In case you haven't heard...

...our wedding was featured on offbeatbride.com today!

http://offbeatbride.com/2009/11/idaho-river-wedding

I was pretty obsessed with OBB when we were planning the wedding and reception and submitted our profile just as soon as I had pictures in my hands. It took a few months, but here we are!

I'm in love with my new headband!

I wasn't really sure of what to do with my hair though because I dried it really messy, so I just tossed it up in a bunch of bobby pins. My hair is getting so long that if I don't actually dry it and make it nice, I look like a bag lady. Anyway, I got the headband from mixbaby on etsy and I just ordered another one today to wear for the wedding because I'm obsessed and in love.



(I was attempting to call Adrianne while taking the picture....but the phone is hidden and it looks like I'm attempting a glamor-shots-esque pose...)

Home Makeover

As my friend, Amy, pointed out, we are "nesting." We have been talking about getting all new flooring in the house for a long time, but finally settled down and made the plans. Yippee! We went to the flooring store to pick out carpet and vinyl almost 2 weeks ago, the carpet measuring guy came last week, and our scheduled installation of all new flooring in the entire house started yesterday. In addition to packing up our entire house and moving all of our belongings into the garage, over the weekend we decided it would be a good idea to paint before getting the new carpets were to be installed. So off we went to Home Depot to pick out some new colors in order to paint Brooke's room and the 2 bathrooms. Pictures are posted here. We never would have finished everything if not for the help of Josh's sister, Adrianne. Just when I thought all of the painting was done, we decided to paint the baseboards, door trim, and window trim in the bathroom to help tone down the orange last night. The new trim, along with our new shower curtain have helped tone it down. Whew!

Josh also did a little rewiring (with the help of Adrianne's husband, Jake) so we won't have speaker wires all over the house. I'll try to post more pictures of the new carpet and vinyl when it is finished today or tomorrow. Not gonna lie, it could take awhile, because now we will have to move back into the house! Ack! Talk about sore muscles! Sore muscles or not, I'm loving our new digs!

From old to new:

Old

New!

a blog with words

Alison said I should write a real blog - one with words. Really, I've been meaning to do it for awhile, but October has been hell. Pure hell. I spent almost 2 weeks working from home about 3-4 nights/week and even spent a Sunday evening writing a report that was due to Court 2 days earlier. I hate asking for help from anyone, especially my supervisor, because I don't want them to think I can't manage my time. This is totally not the case because I am awesome at managing my time. It's just that the Court is not always so great at giving me sufficient time to get my job done. So I just ended up working from home rather than asking for any sort of comp time. I hate that. Whatever. Finally, on Monday, I went to work and had 2 things on my calendar instead of 20. I had time to organize my files on my desk and file the inches of paperwork that I somehow managed to pile up on my desk. I breathed, and it was great.

That being said, the one awesome thing about October is that I was nominated by one of the Court clerks (I don't think I'm supposed to know it's her, but she told me) to be October's Employee of the Month. The funny thing about this is that there are many, many people who work for the Agency for years and years and never get nominated and selected, but this is my second time being selected in six months - April and October. There are some jealous and bitter folks around the Agency. Oh well. I am pretty much awesome, and I don't really care what they think. I will continue to be awesome at my job even if other people think they are more awesome than me. Even better is that the Employee of the Month gets to take 4 hours of flex time for the month. So tomorrow I am going with Josh's mom (in town from eastern Idaho) to Brooke's school to help decorate for "Wild West Night" and to go to the Halloween party and watch the parade. I'm taking the whole damned day off and I can't wait!

On a completely different note, Josh and I are going as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Beth (the wife) for Halloween. I have the most spectacular costume EVER. I just finished "tailoring" Josh's jacket into a vest and convinced him he needed to buy some black pants and wear uncomfortable shoes for the occasion. I am hoping to win the iPod Touch at the party by having the best costumes. Photos to come, but probably without words. Sorry Alison!

I don't know what else to mention. Really, work has been so incredibly busy that my life has revolved around it and I can't seem to think about anything else. I am really, really, really hoping that my caseload doesn't shit on me over the next few weeks. Oh, and I am taking on a different type of caseload (well, 1/2 different caseload) soon and have to learn how to do work/supervise them all the while continuing to manage my current caseload.

How's that for an update?

ok, I'm a slacker...

