You Can't Make This Stuff Up

This is the funniest conversation I have had in a LONG time. This is why I love being married.

As I am sitting at the computer, and Gideon is in the family room. We have both been quiet for a while, each doing our own thing. Suddenly. . .

Gideon: "Katie."

Katie: "Yeah?"

Gideon: "What's another word for your eggs?"

Katie: "What?"

Gideon: "You know, your eggs."

Katie, in between giggles: "My eggs??"

Gideon, still serious and not understanding why I can't grasp this: "inside of you. Is it your ova? Ovi? Ovee?"

Katie, still laughing hysterically: "I have no idea. They come from your ovaries."

Gideon: "I think it's ova. I've heard it before."

He was doing a crossword puzzle.
And I'm still laughing.

Open For Business

I got my cosmetology license in the mail, so I am officially open for business! I am doing stuff out of my house until I find a salon. So spread the word please! Click HERE to check out my new blog for prices

A Sunday Thought

I watch this video every Sunday. Somehow it always makes me cry. I love it.

Quote

YouTube - my kindness shall not depart from thee.wmv

Sugar Cookies . . .

I really want a kitchen aid.
But they were good and people ate them.
Yay.

Cooking

Why is this so hard? Every time I try to cook or bake something, it starts out like this

and it usually ends like this

Grated my fingers. Twice. I'm pretty sure there was some flesh in my cheesy potatoes. Which, by the way, didn't even turn out.



While baking a cake I somehow hit my head on the counter.
And yes, that's mascara smeared all over my face from crying because my head hurt so bad.
I mean who knew that baking a cake could land you a huge goose egg and a headache for two days?

Our Thanksgiving Adventure

Our Thanksgiving was so great this year!! First of all, our first one TOGETHER. That in itself was awesome. BUT. In addition. . . we had Naomi and Colin's wedding the 24th in Mesa, so we headed down a little early. We stopped in Vegas for a night with the Medley clan. It was so fun! Gideon had never been, so I made sure to show him a good time. Then we all headed to Mesa, and celebrated the wedding with tons of food and family. We thought of it as a way to stretch the belly before thanksgiving. Gideon and I stayed with my parents and after the wedding, the Medley family stopped by for breakfast and some singing, much to Adam's delight. It was so much fun to have both of our families together. So much love! Then to finish off the weekend, a big thanksgiving feast. It was great. We had such a great time with my family too. My parents took us out to dinner and a movie, we swam, watched movies, and slept in. Gideon and I were so sad to come home; we forgot how nice it is to have someone else pay for stuff and not have to worry about anything! Overall the trip was SO MUCH FUN. It was good to see our families and it was nice to be so full! We both gained a couple pounds. And by WE I mean ME. Let's face it people. Gideon? Gain holiday weight? I don't think so. So in conclusion...food + family+tons of sleep + road trip = tons of fun. Happy holidays everybody!

Sorry about all the pics, but here's a little photo tour of our trip.

My foreign boy I found! What a cute one!

The REAL Eiffle Tower. Really.

This year, we are thankful that we have heads.

Watching the Bellagio fountain show. My favorite!

The happy couple. So cute!

The crew at the reception.

I thought this a fitting picture of my husband. We counted 4, yes 4 trips to the food table. That's my man. He even ate the decorative brussel sprouts. raw. yep.

The family's newest up-and-coming photographer. Love ya hannah!

I finally found a good use for all my old high school dance dresses! The girls loved them and they looked GORGEOUS in them too.

Lots of people in a little space.

The beautiful turkey. Nice job mom!

I made a pie!!! And it was good! Take note Naomi. I've improved!

The final product. It was a beautiful thanksgiving. Thanks Mom and Dad!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

I was out of town for a few days, in Idaho (pictures soon). Gideon told me he had a surprise waiting for me when I got home. Well, not only did he clean the ENTIRE house for me, which included mopping all the tile (even the entry way), he also stayed up late into the night putting up all the Christmas decor for me! We'll be gone for thanksgiving and he new I really wanted to have a tree up when we got home. I have the very best husband ever!

It was so cute how he set everything up. Some things you could totally tell a guy did it, but it really is so cute and perfect. He even wrapped some fake gifts to look good under the tree. I love this man so much. Can't wait to have a million more Christmases with him.

