It's official...

My best friend is moving to Florida.

In 3 weeks.

Her husband got a job there.

I'm so tired of all my friends moving away.

I know I need to stop having a pity party for myself,

but I don't make real friends easily.

And they've all moved away now. 

Seriously, this sucks.

Yeah, I thought I needed sleep last week....Haha

I am 20x more tired tonight than last weekend. 

The reason for this is that I had a little adventure last night. 

To make a long story short, my best friend Amanda and I went to dinner, 

and we were driving back to my car so I could drive home, at about 10PM.

Her brothers car (which he had switched with her because he wanted to use hers for a long trip) was making a strange noise. 

And, in the middle of the street, while we were driving through a residential area of Indianapolis, 

our tire came off.

Like, completely off our car. 

We went right into the turn lane as our tire rolled left across the street.

It was scary, and we were pretty shaken,

but safe.

Amanda's dad drove 40 minutes to save us and put our tire back on,

because her brother's car didn't have a tire iron.

Seriously. 

It happened around 10P.M., by the time I got home, it was 1AM.  

I get up at 6:30 AM.

Boo. 

Honestly, though, someone upstairs was looking out for us.

It could have happened to her brother on the interstate far from home. 

We almost took the interstate, and didn't.

There was no damage to the axle of the car or the tire. 

We were able to pull into literally the only turn lane on the entire road.

We found all 5 lugnuts in the street, none of them rolled into the rocky ditch or across the road.

We were lucky,

and I am so thankful.

Also adding to the sleep depravation, 

I started full time student teaching on Tuesday.

It's been quite an eventful week, in an urban public elementary school kind of way.

One drug deal, one abuse report, a screaming match full of swearing, hungry kids, a bedbug outbreak, and of course, lots of kids with need.

but good things too.

Successful learning, a lot of good relationships made with my students, and, especially today, lots of smiles. 

But, I am exhausted.

I start officially teaching next week, 

math all day, all week.

I'm actually kind of excited about it!

I love these kids so much already,

and I want to be a positive in their life.

Looking forward to the weekend, but I have so much to do.

I'm already overwhelmed.

Oh boy.

I think I'll start with some sleep.

♥

Keeping things moving...

Things are going well, my friends.  

This past few weeks, I've gotten locked into school mode, 

and it has been going really well.

I'm succeeding.

And that feels amazing.

I start my final session of student teaching on the 21st. 

I'm ready to go, ready to get it moving, and be done!

I started my volunteer tutoring on Wednesday,

through School on Wheels.

I love it! 

I feel so good doing it, it's totally worthwhile. 

The only negative is that I am back to seeing Jamie only on Thursday mornings and weekends.

Once I start student teaching, I won't see him Monday through Friday.  

Which is going to be really hard, but we've done it before, 

we can do it again. 

We just need to remember what is important, 

and to put each other first when we are together. 

Another thing that's happened recently is that my beautiful friend Misty gave birth to her beautiful baby Isaiah!! He is so gorgeous, and I cannot wait to meet him! 

It will also be nice to catch up with Misty, whenever that is. =)

I will leave you with my finished Metal and Glass still life, 

which I am incredibly proud of,

and the VERY early beginning of a landscape, which is my current project.

It if goes well, we are going to frame it and put it over our bed. 

Finishing up homework all weekend, 

only two big projects and I'm done with class!

Let's get this show on the road!

♥

Oops...

Let's face it, people.

I'm sure you were all taking bets on how long it would be before I missed a day. 

3 days.

I intended to blog, but crashed on the couch during the 11 PM news and woke up when my husband got home at 1AM.

Oh well. 

A double posting today, then.

Yesterday, I was thankful for...

Misty.

I got to chat with my good friend last night after way to long.

Our lives are pretty hectic, so it was really nice.  

We have been friends for several years, 

and even though she lives in Chicago now, 

I still consider her very close.

We share many interests, and always have awesome and interesting conversations.

I am looking forward to seeing her again (whenever that may be)

and I am so excited for her little man to get here in February! =D

And today, I'm thankful for...

Music.

