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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Sept 9, 2007

Salma's first annual Short-Short Film Festival!!

first of all i just have to say that Salma is amazing! she is so my hero! love her.

she got this great idea and just went with it. she sent info to a bunch of people in congregations all over spokane to make their own movies and then tonight was the big showing. chris and i have just been too busy to make one ourselves, but we still went to the show. there were so many people there all sitting on lawn chairs in her driveway and she projected the movies onto her garage door once the sun went down. such a cool idea! there were 6 movies made and a couple wouldn't play (for whatever reason) but the ones that did were so great! there was one done by the CO and his wife....an old western-esk movie. black and white, very funny...with cute "extra features." and then there was one called "blondzila" very well done. the had actors and when the guy "picked them up" they turned into little figurines. it was great! we had popcorn and candy and hot chocolate. every had a great time. hopefully chris and i will be able to have a movie made for next summer. chris is planning on building a new computer and making it for movie/picture editing and music production. hopefully we will have something cool for her next short short film festival!

today is also a special day in that it was one year ago that chris and i had our first kiss. we were at the fair in okanogan waiting for KJ to finish her ride and we were just standing together facing each other. he hugged me close and brushed against my cheek, and then we kissed. it was such a beautiful moment. all the emotions we had bottle up for so long came rushing out. i just knew i was supposed to spend the rest of my life with this man. i can't beleive that was a year ago already....and look at how far we've come. now we are husband and wife, happy, together, and falling even more in love with each other every day. :)
Sept 3, 2007

yesterday and today have been so perfect! since there was a special meeting saturday we didn't need to go on sunday, so we got to sleep in....really sleep in! and then we just spent the whole day together, just the two of us, watching movies and just being together. it was such a treat! i didn't even leave the apartment all day and chris only left to get more movies. then on monday we both had the day off so we did pretty much the same thing only at 2 in the afternoon we went to jon's plance. he made us dinner and we watched some movies he had. it was so nic eto just be together and not stresing about life, and work and money and stuff. just a good couple days to CHILL! we so needed that. i love my husband so much. finding him was such a gift. he is so kind and giving and hardworking. and he loves me---me! imagine that! i never thought i would find someone, let alone someone like him who understands me so well adn loves to laugh with me. i am so excited to see wehre our lives and our love takes us. it is a fun process...learning each other and figuring things out. i love chris more that i can even say. he makes the poet in me feel inadequate!
Sept 1, 2007

wow, september 1st already! this summer went by so fast. today is the first day of the new service year. my plan and goal is to continue to pioneer. i didn't make my time last year and with everything that's happened i have been pretty discouraged about myself being a pioneer. i love service, i love Jehovah, i love people, and especially since i've moved to spokane i have found real joy in my ministry. i'm worried and scared that i am somehow disappointing everyone. but i am going to try to be more organized and actually have and stick to a schedule. and i think that having chris to encourage me will definately help. i have a big day on thursdays planned with salma. i also got a really cute encouraging card from Pam DelBiaggio, a sister in my old hall. its just said that she appreciated the good example i have been setting in putting Jehovah first and serving where there is need. it was very sweet. it made me feel like maybe i really can do it and maybe what i do can help encourage others. :)

another thing that was good about today was a special ASL meeting. we had a brother and some families come from the group in kennewick to give us a special public talk and then we had our watchtower study. it is so encouraging for me to go to the meeting and to be able to understand and comprehend. and aslo to be encouraged by the information. the talks aren't any different...but the beautiful language just makes it so clear. the truth has just really come alive to me again. i love being a part of this and i am so enjoying this opportunity.
Aug 31, 2007

tonight we had Derek and Juliet over for dinner. chris cooked another absolute masterpiece! he is such a good cook! :) then we just hung out talking and visiting till 11:30. Juliet and i went into the bedroom and i showed her all my scrapbooks. it had been awhile since i had even looked through them. i loved showing them to her because she really looked, ansked questions and read all my journaling. the we just started talking about life and our past and future plans. we both work and banks so we had that to talk about too. all in all, it was a very enjoyable evening. its fun being a couple and having couple friends. :)

anyway, back to my scrapbooks. the last thing i have in there is from november of 2005! how sick is that? i have not even scrapbooked one thing about chris--nothing at all. i seriously need to get on that! ASAP! i have all the stuff to do Kelly's wedding album for her, and a little mini-album as a present from my wedding. i just can't seem to find the time and my scrapbooking room/office is such a disaster. it will take me all day just to organize it, nevermind scrapbook anything. i almost had a new job at a scrapbook store here. i had an interview and everything, but the owner gave all my hours to another girl that already worked there. that totallly would of been just the inspiration i need to get motivated again. to spend my days surrounded by paper again. man do i miss it! so bad! hopefully on monday chris and i will organize things a bit. i think that will really help. my soul is in desperate need of something creative! i think i'm going to start small just to get into it again. then jump on my 2 years of life i'm behind on. i'm am getting excited about it. truly can't wait!!
Aug 30, 2007