Hello, Winter

Oh, winter. You have poked your head in through the door, and I'm happy about it. You are an old friend; the kind that even though we have long absences, we're always right back where we left off when we are reunited. I'm sorry I had a little fling with the summer time; it's always so tempting. But I didn't forget about you. And I'm glad you're coming back. I'm sorry to tell you this, but a lot of people don't like you. I can see why; you're a little rough around the edges, and you can be a pain and really slow things down. But I can look past that, because you are really a lot of fun. You're worth all the bad stuff when you tickle my nose and dust everything with a soft shiny glow. You're so sparkly and magical and with you comes a lot of wonderful festivities and traditions. Just smelling the air and knowing you're on your way makes me want to be with family and eat more food. I really do love you, winter. Come on in.

Adios, Hair School!

Thursday was my graduation ceremony from cosmetology school. FINALLY!! I have been in school since September 9, 2008. It has been a very long road, and I've made a lot of sacrifices to finally finish. My family and friends have also sacrificed to help me out during school-special thanks to all those who came in for haircuts and nail paints, etc. You know who you are. To finish school, you must complete 2,000 hours at school, and a certain ammount of credits. For example: 400 haircuts, 300 chemical services (colors, lighteners, perms, etc), you get the picture. Then you have to pass a written exam and a practical exam, both administered by the state. I have passed both and as of 5:oo pm on Tuesday, I will be a licensed professional. Wahoo!

My mom and sister surprised me and showed up for my ceremony Thursday since I had to speak. It was such a fun weekend to have them here!! I did their eyebrows and hair, we all went to dinner, stayed up late chatting and eating junk food, etc. All the makings of a delightful weekend. Thanks so much for coming up mom and Kelly!

This is for you, Caitlin

I found this old video on my computer tonight. This was what my sister in law, Caitlin, and I used to do all the time. We were seniors in high school in this video. For some reason, we thought it was the most fun EVER to jump in the pool in our clothes. We loved it. Love you Caitlin! Can't wait to see you soon.

Reality Check

Funny how we think life is so hard. I have been feeling like I am just "fighting the good fight" with going to school and working. Poor me, with my opportunity for education, a decent job and a safe home with food to eat. My life is just so hard. I felt so ashamed for those thoughts and feelings as I read this article in Marie Claire magazine today. The story is about a young cambodian girl who was sold into sex slavery when she was just seven years old. By her own mother. The details of the story twisted my heart as I got lost in the words of her account of things she has gone through. Even now, the tears still come when I think of these poor girls. It is beyond my comprehension to think of all the amazing comforts I enjoy every single day, without a thought. And while I am sleeping soundly in my bed, these poor innocent girls are enduring what I could never even dream of. As I read about this young woman's amazing life story, her struggle for survival, and her hope for some semblance of normalcy, I kept thinking, something has to be done. As it turns out, something is being done! Somaly Mam, a former sex slave who was sold to verious brothel's (prostitue factories) for 10+ years, escaped and has developed an entire organization dedicated to helping these beautiful young women. There are many ways to donate and help. You can visit the website by clicking here. At the very least, please take a few minutes to read her story. You won't be able to forget her either.

A Self Esteem Booster

For those of you who fall down on regular occasion (I personally fall UP stairs quite often), take a look at this video. Feel better?

Something Different

The title of this post was supposed to be "something different" (with a squinty eyed mysterious look from Gideon). But the truth is, in a lot of ways, we aren't that different. We do a lot of the things newly married couples do. . .we clip coupons. We eat random dinners in front of the TV on the floor: baked potatoes/corn/baby dill pickles/candy corn. YUM. My stomach is currently aching from the overdose of pickles. But man those were WELL worth the money on our last wedding gift card. We work all day and see each other at night and get so excited when we have time to HANG OUT without falling asleep in 20 minutes. We make big plans for our future, and we still tell ourselves ALL of them will come true. We'll see. But most importantly, we laugh our guts out every day, pray together, argue about bookshelves and edit each other's blog posts (currently going on. My last sentence just got vetoed). We're doing GREAT and we are super happy. A couple of things that get us through school and work and a newlywed budget are...

1. Sunday night DESIGN STAR
2. Saturday night temple trips
3. Wendy's frostys
4. The dollar theater
5. Redbox
6. Gideon's bike
7. Diet Coke
8. Craig's list
9. Our wonderful family
10.Unlimited Texting
11. Scripture Study and Praying together
12. Foot Massages
13. HGTV
14. Washing our socks together. . .