The Civil Wars concert is finally here!

I'm so pumped, I've had my tickets since August.  

Music is a very important part of my life, and I'm thankful for that.

It's truly been a summer of music for us. 

We saw Amos Lee, 

Ray Lamontagne, 

and now the Civil Wars.

Three of my all-time favorites.

Man, i love Music.

♥

These past two weeks...

Sorry friends, it's been a while.  

These past few weeks, I've started re-taking E341. 

That's right, folks, I lost my appeal. 

It's been incredibly stressful.

I feel like everything that should be easy comes with some massive complication that causes it to be 10x harder. 

I would just like to go one day without being super stressed and having a meltdown.

Just. One. Day.

But I'm not going to focus on the negatives, It's my night off, I want to enjoy it.

The few positives in my life lately:

I have been completely vegetarian for almost a month.

I'm pretty proud of myself, It's not been easy.  

Indiana isn't very accommodating to people with different eating needs.

I don't know yet if this is a lifelong transformation, but I just wanted to try it for a while.

I've been trying many different tofu recipes. 

Today's recipe:

Fried tofu. 

Pretty good, it could add some texture to steamed veggies, and would be good dipped in some sauce.

Also, my cousin got married this past weekend, so I got to get all dressed up and see a lot of my family, which was very nice, 

and spend the evening afterwards with the lovely Amanda and Joe. 

She has been a huge support to me, and even drove her book 40 minutes one way from her house to mine, because I couldn't find mine and was freaking out.

So thankful to have her as a friend.

And my last bit of good news, I love, love, love the painting class I'm taking to have enough credit hours to keep my financial aid.

Here is my first official still life, done in monochromatic form.

I'm not quite done, but I'm pretty happy with it. 

So that's life lately.

One giant ball of stressed out mess, with a little happy here and there.

I just have to get through 4 more weeks, and then it's painting for the rest of the semester.

Pray for me.

♥

World War III and Fridge art.

I've been waging war.

In my own home.

Fleas.

They are the ultimate enemy.

What started this was that Emma laid at the foot of my side of the bed on Sunday.

Sunday night, I went to sleep about 1AM, and kept dreaming that my feet were being eaten.

Finally, at 5AM, I got up, and went and looked at them in the bathroom under the light, and my feet and ankles looked like this:

 I had 12 of these bites. Ridiculous. And this was taken about 36 hours later, after most of the swelling had gone down.

I spent the rest of the night on the couch, and since then I've washed everything fabric in my whole house, and they've both had flea meds.

I will win.

Take that, fleas.

In more happy news, I got a new kitchen compost container!

 It holds 2.4 gallons, fits perfectly under my sink freeing up counter space,

 and has a great carbon filter to keep odor down, and came with 3 replacement filters!

I'm really excited about it, and the fact that I got it for about 60% off! It's also not clear, so you can't see all the yuckiness, which is kind of nice.

We had a cookout at our house this past weekend, for all of the people who play or sing in our church worship band with us, and their families.  We had a really good time, and I was left with some lovely refrigerator art.

The left side was done by Wyatt, and the right side was Jacqueline.
I love them, they make me smile.

I will leave you with a video of my crazy, funny dog.
She has been extraordinarily needy lately! She just wants attention all the time.
Turn your volume all the way up, and listen to how stinking needy she's been!

She did this for 30 minutes.
She's actually doing it right now.
 As I type this.
Crazy, crazy dog.
♥

Re-committed. And tired.

Today my friends, will by day 8 of 8 straight days of work.

all of the shifts were 6-10 hours long. 

For 8. straight. days.

Needless to say, I'm ready for a break, and that is a large part of my lack of non-simple blogging.

I've been at the new store now for 3 weeks, and it has gone a lot better than I expected. I actually really enjoy it. Just not 8 straight days of it. =)

I have re-committed to being a flexitarian.  It will be super difficult when school starts, but for now it's not been bad.  I just make 2-3 vegetarian meals a week, and eat them and their leftovers at work and at home, keeping me meat free, and then allow myself fish or chicken once or twice on the weekends. 

