He is the light in the darkness

Well, life is tough;  no doubt about that! Lately has just seemed  so chaotic and, if I didn't have my  wonderful husband to lean on, I would feel like things around me are falling down on my head. I was supposed  to be posting my blog about our vacation to Texas and Cozumel, but my brand spankin' new laptop has a defective hard drive and I lost all of my documents/pics on it. Major bummer! So instead of rewriting that whole post, I'm promising to catch up on it this weekend, and dedicating tonight to feel bad  for myself lol.

So since we've been back from vacation, everything has been just insane. We've been back now for just over 3 full weeks and I have literally  only seem my husband 2 times. Well, that's a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but not much. We've gotten to spend time together on two different occasions, and other than that, I've seen Michael coming and going about 2 other times. One  of them was at 4am, when Michael got home from the library and woke me up just so I could see him for a second before falling back to sleep. It's hard. Actually it's harder than I'd ever imagined. It's not like we haven't been through this before, but the second year is supposed to be a little better. It's really not. I think I was  over-anticipating lots of Michael time.

Besides having to readjust to having  no time with my man, after a great 2 months off, we've also had everything that could go wrong, actually go wrong. I feel like every product that has a recall on it, somehow ended up in our possession! Both of our cell phones already went out and had to be replaced right after our vacation, but additionally, we've had 4 flat tires, 2 of which were on Michael's car. Actually, we thought  the car was super out  of alignment, so he took it in, paid to have it aligned, and they told him that it was actually a problem with the tires and it was due to a manufacturer defect. within the next couple weeks, he had 2 flat tires.

Then last weekend, I had my favorite candle burning when all of a sudden it burst into huge flames and burned a hole through our counter top, and the area around it bubbled up. I'm just so glad there was nothing around the candle to catch fire! A counter top is one thing, but our belongings are irreplaceable. After googling a possible cause for the fire, I found out the candle was recalled because of this exact reason. Figures haha!

After the  loss of my laptop and all my  pics, I was super frustrated, but today when I got to work, I realized that all of my follow-up excel sheets were on my  laptop and weren't back up on. Those are  pretty much irreplaceable and will probably cost me a lot  of money in future sales. Michael's tried to recover them with his magic, but it's not looking  good because a bunch of them were destroyed when the hard drive crashed. Best buy told us they probably could, for a minor $1,500 fee. Hahaha yah right! Sry for such a long post  dedicated to venting, but I'm just at a really hard place right now. Plus it doesn't help that I can be completely mindless and got a speeding ticket our first day back in Iowa and managed to leave half my wardrobe, including all my nice, new clothes on the cruise and they just told us that they were never turned in by our room cleaner.

On top of everything, I do have to admit that I'm completely smitten and feeling  blessed beyond belief with my supportive hubby. It's inevitable that life will throw punches, but when you have someone always standing in your corner, cheering you on, it's easier to remain  standing. In fact, looking back over the past few weeks, I almost feel like it's the  most frustrating times in life that bring you the closest and for that, I'm thankful. It's the crazy interruptions in life that sometimes help you acknowledge your own weaknesses and keep you dependent on each other. More and more, I find myself wanting to be the best wife possible, so I can return the support and love he shows me on a daily basis. It literally took me until this very moment to realize that haha. Well, I guess I'm done whining lol! I guess  tonight, instead of feeling stressed and rundown, I'm almost feeling restored and  thankful for a God who knows exactly what our needs are, whether or not we even realize them.

so this is what life is like without a summer break...

just a little side note: I wrote this before our Texas trip, as you'll notice as you read on lol. I just forgot to actually publish it. oops!

Well, as always, it’s been a while! I have just been unbelievably busy! Not even just normal amount of “super busy”; I’ve been working over 12 hours a day out on the road and then having to come home and spend a couple of hours setting the next day’s appointments. Still, we’ve had a few events to speak of, so I thought I’d share. Trying to take advantage of his only summer off, Michael and I have been spending plenty of time fishing. Although our catches probably couldn’t even all add up to be a decent sized snack, it’s still been enjoyable. I think Michael gets pretty frustrated, but it doesn’t bother me too much. I primarily just like to be outside soaking up some sunshine, while we can. Winter in Iowa starts awfully early!

