Coffee with a friend

I know this blog is in need of an update. The past couple of weeks have been really busy! And of course in the midst of it I continue to look for a job. Before I update you on all the fun, I thought I would share this with you.

Yesterday I got to see my good college friend Katie who is a missionary with SAM (South America Mission) in Bolivia. She has been back in upstate New York visiting her family and raising support before she heads back sometime next year. She is in Minnesota for just a few days and I’m so glad I got to see her yesterday. You can read more about her here.

Katie and I went for coffee at Coffee News Cafe, but also stopped in one of my old favorite shops, Wet Paint. While we were there we found these great journals made out of old books and each picked up a couple. I can’t wait to use one of them. They are so great. The company that makes them is called Ex Libris Anonymous.

Anyway, I am just feeling happy about a great time and good conversation spent with a good friend and good coffee, while taking home with me a couple goodies. 🙂

I don’t know why I am so bad at smiling in pictures lately! Haha.

Year in Review 2009

The other day I explained what happened with our Christmas card this year.  I thought I would show you what we originally made that ended up too frustrating or expensive to make copies of to send, since we sent out 75 Christmas cards.

Here is what we sent out:

Here is what we made first. It’s a little booklet that is 5 1/2 x 4 inches.

Go here to see the whole thing!

You can watch it as a slideshow!

Christmas Card Time

It’s that time of year again, where I am addressing envelopes and e-mailing friends to get updated addresses. Since I was a child I’ve always loved mail, and my favorite mail is the mail I get in December- Christmas cards! Since I got married, I’ve sent a card every year, and each year try to make it a bit different than the last.

I had thought about making handmade cards again this year, as that is what I did the past two years, but then I stumbled upon a deal where I got 100 photo cards for just the price of shipping. I couldn’t pass that up! The cards are sitting in neat piles on my dining room table at the moment. I also found a deal to get return address labels for just the price of shipping. I ordered the Christmas stamps in the mail. All that is left is the newsletter-type part.

The newsletter portion that was included in our Christmas card for 2006 was our fave we’ve done so far. We decided to make a ‘zine type newsletter, and we were really happy with how it turned out. We thought we would try and do that again this year. Trev got really into it and decided it should be color. We figured out all the highlights and printed out photos, then put a little booklet together. Then we realized we would need to take it somewhere to make copies. Trev looked online and found a “Fed Ex + Copy” a few minutes away, and was quoted a good price. We went there yesterday in the bit of time I had before choir practice. It wasn’t what we were expecting when we got there- it was dirty, small, and only had a couple of copy machines. There were no other customers, and only one person working. We showed him what we wanted copies of and he took it and started laying things out on the copy machine, saying “Technology these days. It’s so complicated.” Um, this is not what I wanted to hear! He tried a couple of times but clearly did not know what he was doing! First he copied it the wrong direction, then messed up the photos, then had a page upside down….we finally gave up and told him we would find a different machine and left the store. SO disappointing! He didn’t even try to argue us into staying either.

While I was at choir practice Trevor headed over to an actual Fed Ex Office (formerly Kinkos) 3 times further away. He gave me the bad news that the cost there was TWICE as much as the other place. Sadly, we had to give up on our fun little Christmas newsletter mini scrapbook. So now tonight I’ve got to start all over and I am really sad that we aren’t sending out our original plan. It was such a fun idea!

This past weekend we decorated the house for Christmas, but I have yet to take photos. Our vacuum cleaner broke so I took it in today to get fixed finally. I’ll get it back tomorrow. Then I’ll take some photos of the house with clean floors. :-0

It’s Trev’s family Christmas this weekend here at our house + his brother’s, and I have a long to-do list. We are done with our Christmas shopping, and I’ve got to wrap all the presents. We’ll be having brunch here, and I’ve got to figure out what I’m making + do the shopping (and should probably also make some Christmas cookies). I have some more decor to make/put up, this newsletter to make, Christmas cards to be stuffed and stamped and mailed, cleaning and organizing to do, and a Dr. appointment. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, but I’ll get everything done.

‘Tis the Season

It’s December and there’s a tiny bit of snow on the ground. This week is flying by after the busy fun weekend away for Thanksgiving with the Tungseths.

Here we all were on Thanksgiving Day at the lake cabin:

It was the usual celebration of food, football, games, etc. and the usual weekend of making lefse, watching a movie, eating lots of food…but Trevor broke his hand playing football! He can’t use his right hand for five weeks. It is really frustrating for him, but at least he doesn’t have to have surgery.

Here are a couple photos from a bunch of us going to cut down Christmas trees on Saturday:

This week I’ve had appointments and errands and cleaning and job searching to do. I also made this wreath for the front door:

I saw this idea here and made my own version using supplies from the dollar store and what I had at home, besides some brads I found on clearance at Michaels. I also didn’t cut the flowers out from hand like the tutorial, but instead used my Cricut to cut them out for me. 🙂

We still need to get out the Christmas tree and decorations! Trevor won’t be too much help with his broken hand and all, but I am hoping he can help me a little bit, so I am waiting for him to be around. We’ve had a busy week! Hopefully we will decorate the house this weekend!