The vegetarian section of the "Healthy College Cookbook" has become my best friend. 

I love that cookbook.

Last week I had brocolli-tofu stir fry, garlic and tofu green beans, and pasta salad.

This week I've had Sesame noodles, a different pasta salad, and today I made ginger-soy tofu over rice.

It's delicious. 

Other than massive amounts of work, things have been pretty good in this household. Recycling is taking off, which I am so excited about. It's a real eye opener to see how much we've been throwing away that we could have been recycling. 

We re-potted the mandarin tree, so there is more dirt under it now.

And we have peppers from the garden, but everything else is kind of stalled due to this ridiculous heat.

Jamie and I have been getting to spend a lot of time together lately, and it's been so nice. We've finally gotten into that summer swing. Unfortunately, school starts in less than a month. But, I don't want to talk about that yet. 

Tomorrow we are hanging out with our friends Amanda and Joe.  Joe and Jamie are going golfing, and Amanda and I are going to get pedicures. Neither of us have ever had one, so we thought we would go together to try it. I'm really excited, I love seeing those two. It's nice to have friends we can get together with, and I always feel good when I'm with them.

And I got to talk to Misty yesterday, which was so great. 

Oh yeah, and Minnie's in heat again, so you can imagine what she's been like to deal with. If you can't imagine, here is a picture from the last time.

And I will leave you with a thought from the other day.  When I was a kid, I read the book "Harriet the Spy" by Louise Fitzhugh about 50 times. I loved it.  There is a simple passage in there, in the 3rd chapter, where Harriet is talking to her best friend, that says:

"She never minded admitting she didn't know something. 'So what?' she thought; 'I could always learn.'"

I realized the other day, when the grocery store clerk looked at me like an idiot because I didn't know that scallions and green onions were the same things, that this one tiny passage has helped shaped my life. As I started to feel really stupid, and stopped and thought, "So what? how was I supposed to know if no one ever told me?" And then I didn't feel bad. It's amazing the kind of power books can give us. That one small passage has helped shape me into the person I am. I feel confident even in not knowing things, because I can just learn them later. 

And I love that.

♥ 

New friend...

I made a new friend today.

His name turned out to be Hank.

He surprised us by showing up in our backyard.

He had no ID tag, but had a vet tag, so we called them, and they called his owners, who live on a street near us.

They came and got him within the hour.

He was such a sweet boy.

When you walk, he runs in front of you and flops over on his back, so you will rub his belly.

I got this picture off the internet, but it seriously looks exactly like Hank, red collar and all.

Glad he could visit us for an hour.

His owners are really nice too.

I love dogs.

♥

Finally...

I feel like I'm back to my old self. 

It got pretty rough there for a while.

But I'm seeing life in a positive light again, and feeling pretty good.

Due to this whole thing with school (my final, official appeal is the end of July, for those who are wondering) I've pretty much been feeling like a failure.

Yeah, that sums it up pretty well, just a failure at life. It wasn't just in school, it felt like it seeped into all the other aspects of my life. I felt like a failure as an employee, a friend, and a wife.

But I think it's over now. I think I'm finally realizing that one woman's opinion of me may derail my plans, but it doesn't define me. 

I have a job that doesn't make me miserable, and I think I'm pretty good at it. 

I have a loving family, especially my mother, who told me from day one of this whole fiasco that she was proud of me no matter what. 

I have all of my needs provided for, a nice house, plenty of food, and anything else that comes along.

I have good friends who listened to me cry and be miserable for 2 months, and still love me.

I have a wonderful husband, who loves me even when I'm silly, irrational, emotional, and just plain needy, as well as happy and carefree. 

And I have God's unconditional love.

So, with all of these things in mind, no more feeling sorry for myself, and feeling like a failure.

Life's to short to waist so much energy on one woman's opinion.

So I'm done.

I'm looking forward to the rest of my summer, and good food, fun with friends, impromptu dates with husband, and many hammock naps. 

Life is good.

And I finally realize that again.

♥

Some favorites from Chicago...

 And of course seeing the lovely Tim and Misty, who I love and miss, but as usual I forgot to take pictures. 

