Welcome Back! (To myself)

After a much-too-long hiatus in my blogging, I’m back. I have no real good excuse for why I haven’t blogged in weeks other than that life just got in the way : ) So, here’s some rapid-fire reading material about what’s been going on in the last few weeks of my life.

1.) I’ve been working on cleaning out our spare room and making room for Aaron’s clothing in an “actual” closet in our house. Up until about a week ago, my clothing occupied and filled all the closets (3 total) in the house and Aaron had a “porta-closet” set up in the spare room for his clothes. I know I am the Imelda Marcos of clothing and shoes, but luckily I am blessed with an easy going husband that doesn’t give me a hard time about my favorite hobby…shopping…thank goodness for that! In order to make room for Aaron, I had to get rid of some of my clothes, so those items got tagged and sent to Nick and Jen for a garage sale this weekend. I’m still working on boxing up some of my “summer clothes” to put in the attic so that my other clothes aren’t quite as smooshed in my closet. I’m having a hard time boxing up my lightweight tanks and shirts though because I don’t want to admit that fall and cooler weather are quickly approaching.

2.) I auditioned for a part in a church drama program called JumpStart in July and got a lead role. The JumpStart program is every Wednesday night and we have practices on Thursdays. Needless to say, my weeks are quite busy now. In JumpStart I play the role of a high school girl named Samantha, aka Sam, and I’m a “hippy.” We had a JumpStart kick-off yesterday at church. I did not act in the skit yesterday, but we had to be dressed for cast pictures. You can visit this site for some pictures from the day: http://centerjumpstart.blogspot.com/index.html . I don’t like my portrait, but oh well : )

3.) Aaron started classes again last Wednesday. I tried to talk him into letting me take a “first day of school” picture of him wearing his backpack, but he wouldn’t go for it. Maybe next year : ) Other Aaron news…Aaron quit Kroger!!!! After 6 years of imprisonment, he finally broke free of Kroger’s hold on his weekends! With his class schedule this semester, Aaron would have only been able to work at Kroger one day a week so he decided to quit Kroger and step-up his hours at the Rehab center. We’re both happy about it.

4.) I’ve been able to spend some quality time with my hubby lately. As mentioned above, Aaron quit Kroger and it has allowed us to actually go and do things together on the weekends! That’s a luxury we’ve never had in our 6 years together so it’s been really nice! I don’t have to say, “Aaron we have a family reunion on Saturday in 2 weeks, make sure you get the day off.” It’s a nice change. Of course, I’m used to having “me” time on the weekends when Aaron’s at work, so that’s been an adjustment. I still have a need for “me” time (because I go nuts if I don’t have some time to myself) but Aaron has been good about recognizing when I need “me” time and getting the heck out of dodge : ) What a good husband I have…he lets me have all 3 closets in the house and he knows when I need to be left alone and takes heed.

5.) The State Fair! Aaron and I had never been to the State Fair, so when Aaron’s sister, Jennifer, called to see if we wanted to go to the fair we were excited. Jennifer, Derek, Aaron, and I spent about 3 hours at the hot fairgrounds. We spent most of our time outside on the main drag, which I was happy about because the smell of the animals in the animal barns made me want to gag. We did have to spend some time in the pig barn though because Aaron wanted to see the “World’s Largest Boar.” The boar was one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen. I took pictures to share the grossness with all of you. (I will post pictures later, I'm having trouble uploading them)



Of course, there were many non-gag inducing things at the fair too, like Orange Shakeups (similar to lemon shakeups, but make with oranges), nachos, hot dogs, elephant ears, strawberry shortcakes, fudge sundaes, etc. etc. Amazingly, the only thing I munched on was a strawberry shortcake in the produce/agriculture barn. (I liked that barn because it was air conditioned, clean, and non-smelly.) There were some down-right cute things at the fair too. The down-right cute things I’m referring to were my nephew and husband : ) Uncle Aaron carried baby Derek in a baby carrier for part of our fair trip. Derek looked so tiny next to Aaron, with his little legs dangling out of the baby carrier. A couple of my favorite pictures from the day are below. (Again, will post when the upload feature is working on my blog profile.)

I think that about sums it up for now. I’ll try not to let so much time lapse between this entry and my next. I make no guarantees though : )

What was your favorite age?