...and I haven't really blogged regularly. Oops! Here are the happenings:

--I am running a 5K on 9/20/08 with my neighbor, Lisa, and a bunch of co-workers/friends. I organized the group, so I figure it's enough to make ME not back out. Lisa and I started week 1 of 9 of the Couch-to-5K plan this week. Not too bad....yet! I'll try to fill you in next week. In the mean time, I started this blog for the participants. I like to think I am clever.

--I took a few weeks off from going to Weight Watchers meetings and felt like I gained a whole crap-load of weight. Really, I gained about 6 lbs. Not too bad, considering the amount of crap I ate. I guess 20-something days on the river actually DOES counter-balance SOME eating of the junk food. Anyway, I joined Weight Watchers online because it was too difficult to get to the meetings every week. I think I like the online stuff better - but really, truly believe that I'm at an advantage because I went to the meetings first. -3 lbs last week - go me!

--We are going to Josh's family's reunion tomorrow. I will attempt to report later.

--We got a new dishwasher. And table and chairs. And we picked out laminate flooring and carpet for the WHOLE house. And I am excited about ALL of it. It will be like we have a brand new house!

--We might need some muscles to help move our furniture into the garage for the new carpet. I will keep you posted if I need your help.

--Alison is moving back to Minnesota and I desperately want to go visit and go sing karaoke and attend BBQs. But we just bought all of that stuff and I have to finish my semester and I can't afford it. Sigh.

--Vegas in October!

I'm pretty much a badass

At least, I feel like one. I think/hope that Josh will back me up on this.

You may remember that at that end of last summer I rowed my first class III rapid and was very, very proud of myself. Two weeks ago, I ran the Main Payette (all but 2 rapids) with Josh in the boat with me. So when last week hit and Josh asked if I thought if I was ready to run my own boat down the Main, I was scared shitless. Thankfully, Josh had a lot more faith in me than I did of myself. I randomly told my co-worker, Vanessa, that we would be going that weekend and invited her along. At first, I thought she'd be running her own, new, inflatable kyack alongside us. However, her IK is with her dad elsewhere. For some strange reason, she decided she'd be OK riding in MY boat (with my new b-day oars, btw), even though I'd never run the entire Main by myself.

Enter: Party on Friday night. OMG, it was insane. The party was very impromptu, and we grilled hamburgers and had a helluva time with our neighbors. Multiple bottles of liquor and several cases of beer were consumed. When I woke up to Josh, sick beside me, in the morning, I was worried that we wouldn't actually go. He assured me that we would. Vanessa arrived, and a few coffees and sandwiches later, we hit the road. Josh and our buddy Jesse ran the South Fork (despite my extreme nervousness) and we met them at the put-in for the Main. I was SO nervous about the river, and even more so because it wouldn't just me me to get wet or dumped - Vanessa would have to survive through my lack of experience. I have since adopted Vanessa's motto: "If I weren't in it for the adventure, I wouldn't have come."

And that's what it was. Josh neglected to inform me of the size of the river we would encounter; it was FREAKING HUGE!!! BUT, I did it! I managed to run the entire river without dumping myself OR Vanessa, which made me so so so so so so so proud!!! And I still am. I even threatened to call Josh's dad (rather than my own parents) to tell him about my accomplishments. (I let Josh call first the next day.)

To say the least, this was pretty much one of my greatest accomplishments over the past few years, and it makes me very, very, very excited for the rest of rafting season! Plus, I just got some amazing new semi-dry gear for the season, and it is awesome.

(I must mention that I was in charge of getting the car to the take-out. 4/5 of the way there I realized that I forgot the keys at the put-in. I am a big dork. Thankfully, our buddy Travis took the initiative to hitch a ride to the put-in to get the keys and meet us at the take-out. Part of me likes to think that Travis just really wanted to stop rowing through the slow parts. Whatever. It gave Vanessa and I the chance to run one more rapid, and Vanessa rowed, magnificently, through it. Hooray!)

Cutest thing ever

My friend Jamie sent this to me. Apparently, one of her kindergarten students has a crush on her (she's a Spanish teacher in Chicago) and wrote her this note.

Here's the translation:

"Miss Perry,

You are a great teacher, but why don't you speak another language?

Love,

Toby"

When Jamie asked him what language she should speak, he said "British."

Another b-day dead and gone...

And now I'm 29...yippee! The day itself was pretty nice - my coworkers did a little number on my door, I went shopping for myself (and bought some super hot jeans), turned in my final paper for one of my classes, played golf, tennis, bowling, and guitar hero on our new Wii whilst drinking wine and beer, and admired my new oars from Josh. Nothing huge to report. Just thought I'd check in!

playing guitar...

