My Grandma June just celebrated her 86th birthday on June 27th.

My Grandpa Bill passed away 1 year ago, yesterday.

They were married for 61 years when he passed away.

So, I used my Anthropologie gift cards last night ((thanks Jon, Heather & Funnel!))  I bought a lovely, summery dress, which I just felt like i was supposed to have.   It was on sale for the exact amount I had on my cards and it was the only one left and just happened to be my exact size.  I had even tried it on a couple of months ago and liked it.  So it will make an appearance next weekend, but here is a sneak peek:

We also bought some cute letter glasses that were on sale:

I’m so glad it’s Friday.

Just got an email that my book’s printing has been delayed
but they are giving me $10 off my next book (sweet!)

Started reading the saddest/most hopeful blog ever.
A man whose baby was born and wife died,
all within 27 hours.

This weekend:
maybe going to comfest
maybe going to Easton (need a dress for a wedding!)
going to the Crew game (box seats!)
working on pictures/cleaning/laundry

July:
a Cleveland wedding
a weekend in a cabin in Brown County, Indiana
maybe Cedar Point

August:
a wedding of Otterbein friends.
a weekend in Michigan
hopefully a secret getaway

((excuse the language of that second one.))

Drove through Westgate and saw some lovely houses.
One had a door with a spiderweb window on it.
pretty neat.

I might like a house with a spiderweb window.
All the kids would think I was a witch.

A couple of weeks ago, I took Thursday and Friday off of work and stayed in a cabin in Laurelville with some of my girlfriends.  It was in the middle of nowhere, but that was perfect.. we just took it easy.  We read books, grilled out, watched movies, did some creek-walking….

visited the animals on the farm down the road…

hung out with Maggie the dog …

watched a thunderstorm from the porch…

and then I left on that Friday to meet Funnel and some other friends in Logan for two nights of camping, which was fun but made me feel pretty gross.  All of my other pictures are on film, so I’ll post those once I get them developed. 

Today at work I got to meet and photograph all of our therapy animals for an article I am writing.  There were a ton of them… everything from hissing cockroaches to a chinchilla, and they were all so sweet (even the skunk). 

There was one little critter that stole my heart (don’t tell Kirpi!) and I think I might just have to get one for our next pet: a degu - South America’s version of the chipmunk:

I finally finished my book.  I started it last February, but I’ve really been going at it for about 9 months, and now it’s finally finished and ordered.

It’s called ”love in the heart-shaped state” and it’s the story of Funnel & Jen. 

It ended up being 314 pages long and it’s a compilation of all of our photos, AIM conversations, 2 shoeboxes of letters and momentos, all my journal and blog entries, lyrics to songs from all the mix CD’s we made each other, and then I wrote a narrative that ties it all together. 

I will admit that it is pretty cheesy, but it was the best that I could do.  It seemed really urgent to me that I make this book now, at this point in our relationship, before life gets too busy and we start forgetting everything. I am really thankful that we did such a good job of saving everything and that I journaled so much the last few years.  When I was going through everything I realized that there were so many things that just would have been lost had I not written them down.

While making it, I had never even thought about “The Notebook” but that’s what it’s like.  I hope we will still have it when we are old.  Hopefully our kids and grandkids will enjoy reading it one day.

It should be here by the end of the month and I’ll probably post pictures.  I’m already starting to geek out about it.

Yesterday, Funnel and I went thrifting.  We hit four stores and at the very last one, Funnel found this amazing, distressed, shabby-chic, orange desk that had just been brought in the day before.  He showed it to me and we talked about how we didn’t have room in our apartment for it, but then we decided to buy it anyway.  I love it, and it was only $16.99!

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After we went thrifting, we met up with Peab, Amy and Lauren for dinner at Kasinger’s Deli and then went to the Columbus Arts Festival.  It wasn’t along the river like the previous years.. they had in the area by the Columbus Art Museum and CCAD.  It was fun.  I can’t wait for someday when we might be able to buy some art, but for now, looking at it was just fine. 

 
((photo by the talented Funnel))

We all really liked this one photographer, Armond Scavo.  My favorite thing I saw during the whole show was the photo he took of Cape May.  It’s called “The Bathers.”

I prefer this kind of photography to some of the photos I saw that were so bright, and saturated and perfect.

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I’m getting Thursday and Friday off this coming week.  I am going to Hocking Hills with some of my girlfriends for a couple of nights and then for the rest of the weekend, Funnel and I are going camping near Athens!

I just added a new item to my etsy shop:  A custom, frameable keepsake of your wedding vows in a 5×7 or 8×10. 

I love you
for putting your hand
into my heaped-up heart
and passing over
all the foolish, weak things
that you can’t help
dimly seeing there,
and for drawing out
into the light
all the beautiful belongings
that no one else had looked
quite far enough to find.

— from the poem “I love you” by Roy Croft

…

After I posted the photo of our new pink mugs from Anthropologie earlier today, I decided to make an inspiration board for the future green & pink kitchen.

The green is just plain pretty and the pink is girly, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a girly kitchen.  I think it’s very cunducive to baking cupkakes and pies.

If only life was made up solely of weekends.

Friday night, I made bruschetta linguine for dinner, which is one of the first times that I’ve made up my own recipe for something. It was pretty good. I sautéed minced garlic and onions and then added halved cherry tomatoes and fresh basil for just a couple of minutes at the end, mixed it with some olive oil and added it to the linguine, with freshly grated parmesan cheese on top. It really did taste like bruschetta, in pasta-form.

