owner
Grasshopper Kaplan, taxi driver
Quintin Mecke, program director for the nonprofit Safety Network Partnership
Gavin Newsom, incumbent
Wilma Pang, music teacher
Michael Powers, owner of Power Exchange sex club
Chicken John Rinaldi, showman
Billy Bob Whitmer, educator
Josh Wolf, blogger

pancakes and zoom

every weekend since we've been married shawn's made pancakes. most of the time it's been on saturday morning. most of the time coffee is included. from time to time, i get bacon, too. YUM-MY. i think my favorite were the fresh peach pancakes (peaches IN the pancakes). this morning it was mixed-berries. it's been two months since we've been married. somewhat surreal. really good. happy.

today we're buying a car. it's a 2002 VW Golf fully loaded with 30,000 miles on it. it's going to replace shawn's geo metro (1994, NOT loaded...i mean no air conditioning, no radio, no power anything included no power-sterring, 197,000 miles with original clutch still in). it's pretty exciting.

we're going to drive to Point Reyes to celebrate!

date night

wednesday nights are date night. we started that when i moved out here, while we were still engaged. we decided to continue that 'tradition' even after we got married. we trade off who plans the date so neither of us bears the weight of the responsibility. last week was shawn's week. we went mini-golfing, had dinner at the clubhouse (the mini-golf is a part of a golf course), then hit the hot tub at our apartment complex. very nice.
this week...baseball. we went to a giants/braves game here in sfo. we were hoping to see bonds tie the record for most home runs, but alas, they didn't even start him (something about going into 13 innings the night before; sissy). so anyway, we only were able to get standing room only tickets because of the hype only to find no hype really since he wasn't even playing. but it was a great game and the giants actually won and we found seats about half-way through the game. AND my great husband bought me garlic fries (gilroy garlic fries no less) AND later on when it was chilly cause we were sitting in the bleachers, he bought me some hot chocolate. the best hot chocolate i've ever had...ghirardelli (go figure). Yum-my.
fun times. i like date night. it's a good idea...and most of the time great fun...

i thought earlier today of something else about which to brag on my husband, but now that i've sat down to type, it's escaped me. so sad...buying me the best hot chocolate i've ever had is reason enough to make him the best husband ever.

it's past my bedtime...and i have to get to sleep before shawn starts snoring or else is hard for me to get to sleep at all...

the wedding and more...

so instead of writing about the wedding, here's the link for the pictures. ignore the ones of just me (i'm not a fan of those, for the most part). it pretty much tells the story of the day, though. the tiramisu was yummy (in place of the traditional cake).
http://naturalight.instaproofs.com

and the honeymoon...we have pictures of that, too, but those will come later. here are words for that time:

we stayed in town for two nights at the hotel where we had our first date (it's a restaurant and hotel). we ordered room service..that was a first (of many on the trip...ahem).
anyway, so then we drove down the coast on highway 1. friends of ours let us borrow their white mustang convertible. that was rad. we stayed in Morrow Bay the first two nights. During the day we visited Hearst Castle, Paso Robles wine country and the little downtown that is Morrow Bay.
next we drove further south to a little Danish town called Solvang. all the buildings are quaintly danish style and some of the townspeople even dress as such.
next we headed for Santa Barbara. this was our favorite of the trip. we stayed in an ocean view room (free upgrade thanks to the nice lady behind the desk at the hotel (she didn't even know it was our honeymoon)). it was awesome. the town was great, the weather amazing. we hung out on the beach some, had dinner at this seafood joint. the next day we went to the art museum and did some window shopping. there was an Anthropologie store there, so I was happy.
then we just headed back up 101 to San Rafael. it was so relaxing and fun and low key. a great time.

it was hard to get back into the swing of things, but i think i've managed to begin to adjust.
i start a new job tomorrow. done with the two part time gigs. not a fan of lying psychologists or working at starbucks. the hours and the inconsistency and the manual labor added up to 'no thanks.'
so my new position is Program Coordinator for the Doctor of Ministry department at GGBTS. i think it'll be good. it's a promotion job-wise (i'll even have two part-time administrative assistants working under me) and pay-wise, which is somewhat surprising considering it's ggbts.
so i'll let you know how i like it.

brag-worthy Shawn-isms:
he's made pancakes every Saturday we've been married so far (i think the peach ones this past Saturday are the best yet)
he cooks in general about 3/4 of the time
we go on walks together (i've told him i need to walk more and so even when i'm lazy and don't want to, he suggests going for a walk and walk we do)
he walked me to the car the other morning when i had to leave at 4:30a for work but was scared leave the apartment
he tells me i'm beautiful on a regular basis

that'll do for now, i suppose...
i'll get shawn to post some pictures of the honeymoon when he has some time

a start

As of tomorrow, we'll be married a month. Four weeks from yesterday. My how time flies.

I LOVE married life.

i'm not a fan of working. but i suppose that's why they call it work.

my plan is to start with the story of our wedding day and then go into the honeymoon details and then from there get more spiritual perhaps (at the moment. we read a chapter of scripture at least 4 times a week together).

so wait for it.

for now i have to go to bed so i can get up early to work at Starbucks (not for long, though...which is a whole other post...)

loren