I just played guitar for the first time in months. No really, MONTHS. I don't think I've played since October...and it felt good, friends, GOOD. I think I played for 2 hours in the house by myself, then put Virginia away for a few minutes. I made bloody marys for myself and Josh, then serenaded him in the garage while he played with his RC cars and attempted to put them back together. I know it seems weird, but we both seem to have remembered that we like to do different things and we are both getting back to doing the things we really love to do - separately - and I like that. Silence is golden sometimes. We never really seem to talk about our hobbies, but we have been great about respecting those interests. I like that...a lot.

On another note, I have to go to the POST Academy for Probation Officers starting tomorrow at 2pm. I'll spend two weeks away from home (except weekends) at the Academy learning how to do my job in a better fashion (at least, that's my hope), but am sad that I have to be away from my "family" for such a long time.

And lastly, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, I have perfected my bloody mary recipe. They are soooooo delicious! Man, thanks to Zeitgeist in San Francisco, I have learned that adding horseradish into my mixture has really improved the recipe. Yum!!!

a few things I am very excited about!

1. Friday night's white-trash-bar-extravaganza was pretty entertaining. Josh's cousin's band played at Mr. Lucky's here in Boise. FYI, Lucky's is known for their NASCAR Sundays (all you can drink for $20.00). I'm pretty sure they are also known for the extreme amount of Special Olympics Dance Team members....in the most unofficial sense, of course. Anyway, the band was pretty good for firing the lead singer a week prior, which surprised the hell out of me (the fact that the band was pretty good surprised me, not the firing of the lead singer - that should not surprise anyone, really).

2. Saturday night I went to a concert at the Big Easy to see Joshua Radin and Ingrid Michaelson! They were incredible! I wasn't too familiar with their stuff before heading out (except for Ingrid's song, "The Way I Am" which is on an Old Navy commercial) but I am fully convinced that they are worth listening to over and over and over again in my office. Yay! On top of seeing the phenomenal concert, I ran into two of the guys who were in my youth group when I led the group at my church in college. They are old. That makes me feel old. BUT, it was super fun to see them and I think they even convinced me to pick up my guitar sometime soon.

3. I spent the majority of my time sleeping and laying on the couch this weekend and it felt awesome.

4. None of our immediate friends or family members drew a Middlefork of the Salmon rafting permit this summer, which made us pretty bummed out. Thankfully, a friend of a friend invited us on his trip! Hooray! I'm pretty sure I'll be dreaming of this for the next few months....

5. I think I have become addicted to Crystal Light Energy. And Spicy V8 (not just for my perfected bloody mary recipe - I like it plain, too). And Laughing Cow cheese with celery. And sushi. (I never thought I would say that). And steamed broccoli (WTF?).

6. I made my first official meatloaf last night and it was really effing good. Oh my god, when did I turn into a housewife?

7. San Francisco was fan-freaking-tastic. Next trip: Vegas on April 26!

Gray pants, social networking, new websites, and stuff.

1. Apparently, I am addicted to purchasing gray slacks. I don't really know how the switch came out - I used to own a million pairs of black pants. Not so much anymore. Somehow, I have ended up with 3 pairs of gray slacks and one pair of navy slacks with grey stripes. Weird.

2. After FINALLY getting home last night around 7:45, I decided I needed some wine. After the first bottle Josh and I got to talking about his iPhone and the fact that there is a new application for facebook for it and he decided that even as hateful as he is about social networking sites, he might just give it a try to see what how the application works (there's a web developer for ya!). In exchange, he said I need to sign up for Twitter. So I did. I don't know how much you know about Twitter, but it's basically a way to let everyone know what you're doing throughout every second of the day. And it's kind of addicting. Josh has yet to sign up for facebook. I explained that it is very important because when he signs up I can change my status from simply "in a relationship" to "in a relationship with Josh McD." See? Important.

3. The marketing agency that Josh works for has a new site and it's cool! www.drakecooper.com . They are even offering a pro-bono deal for non-profits....you should check it out.

4. I have a crap-load of work to do for work in the next few weeks. The good news is that I get to forget about all of that in about 24 hours. Yessssssssssssssssssss.

Hearing "Stars"

The band "Stars" has sucked me into some type of trance and I can't pull myself out. A co-worker gave me a copy of "Set yourself on fire" last week to listen to in my office and I've now purchased 3 of their 4 albums. And I've been making Josh listen to it too because I love them so much. You should check them out too. A-MAZ-ING.