Then Funnel and I went to Easton for some shopping.

I’ve told you before about my obsession with the lovely but out-of-my-price-range Anthropologie. LOVE IT. I have two gift cards there that I got for Christmas and I was dying to use them. So we went, and I was looking for a summery dress, but we ended up buying these pink stackable mugs (that go perfectly with all the sage-green and pink stuff I’ve been buying for our future sage-green & pink kitchen in our future house) and this brown and white plate:

The plate was originally $28, but we got it for $3.99! The mugs were a steal too.

The best part was that Funnel wanted me to save my gift cards for something for me instead of something for us, so there will be more Anthropologieness in the future!

Saturday was Peab’s graduation party. It was a fun time. Lovely weather, spent most of the day outside, got to hang out with friends and friends and ended the night with a bon-fire and the burning of a very dried-out Christmas tree.

Sunday, we accidentally overslept, and then I spent the bulk of the day in my pajamas, playing Mario-Kart with Funnel, with a short break for a round of frolf and a mango Italian ice from Rita’s (thanks to Sarah’s recommendation…its way healthier, and even more delicious than ice cream!). I am obsessed with the new Mario-Kart, especially since you can play it online with people from all over the world (I played against Canadians, Mexicans and the French!)

The weekend before this one was fun too… we went to the Asian Festival downtown and saw Sumo Wrestling and we also went to a Break-Dancing competition at OSU!

Here’s a fun picture of Michaela and me from Memorial Day:

Lastly, the baby geese that live in the pond next to our apartment are almost full-grown and there seem to be so many more of them!

Last week I had my very first “graduation photos” shoot with Maria!  Maria is graduating from Otterbein (where I went to school) and was a really fun, easy subject to shoot.. I don’t think she can take a bad picture.  Also, I was super excited to find out that Maria is an Anne of Green Gables fan!

We did the shoot at Alum Creek Park, which brough back a lot of memories.  I had many picnics, study sessions and long walks at Alum Creek Park.  And driving through the little campus always makes me miss Otterbein.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Good news!  Funnel just called and she has been located.. she is inside our couch.  Like, she must have gone underneath it and then gone in a hole in the bottom of it.  There’s not really a way to get her out without (a) destroying the couch or (b) tipping it on its side, which would freak her out.  Hopefully she’ll stay put until she wakes up tonight and we can coax her out with some food!  I feel much better knowing where she is, but I won’t feel completely relieved until she’s back in her cage.

 
hedgehog card by ethelandiris on etsy.

My dad came down to Columbus last night to visit for a couple days and we moved Kirpi’s cage to the main living area of our apartment so that he could stay in the spare bedroom.  Well, last night, I got up in the middle of the night to take some Aleve and I noticed how incredibly loud her wheel was, so I took her out of it and removed it from her cage.  I was worried Dad would hear it from the other room and it would keep him up.

Right before I left for work this morning, I checked on her and she was gone!  Oh no!  Didn’t I learn my lesson last time I removed her wheel?  She gets bored and wants to escape. 

I quickly woke Funnel up, I called in to work to tell them I would be late (luckily my only other co-worker today is a huge animal-lover, so she totally understood) and the three of us did an in-depth search of the apartment.  Flashlights, moving furniture, the whole works.  No luck.  Unfortunately, she sleeps during the day, so that makes it extra-hard to find her, because she just likes to curl up in a ball and be left alone.

I eventually had to give up my search and go to work but before I left, I mixed her food (dry catfood) with water and heated it in the microwave, which made it smell super strong, and put it in four bowls, which I placed in different spots around the apartment.  By each bowl I put either a hedgehog sleeping bag or a towel, which she loves to snuggle in.   Hedgehogs have great senses of smell, so I hope she’ll smell the food, come to eat it and then go to sleep in one of the towels and will be there when we get home tonight.

If that doesn’t work, Funnel volunteered to stay up tonight and listen for her (she’s pretty clumsy and loud when she’s awake, which usually begins around 9 or 10).  Honestly though, if we don’t find her before then, I’ll have to stay up too because I doubt I’ll be able to get any sleep knowing she’s missing.  I read online that a good strategy is to put their food dish in a paper bag and then you’ll hear them for sure when they rustle though it.

I feel sick to my stomach that we don’t know where she is.  Funnel keeps telling me “She probably had the most fun night of her life last night!”  I hope so.  I hope she’s okay and safe.

 
((Maria and Stevie Chapman))

I was really saddened this past week after I read about the death of Steven Curtis Chapman’s daughter, Maria, the youngest of the three little girls they adopted from China.  I think I read that she was five years old.  She died in a freak accident in their driveway — her older brother was backing up and didn’t see her.

I hear about a lot of devastating things in the news everyday, but for some reason, this particular tragedy has stuck with me and has been on my mind the last few days.  I can’t stop thinking about them.  I am so sad for their sweet family and I can’t imagine what they are going through.

I haven’t talked about this a whole lot yet, but Lord-willing, Funnel and I would really love to adopt children, hopefully internationally.  A couple of weeks ago, we got the packet I sent away for from American World Adoption and last night I finally took the time to pop in the DVD it came with, and it was the Chapmans’ adoption story.  It was one of those weird, neat things because they had been on my heart lately, and then theirs was the story we’re presented with.  Very bittersweet.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…”
— James 1:27