"The Most Disgusting Service Story EVER!!!"

so i went out in service today as planned. salma bought me lunch as a bribe to stay out longer for the afternoon and it worked! so, at 2 or so mercades had a bible study to go on and asked me to go with her. now i've been on this study before, and let me tell you----it is the most disgusting house i have ever been in. the woman is deaf and very, very sickly. she looks probably twice as old as she really is. her husband, who is crippled is the only care-giver she has. the house stinks so bad that one wiff could knock you over. she has a big chair in the middle of the room in front of the tv that she pretty much lives in. and in front of that is one of those port-a-potty seats, but not only does she use it for that, she puts a peice of cardboard on it and uses it like a tv tray to hold her remote and her food! it is just nasty! so, initially i told mercades i couldn't go because it was so bad. but she guilted me into it saying theat she has just as hard a time. so i went. the study actually went very well. it was the most responcive i' had ever seen her. we watched 2 paragraphs onthe DVD and she understood and answered the questions. that was about as long as we could stand to be in the house, but as we were leaving she asked us if we could take her BAG FULL OF POOP outside to the garbage. she lifted the cardboard off the toilet and she pulled this bag out. if the smelll could get any worse, it did. mercades almost lost her lunch right there and headed to the door after appologizing. i just grabbed the bad and ran outside, found the garbage can adn we ran to the car. i have never felt so dirty in all of my life!!!! human poop, in a gab, being carried by me!! YUCK! its truly amazing what people expect. how bout that for a story!!??

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Aug. 29, 2007

*Reasons why i know i'm getting back to my normal self:
  • i'm cracking myself up
  • i'm trying to keep chris smiling
  • i didn't sleep through my lunch break
  • i'm excited for service tomorrow!
Aug. 28, 2007

so i bought this book like a month ago with the best of intentions...since i don't have access to the internet, i was going to write in this and then add each entry to my blog when i had a chance. great concept...but as with everthing else in my life right now, it slipped away from me. so i'm going to start today, tryand cath up a bit, adn continue on. we shall see.....

so in review:
July was rather wier for me. work had just seriously gotten out of control. summer is hard at banks. we were short on tellers with vacations and things, and had one new one in training, which means she hangs around getting the way. ant it seemed like nothing i did was good enough for my boss, Jackie. so to say the least, i was stressed out about that. at the same time Chris was having just as harda time at his job. more hours, less money, and drama up the wazu! you'd thing people could just deliver packages in peace, but NO! and both of us aren't very good at just leaving work at work. on top of that i had really not been feeling like myself for awhile. I was honestly sinking into depression. everything was just getting so overwhelming and really hard to handle. it was hard for me to get out obed to go in service, to go to work, to do anything. It seemed like every day soemthing new would pop up, there was no break or time to recouperate before the next thing. it really all came to a head on Tuesday July 31st. after a long day at work, chris and i were heading to the meeting adn my car just died while i was driving. At just first glance we couldn't see what was wrong. So we pushed teh car back to the apartment and took chris's car to the meeting. that night on the phone i told my mom: "its the last straw...till the next one." and i guess i was right. i pretty much hit rock bottom the next day at work. Later Chris said that it was my body's physical reaction to the emotions and stress i was dealing with. by about 4 that afternoon i cound't not even lift my left arm and i was having trouble breathing. i hurt so bad, and was frustrated by it all and ended up in a lump on the floor crying and in so much pain. i called chris and he called a sister in our hall to come pick me up since i didn't have a car. she came and got me and took me to emergency, adn sat with me till chris got off work and came. i don't remeber much of that evening....only that it took forever and that x-rays hurt. by 9 that night all we knew was that it wasn't a collapsed lung. the doctor wrote me a perscription for some powerful pain meds and sent me home. we had people staying at our house that ngiht, but i just went to bed. the next day my loving husband stayed home from work to take care of me. that day he took me tothe chiropractor in hopes that that would make a difference. apparently i didn't eat enough with my pills that morning because while at the office i painted and then threw up. not the greatest first impression. but the doctor did and exam and adjustment and figured out that my ribs were out and that was causing the nerves in my shoulder to be pinched off and making it hard to breath. initially it made me feel better. then i went home and slept the rest of the day. chris took very good care of me. he has been such a wonderful supportive husband through all of this. that afternoon he went into the bank and talked to my boss about the stress iv'e been under adn explained a bit about how i've been feeling. she was pretty impressed by him and said so when i went back to work. she said he handled things well and that she could really tell how much he loved me.