♥

Just cleaning and waiting.

That's it. 

My last paper is turned in.

Now the butterflies/sick feeling in my stomach until I get my grades.

I talked with some of my friends today. 2 out of the 3 of them weren't sure if they were going to pass either. 

Don't know if I should feel better or worse about this.  

But at this point, it's out of my hands. 

I just have to hope for the best. 

I was so busy suffering through that paper yesterday, that I didn't get to wrap up my spring cleaning streak that I seem to be in.

Well, when I went to finish the carpet, our vacuum quit.  

I can say that I am shocked, 

as it is a 20 year old hand-me-down from my stepdad.

So, we got a new one. 

It's amazing.

Like, seriously, amazing. 

It's bag-less, has a HEPA filter, 

and I'm in love with it.

I'm pretty sure our carpets are cleaner than they have ever been.

Ever.

And as for the office (here's the before if you didn't see it)

TA-DA!

I love this room, it's my favorite in this house. 

I have a ton of stuff to do this week, and I'm looking forward to it all.

Tomorrow I get to go meet my mentor teacher, and see the classroom where I will be solo student teaching kindergarten next semester! (if everything goes as planned.)

I'm really excited about that. 

And Thursday I'm off to visit Misty! It's going to be so great!

So I'm determined that it's going to be a good week, despite the school stuff.

♥

Things that make my heart happy.

Even with all of the really awful stuff mentioned in my last post that has been happening, I have been really thankful that it is spring break.  

It has giving me a great chance to relax, have a little fun, and deal with things a little more calmly. 

Here are some things that have really helped me, and made me smile again.

Getting to go to church.

Eating out with my love. It's killing my calorie counting, but it's oh so worth it.

Going to concerts. Amos Lee was so great.

Planning to go to concerts. Ray Lamontagne, here we come! July 14th!

Planning our summer getaways. Chicago and the Carolinas, we're headed your way. 

Getting to sleep in. This has been wonderful.

Getting to just hang out with my friends. Can't wait for Saturday!

Finding out that my friend Emily will live 5 houses down from me this next year. Awesome!

Shopping. Always good.

And, taking a risk and making a change, that totally payed off!

Love my new haircut!

Let's just hope that the week continues to be good. 

I need it.

And here's hoping that I can get all of this stuff figured out, with a little help from upstairs.

♥

Hey Misty...

Have you seen this???

White Ayurvedic Chai CANDLE!!!

I need it. =)

♥ 

2010, and looking towards the future!

I love the "year in review" blog that Naomi did at Rockstar Diaries.

I decided I wanted to do one, although I'm sure mine won't be as eloquent or detailed as hers. 

Not much happened in January, other than the fact that I worked until midnight on new years eve. Lame. But, we had had a rough year in 2009, and Jamie and I both had extremely high hopes that this year would be better. 

In February, we went to Olive Garden (an old fave) for Valentine's Day.

In March, my cousin's son Jackson was born, and I had my bridal shower!

 We celebrated Jamie's 26th birthday in april, and I finished block I, which felt like a miracle.

May was the big one. I had my bachelorette party on the 15th, and became Mrs. Rutan on the 29th!

We celebrated with our honeymoon in June, and my parents got the latest member of our family, Dexter, who has grown a lot, and become so special to all of us!

Baby Dexter

Dexter now
 In July I chopped 7 inches off my hair, Jamie and I took an impromptu camping trip, and we lost his Nan.

In August, we took a "one last hurrah" trip to Chicago, and school started again.

In September, Jamie and I sang at his cousin Bradley's wedding, and worked to adjust to our crazy schedules.

We celebrated Halloween in October, (and by celebrated, I mean passed out candy.)

November held my 22nd birthday, for which I was called onstage at my favorite bar and serenaded, and also my very first visit to the ER. 

And in December, we celebrated our first married Christmas. 

It's been a year to remember. Granted, it's been hard, trying to juggle school and work, but there have been so many blessings. I am looking forward to next year, and praying that it is just as good. 

I wish the same for all of you, 

and I hope you have a happy new year!

♥