Two Years and new shelves

Matt and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary a few days ago.  And while there was no trip to the Bahamas this year, we still had a great time celebrating.  As cheesy as it is, I am so grateful to be married to such a patient, loving, kind, funny, and talented man who just so happens to be my very best friend. We have had some amazing times and adventures together, and I know there are only many many more to come.  We may not be rich in worldly terms, but we are like billionaires in laughs, companionship, trust, fun, and love.  I wouldn't trade it.

On Friday night, we went to the Nuggets/Wizards game (thanks to Matt's company!) with a quick bite to eat beforehand at Brooklyn's.  It was a great game with great seats (the great time abruptly came to a halt when I fell down the stairs as we were leaving.  Not embarrassing at all.  Stupid heels. I still have a bruise on my shin.)  Monday night (our actual anniversary), Matt picked me up from campus (I had class til 8 - yuck!) and we went to dinner at Lola's in the Highlands.  I'd highly recommend it if you've never been!  Mondays they have happy hour ALL day (both food and drinks), so we got a great deal on a great meal :)

 I tried to get a pick of the "Tees For Threes" sign b/c Matt's "band" in college was named Tea for Three.  Too funny. :)

And how cute is this card Matt got me?!?  If you know the Monroes, you know we are a BIG Winnie the Pooh family.  So this card couldn't have been more adorable.  

This week is my pseudo-Spring Break Part II (A-West is off this week, so my Wednesday and Thursday are free!).  And in honor of actually having some free time, I decided to take on a project I had been thinking about for months.  Now me and "projects" around the house don't usually mesh well.  Tools tend to be only misused once in my hands.  But, I was determined to be a strong, capable woman, and so off to Lowe's I went.  I had a Plan.

First, this is the "nook" in our "office". 

Given that we have very little storage in our house, I needed a way to sneak in just a few more square feet of storage/organization.   I thought turning the nook into shelving could be much more usable for the office and perhaps a future bedroom.  But have I put shelves in?  No.  Did I have any idea what I was doing?  Clearly not.  With a little youtube searching and chatting with Lowe's employees, I ended up picking out some wood, getting it cut to my precise measurements (only to have to send Matt back that night to have them re-cut two pieces when I realized the nook is by no means perfectly rectangular), finding brackets, buying drywall anchors, picking up paint and a paint brush, gathering all of Matt's tools, and getting to work! 

After lots of drilling, measuring, leveling, painting, and whatnot (all by myself!)... we have shelves.  Ta da!

And now I must get back to the many other things on my "to do" list.  Laundry needs to get done, homework (oops, probably should start that!) needs attention, Lincoln needs a walk, photos for a friend's wedding need editing, bills need to be paid, house needs cleaning, blog needed updating (check!)... and I probably falsely assumed I was capable of getting all of this done on my 2 day "spring break". :) 

Oh, and fear not, I'm still practicing my photography skills...

(A game of Bananagrams I won...) ;)

Rachel's birthday and other end-of winter things

My calendar and heart have been FULL lately.  Full of fun things and full of joy/complication/exhaustion/confusion/sadness, respectively.  The past few weeks have felt like months in all honestly.  So much has been going on, and sometimes I'm afraid to blink or I'll miss it.

In the JOY department, we continue to be so thankful for the friends God has blessed us with in Denver.  We share so many amazing times with them, and I honestly don't know what we'd do without them.  They are amazing companions on this journey of life in Denver.  From Bible Study to impromptu Glee dinner parties to all night dance parties, I feel blessed.

Tasting wedding cakes with Kristyn (the bride-to-be!), Bri, and Rachel last weekend (yum!):

It was Rachel's birthday this weekend and we thankfully got to celebrate her not once, but twice, with two fabulous nights.  The first, a pot-luck/bbq/dance party at the Westras last weekend, and the second, a dinner in LoDo and singing (nay, LOTS of singing) at a dueling pianos "saloon" in Larimer Square this weekend.  I may still be hoarse from the awesomeness that was Wild Ivories.  Both were amazing ways to spend time with good friends and showering Rachel with some birthday love!

