Thanks to my new job, I have today off (also thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr.). I never realized how much I loved my three-day weekends until I didn't have them; however, working 8-4:30 5 days a week is worth it.

I'm a little behind, but here is what we did on our anniversary:

 The night before, we decided we wanted to watch the sunrise. So we woke up at 7am. The sun started to rise around 8am lol. We made some coffee/tea and wore our slippers in the car :)

 We went to redbox and rented "Hope Springs" and "Bourne Legacy". 

 I love no makeup days.

We started driving and found that the sunrise was near the factories in town lol. What I wouldn't give to have a lake where we could watch the sunrise. We can watch the sunset at Lake Michigan, but not the sunrise…this big sandhill hid the view...

 We drove for about half an hour before we finally found a spot to watch the sunrise.

It was definitely beautiful though. Even with the factories right next to it :)

 We went home and made a delicious breakfast :)

We relaxed on the couch and watched "Hope Springs", which I thought was a cute movie. Tim just dealt with it-I'm pretty sure this is when he took his 1 1/2 hour long nap lol

 This was mid-afternoon when I realized I had a temperature of 102.4. I was SO COLD!!! We watched some "Top Gear UK" and I fell asleep. When I woke up, my fever had broke. Yay!

 We ordered takeout from Stafonos. I got a chipotle chicken wrap, Tim had an Andy's burger, and we got an order of deep-fried cauliflower :)

We ended the night watching "Bourne Legacy", which was pretty good. Overall, a nice day; I just wish I didn't get sick. It took me over a week to get over the flu. Nevertheless, we're together for better and worse. And these kind of days are what make good memories :)

So I was running perfectly on time for work (like always…), started driving and heard clunk, clunk, clunk…

 Yeah…no clue what happened lol

THANK GOD Tim hadn't left for college yet and was able to change my tire for me, which I'm eternally grateful for :) It was SUPER cold outside, super windy, and the jack we have is SUPER crappy. But Tim wasn't upset and was surprisingly optimistic about it! Now you don't know him like I do-he is a very pessimistic person, whereas I'm completely the opposite. Since Tim quit his job to focus on finishing his degree, he has been SO optimistic! I love it. That, and he makes dinner and does the household chores during the week (that was his idea, actually, so he wouldn't feel so bad about me being the only one working). That'll be a different post. I have pictures :)

The best part of this whole me-being-late morning???

I didn't miss the sunrise :)

Well, I started going through my pictures yesterday to post this blog and then my fever came back…WITHIN AN HOUR it was up to 102.4! Needless to say, I'm posting it now.

I still can't believe it's been SEVEN years that I've been with the love of my life. Just so you know, this is a picture OVERLOAD post.

This was during our first year of dating, 2006, with our kitty Schmittens whom we no longer have.

Yeah, we're still just as retarded.

I do believe I was probably 15 pounds overweight in 2007 and didn't know it lol

Our trip to Universal Studios in 2008

Tim's brother's wedding, fall 2008

New Year's Eve 2009

July 4, 2010.
Just looking at this picture makes me not want summer to come-I hate hot weather. Anything higher than like 80 degrees is awful. Tim agrees, he wants to move to Alaska lol.

My sister's wedding, April 9, 2011

Sleighbell Parade 2011

Trip to Middleton, WI, summer 2012

Us being awesome, summer 2012

Not so great picture, but it was such a fun day :)

Sleighbell Parade 2012

Tim and I have been together through thick and thin, better and worse, richer and poorer. We're not even married yet. I think we can handle anything that comes our way. Love you babe!

Okay, so I haven't been doing so hot at one of my New Year's Resolutions….blogging lol. However, I have a couple good excuses-I planned and we had my sister's baby shower (I'll post pictures in a later post) and then I got super sick and did nothing but come home and sleep…and cry (tears from sickness, not because I was sad lol-they just kept POURING out because I had such a high fever). I'm on the mend, so I figured before I go to bed tonight, I'd post a couple of pictures from my newish job (I started in mid-December)! It was such an answer to prayer. I'd seriously been praying for approximately two years about needing a new job. I was getting so frustrated with feeling "stuck" at my old job, and it was putting a damper on my optimism-I wanted to feel good about my life and where it was headed. This job came at the PERFECT time, which I'll explain why in a later post :)

In case you're wondering, I received that trophy for being "such an awesome friend" to my friend Rosa lol. She made me promise I'd keep it at my new job :)

This is going to be the only post I do on my job since I don't want to post anything about work :) I had to post something though because it's SUCH an answer to prayer! I work with the most amazing financial company. I never thought I'd go into financing, even as an Office Administrator. I never found it interesting; and as stupid as it sounds, I never thought financing was all that important until later in life. Tim used to handle our money. He used to pay our bills-he'd just tell me how much my half of the amount was. I never cared about the rest. That's changed. I've only been working there for about a month, but I've learned SO many interesting things in my training. The training for my job takes a YEAR! And even then I won't know everything because they are constantly updating to keep up with the times :). I have great hours, M-F, 8-4:30 and 8-4 on Fridays because my boss likes getting out early :), WAY better pay, and good insurance too. The company is so great to their employees; and honestly, everyone's so nice-I literally had like 10 people I didn't know call me on my first day to welcome me and let me know I'm not alone. The company is managed very well, something I couldn't say about my previous job. And I couldn't have asked for a better boss-we get along GREAT.

 This was a day I just HAD to take a picture because I was so proud of myself for getting all that mailed out in time :) And yes, EVERY letter mailed out had a hand-written address on it.

 I was rewarded with this from my boss-yes, it was still in the Halloween bowl lol

Me and my new headset :)

You should have seen how many pictures I took of myself lol

Here's an outtake:

Good grief.

I think I'll be skipping around a bit since I only posted once since October, and I do have quite a few events that happened since then :) But I'm going to try my darndest to keep posting at least once a week!

New Year's Resolutions:

1. Read one book a month.
2. Try one new recipe a month (we're cutting back on spending money, so this is doable).
3. Find a way to show Tim I love him every day.
4. Put my clothes in the hamper, not next to it…this will help with #3 :)
5. If you've ever read Gretchen Rubin's books ("The Happiness Project" and "Happier at Home"), you know they're awesome. If you haven't read them, read them; you'll think they're awesome too. I plan on incorporating a few ideas of hers into my life. I'd like to work more on being content with my life.
6. Simplify how we live. We're going to be on my income only for 6 months while Tim is working towards his degree, which means a major cutback on spending for the both of us.
7. Travel somewhere, ANYWHERE, once a month. It could even be in the next town over, just somewhere. I want Tim and I to try something new every month. Keep our lives exciting :)
8. Write in BLOG once a week.

I've been super sucky when it comes to writing in this blog. I recently started a new job (YAY) and I'm either too tired to blog or nothing interesting is going on. HOWEVER, I WILL BE BLOGGING AGAIN. I just looked through all my pictures that I've taken since I last posted; and holy crap, there will be things to blog about :)

like this :)