We celebrated my dad’s birthday on Sunday and at the party I asked a few family members this question, “What was your favorite age?” Here are the responses:

Mom- Age 17 (Here's her reason, in her own words) My 17th year was special because that is when I started feeling good about myself (not conceded but confident). I had a wonderful group of friends, a boyfriend and classes that I was doing well in. I could drive and my parents were very trusting (ha). Life was good, I had no real problems—probably thought I did but didn’t really. Music was good, my friends and I danced, laughed and dreamed together. Most of our dreams came true as we grew. Good times were had!

Dad- Age 21 because that’s when he got his pilot’s license

Grandma Thomas- The years that she had her children, which would be around 18-21 (If I’m wrong on the years, someone correct me.)

Me- Age 17 because I started dating my future hubby at that age, it was my senior year of high school, and I was drum major of the Northview Marching Knights : )

Your turn…everyone leave me a comment telling me about your favorite age! I look forward to getting some comments on this entry!

My Sister (In Law) and Me!

At Mom and Dad's 25th anniversary party I’m not sure how many times I heard comments like this (but it was a lot), “Wow, you and Jen look so much alike,” or “You’d think you and Jen were sisters by blood, not marriage” or “Oh, I thought you were Jen walking up to me, but you’re Cassie.” Good thing that Jen and I are both so darn cute since people say we look so much alike : ) By the way, I have to agree with all of you that think we look like sisters…there is definitely a resemblance. I guess my brother thought I was so cute that he wanted to marry someone who looked like me, LOL. Of course, some people say that Aaron and Nick resemble each other too, so I guess I did the same thing with my brother and hubby : ) We’re just four good-looking individuals I guess…ha, ha.

Vocab List

I found a website today that I fell in love with because it made me laugh for a good, solid, ½ hour (possibly longer.) The website is www.wordspy.com . The site specializes in defining newly coined words and phrases. I found it very amusing that many every-day events now have coined phrases. I kept thinking to myself, “oh, that’s what you call that.” : ) This website has expanded my vocabulary by leaps and bounds…ha, ha. Here are some of my favorites (in no particular order) :

Brokeback marriage- n.- A current or former marriage in which one partner is gay or has had a gay affair.


Manilow method- n.- The discouragement of loitering in public places by broadcasting music that is offensive to young people, particularly the songs of singer Barry Manilow.

godcasting -pp.- Podcasting an audio feed with a religious message


mucus trooper (MYOO.kus troo.pur) n.- An employee with a cold or the flu who insists on showing up for work.

butt call- n.- An unintended phone call placed by sitting on one's cell phone.


seagul manager (SEE.gul MAN.uh.jur) n. -A manager who only interacts with employees to criticize their work or when a problem arises. (swoops in, makes a lot of noise, poops on things, then leaves)

bozo explosion -n.- The large number of inept employees that a company ends up with when it hires an incompetent executive, who in turn hires incompetent managers, who then hire incompetent workers.

freegan- n.- A person, usually a vegan, who consumes only food that is obtained by foraging, most often in the garbages of restaurants, grocery stores, and other retailers.

Hopefully that’s enough to get you interested in looking at the website. Let the good words (and laughter) roll…

Self Portrait Challenge

This month's theme is "enclosed spaces." For my first portrait for the month (since I missed last week) I enclosed my eyes in the frames of my glasses.

25th Anniversary Bash!

Nick, Jen, Aaron, and I threw a big 25th anniversary celebration for Mom and Dad yesterday. We had the party at a banquet hall in Brazil, IN and we had about 115 guests! It was lots of fun and started with a vow renewal ceremony then there was cake, punch, and dancing until early evening. Mom and Dad were so cute together. Here are a couple pics from the day.

I can’t wait to see the pictures the photographer took! The photographer is going to post them on-line in a couple weeks so I’ll post the link on by blog as soon as I get it.

Oops

I bought a large bag of plastic cups for my parent’s 25th anniversary party at Sam’s Club on my lunch hour last week. Unfortunately, I didn’t think about how hot my car was going to get as it sat in the parking lot at work for the rest of the afternoon. I got home that evening, grabbed the bag of cups out of the backseat and headed into the house. When I got in the house, I put the bag on the floor and noticed that the stacks of cups looked shorter than it had before. At first I thought, “No, I must be imagining it.” Then I picked up the bag and took a closer look. Staring back at me were about 150 cups that looked like this:
I think they look like little lopsided witch hats. The little hats would look adorable on Taggie, but there is no way that she would wear one long enough to take a picture, so just visualize how funny it would be : ) Fortunately, I was able to save about 50 cups out of the bag of 200. “Duh Cassie, plastic does melt!”