Stars

On a completely different note, I took Brooke and the 6-year-old neighbor to see the Hannah Montana 3-D movie last night. It's pretty fun to see little girls get excited about stuff like that. I was intrigued by the number of dads there with their daughters. Really, I think the majority of the theater was stuff with men and little 8-year-old girls. I guess I can't decide if that's cute or gross! Ohhhh, ok, probably cute.

I want to Barack your world...

I am amazed at Boise, Idaho. I honestly didn't think 14,000 people would show up at the Taco Bell Arena today to see Barack Obama, especially since the media suggested arriving at 7:00 am for the 8:30 rally. Since the organizers only expected 8,000 the black back-drops had to be removed to be sure the folks sitting BEHIND the stage could see SOMETHING. I haven't sat in the nose-bleed section at the Arena since I was 11 years old and attending the New Kids on the Block concert in 6th grade. BUT, it was worth it! Ok, ok, Obama may have said "Iowa" a few times in place of "Idaho", but he recovered quickly and with a joke, no less. Who can blame him? The man is super busy flying in and out of places like Boise and Minneapolis all in one day. And no presidential candidate has been to Idaho to campaign since....well....I'm not sure any of them have....ever. I really don't have much to say about the actual speech, other than the fact that I've known for a long time that I like his views, actions, and ideas and today just confirmed all of that.

Juno!

LOVED IT! Love the soundtrack too - currently downloading. Yippee!

How did I neglect this?

I don't know how I managed to NOT post this sooner, but WE'RE GOING TO VEGAS AGAIN!!! Yahoo! April 25 - 28 and we're driving this time, bitches!

Why I love Facebook

This has not really been "my week." Aside from a few arguments over the weekend (now resolved, thanks) and having to work long days at work to make up for taking Monday off (it was worth it), my grandfather had his second stroke in two weeks. So I've been just a little worried about that and, quite honestly, have been distracted from doing anything productive at work....which would explain why I decided to check my facebook account mid-morning. I was so so SO excited to read, "Abigail is in...Idaho" when checking out my friends' status updates! I immediately called her and it turns out she's in Caldwell - just a hop, skip, and a jump from Boise! Abby was one of my favorite people from my time in Valparaiso and I haven't seen her since 2004, when she visited Valpo after moving away to attend seminary at Princeton. Hooray for long, lost friends!

Things to be happy about

1. People telling you how awesome you look. I went with Josh to his company Christmas party (complete with free drinks and free cab rides home!) and it seems like every time I turned around, someone was telling me how skinny I look. It pretty much made my day. The next day, Josh sent me a text that said, "Everyone keeps talking about how good you looked last night." Ahhhhhh.....

2. You're apartment not catching on fire. The night of the aforementioned Christmas party, the building next to my apartment burned down. It down right stinks - they had just done a bunch of remodeling, etc. I'm just happy that the apartment with a ton of my stuff still in it didn't burn down...well, sorta. The insurance money for a new bed would have been just a little bit nice :)

3. Being productive. I was able to get the rest of the big stuff (minus the couches....those will go later this week) out of the apartment and hauled a bunch of stuff to the dump. I cleaned up a ton in the apartment and managed to through an amazing amount crap into the garbage.

4. Feeling sore from being productive. Moving all the "big things" from the apartment to the house combined with an extra long pilates session makes for a sore Miranda on a Monday morning.

5. Doing your job and doing it well. I'm still getting the hang of this whole Probation Officer bit, but I feel like I'm actually getting things accomplished in a positive manner (albeit, in an untimely manner last week) and it's not going unnoticed...and that makes me happy.

6. The end of the semester. This one was tough....I'm glad it's over.

Ok, you win.

Need to get of my couches, folks, so if you know someone who needs or wants them in the Boise area, let me know. (They are fabulous couches, by the way.) Vaccuum cleaner for sale too. I'll let you know about anything else I need to get rid of. Why, you ask? Cuz I got myself a new house to move into and most things are fully furnished by my fabulous and amazing boyfriend, Josh.

I just practiced an extreme amount of self-restraint...

...at the grocery store. Albertson's now carries Peet's Holiday Blend Coffee for a whopping $10.00/lb. I literally stopped dead in my tracks when I saw it and didn't buy any. I think that may have to be my Christmas present to myself...