the next weekend was chris's grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. on friday night we drove to wenatchee and then teh next day drove the rest of the way to Oak Harbor. it was my first time meeting all of chris's family so i was pretty nerveous. especailly felling how i was at the time. i was not myself and not the girl Chris married. it went well, though. Everyone was very kind and friendly. i showed off pictures from our wedding and talked a lot about that. and i met chris's sister too. my in-laws had warned me about her, but she was ok to me for the 4 hours we were there. the trip was really nice. beautiful weather for the parts of it i was awake. then we drove the 7 hours home on sunday afternoon. rought one physically, but chris and i had a good talk. we discussed all the things that had been going on and tried to figure out what might be wrong with me. one huge possibility we came up with was a negative reaction to my birth controle. so we decided that i would stop taking my pills, wait for it to all get out of my system and see if that made a difference. it was wierd getting out the habbit, but by the next weekend i was pretending to feel good less and less.

that sunday evening our congregation had a wedding reception/welcome party for chris and i. iwas a bbq and karoke party. we both had a lot of fun and really enjoyed ourselves. august was a really busy month too. we did a lot of traveling. on the 18th i turned 21! Wohoo! big thing to be able to drink in the US. one fo the girls from the bank took me down to a bar downtown at 1 in the afternnoon to buy me my "first shot." good times. then chris and i drove up to canada (to castlegar) for my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary party. wow, what a weekend. there were so many people there that i haven't seen in forever, and family members i hadn't even met. the party was really nice. good food, dancing and a really nice picture slideshow. it was great to see everyone again and visit. the next morning my Auntie Gwynn had everyone over to her house for breakfast, so we had more of a chance to visit. it was so nice to introduce my husband to all of that side of my family. we were able to stay the night at good friends of mine from when i was younger. they were like my second parents, so it was fun to visit and spend some time with them as well. our drive home was pleasant. i got to show chris some plances from my childhood. there were some family that came for the party from Pensylvania,, my 1st cousin tye and his daughter alanna, who is my age. we've been pen-pals for years. they flew into spokane and were leaving monday afternoon from there. i met up with them and had breakfast before their flights. it seemed like forever since we'd had a chance to talk. i enjoyed that. on monday my dad, megan, and katrina went to silverwood in Idaho for the day then came to our place for dinner and spent the night. it was their first time seeing my apartment or visiting me in spokane. chris made his famous corn chowder and we had an ejoyable evening. the girls watched back to the future and fell asleep. the next morning my dad took me out for breakfast before i had to go to work. its been awhile since we've really "talked." it was good to have a chance to visit, just the two of us.

by this time i had been off my birth controle for a couple weeks and i could see a difference in my mood and stuff. gradual.... i went out in service on thrusday starting early with salma and mercades, like usual, but by mid-morning i was crying. i hadn't really talked about any ofthis to anyone yet, so finally being able to talk was good. kind fo a release. i stayed out until 3:30. my longest day in awhile. at this point i'm no where near my hours, so to just be out was good enough for me. it felt good.

on friday night chris and i met up with a bunch of people to go out and sing kareoke. so much fun!!! it was the most fun i've had in awhile. i got to try a couple new dring and sing my hear out. i love that chris and i have that in common....a love for music and singing. we both had a fairly good week so it was nice to just relax and be together. we continued that pland by heading to wenatchee for the seekend once i was done work. we had dinner at mom and dad's and then met up with everyone over at rory's place. we hunt out, visited, watched comedy, and then drove over to Nate's for an impromtu "jam session." first time the band had played together in 3 months. and the sounded surprisingly good! :) it was good to see chris back with his friends again. i fell so bad about taking him away form his friends and his band. i'm really glad we went to see them.

the next moring we went to the meeting and chris's dad is the watchtower overseer. he called on me and said " Sister Longstreet" for the first time. then he kinda smiled to himself and said "i like saying that." it was pretty cute. i love beeing a Longstreet. signing my new name makes me smile. i am a dork. i know! for my whole childhood i always wanted a signature with flourish like my dad's. now i've perfected one that i love!

anyway, so back home and back to the grind. on monday i completely cleanecd our apartment. still trying to organize all our stuff. then we went shopping and spent $100. it just makes me sick how much life costs. :( but we rented wild hogs and laughed away the evening.

and now its today....back at work, but Jackie's gone so its not that bad. Chris had to work late tongiht again, so i'm going to the meeting by myself. they had two drivers quit this morning, so chris had to cover. i hope he's not out too late.

well, that only took 12 years to write out! i'm glad i did it though. not writing is not good for me. i need to get back into it. not just my blog, but my notebook too. :)
"Accidental Discoveries"
the paper version

FYI: a few months i bought a notebook with the hopes of writing in it what i would want to write on here. i've been doing pretty good about writing in it.....just haven't got to the getting up on my blog yet. so i'm going to start today transfering what i've got written down and we'll see how it goes. :P i'm going to do it in chronological order, like as if i had actually posted each day. hope that makes sense. :)