 This is my Katniss Everdeen face hehe

A couple of weeks ago Michael and I had an Asian day and decided to make California rolls. Actually, Michael didn’t exactly volunteer to make sushi with me; we made a bet and the winner got to pick a restaurant for dinner. As it turned out, I won and really wanted to eat at a sushi restaurant, since I never have before. I really have no desire whatsoever to try the raw stuff, but if we could find cooked stuff to eat, I think it would be a fun and different experience. When it came to actually finding a place, I decided it was too expensive for us right now. Instead, I got all the ingredients for California rolls and we made a date out of it. I ended up also making Tempura (fried shrimp and veggies) and these marinated cucumbers that my grandma makes and Michael always loves. Since my grandma makes everything from taste, we can never seem to get the right recipe from her, so I had to look one up online and give it a try. They ended up tasting exactly like Grandma’s! 

A fine display of Michael's photography skills hahaha!

This year we didn’t do too much for 4^th of July. It was the first time we’ve ever been out of Texas and it’s one of my favorite holidays, so it was pretty depressing. I’m used to being around my huge family in Lake Jackson and going to the beach for some hotdogs, s’mores, and sandcastles! Though we didn’t make it into a huge event this year, we did have fun! We ended up going to a friend’s house from work on the 3^rd and we played darts and hung out all night. On the actual day of, Michael and I went to a firework show. It’s pretty lame that Iowa doesn’t allow people to do their own fireworks at all, but the firework show was beautiful (I LOVE fireworks) and we had a nice time just laying out on a blanket in the grass and talking for a couple hours before the show started. Being away from everyone really gives me time to be alone with and appreciate Michael fully. I really do treasure those moments.

My job has also been treating me great. I’ve really worked my way up to a high producer in the office. Once a month my boss runs a contest called Dash for Cash, in which the top 2 producers for the week get cash $$. I ended up having really great sales over the week Tyler (my boss) decided to run the Dash for Cash, so I won $250! Woohoo! Michael even went to the mall with me (wich I think is only the 2^nd time he’s ever agreed to go, out of our entire 6 years together!) while I picked out new clothes that he let me buy with my prize. I also mentioned a while back that I qualified for our summer trip with the office, and that was last weekend. 

We had a blast! I absolutely love basically everyone I work with, plus I got to know all of their spouses/girlfriends. That was especially nice, since I work with almost ALL guys. Tyler rented a mansion on a cliff that hangs over Lake of the Ozarks. I don’t even know how many square feet this place was, but it was really impressive. It had several living areas, with a few bars, and a pool table. It also had a pool, which was located right on the edge of the cliff, so it was an awesome view! We spent most of every day just hanging out there. One day Tyler took all the guys golfing, while all the ladies went to a local outlet mall and out to lunch. That was a lot of fun! It’s been SO long since I’ve got to hang out with girls, and I got along great with all of them! Another day, Tyler rented a pontoon boat and we went out on the lake for half the day. During the nights, Tyler had also rented us a hotel room at the Four Seasons nearby, which was also really nice! Overall, we definitely felt lucky that I found such a great job, with a boss that treats us so well!

 Aaron, my trainer. I owe a lot to this guy

 Our lake house from the water

The back of the house

Oh and just thought I would mention that we just realized how much we adore our little fluff ball! The night before we went on our trip, Michael and I went to drop Gizmo off with one of my clients, who was going to be watching him. When we got back, the apartment felt so incredibly empty! We are so used to spending so much time playing with him together and making fun of him, that we didn’t know what to do with ourselves when there wasn’t a little gremlin jumping all over us and making us laugh. Even though he’s just a dog, I really believe he makes us feel more like a family than we ever would on our own. It’s nice to have something that constantly depends on us and wants to give us affection. Oh, how I love my little Gizzybear!

Now we’re just preparing for our trip to Texas this upcoming weekend! Michael’s been eating insanely healthy and working out pretty hardcore for a while now. I’m really so proud of him for his hard work; he’s really seeing results! I don’t think I’ve ever known a person who will eat a big bowl of plain spinach or a whole head of broccoli for a snack.  His meals pretty much consist of vegetables and sautéed chicken. He’s also been keeping away from grains, which I think he took from the paleo diet. He’s definitely going to be beach ready in time for our cruise! We cannot wait to be home with our friends and family!!! Lookout Texas, here we come!!!