 
Catching Craig Ferguson at Comedy Works in LoDo with my folks (they got the six of us - Amber and DJ included - tickets for Christmas, and it was a blast!)

Thanks to WW (some of you know what that is... I'll henceforth be referring to it as Dubdub), I've been doing a lot more cooking at home.  Cooking/experimenting... call it what you like.  So far it hasn't been too shabby!  Here are a few of our recent meals:

Rice cooked in red wine with grapes

Chicken wrapped in bacon and stuffed with scallions, blue cheese crumbles, and pecans:

No-bake, low fat cheesecake:

Baked pasta with TONS of veggies - a mock baked ziti (though I didn't have the "real" noodles"):

And so, life has been good.  Taxes are almost done, the semester is halfway over, plans for the summer are coming together... we are blessed.  The more chaotic side of life will have to wait for a later post.  I am pretty sure it will take me awhile to put it into writing, but it's something I think worthy of time (and so much more) at the very least.  It's a good kind of chaos, the kind I'm thankful for (but still troubled by).  You know how that goes!

March & Stuff

Wow, here we are in March.  How have two months of this year already flown by??  I am both thankful and sad about that.  Thankful because 2 of my 4 classes are OVER for the semester (insert a giant sigh of relief)!  But sad because time is just going by too quickly!  The last few weeks have been a blur caused by crazy amounts of school work, parent teacher conferences, little sleep, Matt working crazy hours and a week of on-call, and life.  Again, I'm going to have to leave it to my camera to remind me of what all has happened since we last "spoke".

In the (long) quest to become a better photographer and utilize my fabulous new camera, I took a class (thank you Groupon) from Chimpsy Photography a few weeks ago (oddly, the owner is cousin's with a friend of mine in DC... small world!).  It was a short class, and I definitely learned the "basics", but I have oh so far to go!  I do not want to be an "auto" shooter.  Bring it on "M"!!  :) Here are a few pics from that class that I took:

Valentine's Day: I didn't get home from class that night until 8:30pm, but I walked in to find our house lit with candles and a gorgeous (and delicious) meal waiting for me at the table.  Winning! (sorry, couldn't resist a Charlie Sheen-ism)  I'm lucky to have a husband that not only puts up with my craziness, but does sweet things like that for me!

My cousin Carrie came to CO for a long weekend up in Breck.  She joined us for dinner (and a quick trip to El Diablo of course) and stayed the night before catching a flight back to DC the following day.  It was great to see her and catch up.  A bonus story about this quick visit was that Matt had to work early the morning after dinner, and I had to leave for school around 6:20am.  As I was walking the Stinker after Matt left, I somehow, for the first time in my life, got locked out of the house.  No idea how.  But, my poor cousin and her bf were awakened to the sound of my pounding on almost every door/window in the house to get their attention.  Slightly embarrassing.  Oops.

Here was a fun dinner out at Karma with our friends.  It's delicious there!

These are some of the folks in my "cohort" at UCD.  We generally go through the program together (with the exception of a few classes specialized for our content areas) and have endured quite a crazy semester so far.  Making it through each week was a big accomplishment, so usually on Fridays (after our 2-5pm class go out), we'd head to Larimer Square for a celebratory glass of wine at Euclid Hall. 

BTW - this is the high school that I work at 2 days a week.  I still love it!

Kristyn's bridal shower was a few weekends ago.  It was a great time getting to celebrate her and her upcoming wedding!  She has some wonderful friends, and we're really excited to celebrate in April with everyone.  Matt will actually be playing piano during their ceremony and DJing the reception.  Should be a fabulous time with great friends :)

Since our first two courses of the semester finished on Friday, I had my cohort over for a small party of sorts.  It was fun to see everyone outside of a school setting where we could actually talk about things other than, well, school!  Generally, 90% of my conversations these days revolve around students, social justice, standardized testing, formative assessments, equity issues, hidden curriculum, and the like.  Don't get me wrong, it's all fascinating stuff (well, most of it is), but it gets very draining!  I definitely am glad to have met these folks taking these journey with me.

So, that's about it for now.  I need to get moving on this dreary day.