Busy Busy Busy

Well, nothing too exciting to tell about these days. We are both so busy. And I do mean busy. Want an example?

Monday: Gideon takes me to work by 4:45 a.m. Then he goes to school from 8-10 a.m. Then he goes to work from about 4-9 p.m. then he picks me up from work, where I've been for the last 16 hours.
Tuesday: Gideon drops me off at school by 8 a.m. then rushes to his 8:15 class. He goes to work till about nine and picks me up from school, where I've been for the past 13 hours.

This is about how the rest of our week goes until Saturday, which day I get off from school early at about five. Last night we made it to a 7:20 temple session (we were fighting the occasional nod off), made it home by around ten, and by about 11 we were both asleep on the living room floor, next to a bottle of Excedrin which has been my best friend this week (I think my body is rebelling against my lack of sleep by trying to make my brain explode. Literally). This entire week, I haven't fallen asleep in the same place twice. It's usually on the couch or the floor while Gideon is doing math homework. I don't even remember it because lately sleep just creeps up behind me and hits me over the head. I keep waking up in our bed and every morning I have to ask Gideon "where did I fall asleep last night?" He usually has some strange behavioral stories to tell me about too. Apparently I'm kind of a wierd one when I'm half asleep. Although one night, he crawled onto the floor by me to tell me that he had so much homework, I was going to have to go to bed by myself. We woke up in that exact spot at about 2 a.m. But that is how things have been lately. But in between it all, we eat together, we laugh a lot, we manage to have fun, and we really are happy. Picture of the week:
One night this week we decided to have breakfast for dinner. I always LOVED when my parents would decide to do this. It blew my mind to think that we could eat breakfast food AT NIGHT. SO COOL mom and dad. So we made waffles. I convinced Gideon that I was perfectly capable of making them all by myself (he's a better cook than I am these days... I already burned a huge blister onto my wrist trying to make toast in a frying pan because we don't have a toaster). The waffles were great but as you can tell, I'm not the best at estimating how much batter should be poured into the maker.

Obsessed

I have become slightly addicted to this channel. Home and Garden Television. It's a joke. And the best part: I've even converted Gideon. We get home, and after a long day, we eat dinner together, then snuggle up on the couch for some good old TV watching. We never used to really do this, either of us. So it's a REAL TREAT now. But what do we watch? Not the news. Sports? No. How about a little Curb Appeal or Design Star or Property Virgins? One of our favorites is House Hunters. We LOVE living out our dream of buying a beautiful big home by watching other people do it on tv. It's great. I figure at least it's wholesome TV. But it's gotten bad. We were laying in bed trying to wake up sunday morning, and I said "It's getting bad. I just want to go turn on HGTV." Tonight we watched our weekly favorite...

Design Star. Natalie got kicked off last week, and we weren't too sad about it. Don't really know how Teshica stayed; she couldn't even accessorize the kitchen! Hello!! But the pansy lady who cried and couldn't be in charge left, so it's all good. But we're rooting for Antonio all the way. I got ben hooked tonight as well. And if you don't know what we're talking about, GET ON IT PEOPLE. Anyways. This is extremely poorly written. But nothing too exciting to report this week except for our love of this TV show. And how great it is being married and having a husband who loves to watch it with me. Life is good.

Also: Got a chance to hang out with the family this weekend. Hannah and Sean came down from bountiful and we all got together at Miriam and Aaron's new place (which is SO CUTE) and had dinner. Miriam is a great cook and the dinner was awesome. We checked out Jared and Lynn's place...also very cute. Kayla played and rolled in the grass and we all sat on the porch and ate and talked. Later we ate ice cream; the girls sitting on the kitchen floor and the boys on the porch. Kayla learned how to open the door while we all sat and chatted; the women about babies and recipes and the men about blowing stuff up. We missed the rest of the family too. Miss you guys!! But what a good saturday night.

A Week of Bliss

Ok, so it's been mostly bliss; except for when I missed Gideon like a crazy pathetic fool while he was at work. I actually snuggled up with one of his dirty t-shirts that smelled like him. And watched Oprah. Which, by the way, was about a woman who is standing trial this fall for shooting and killing her abusive policeman-husband. I am so glad my husband tucks me in at night and softly strokes my hair and kisses me on the forhead instead of kicking the crap out of me! But that's just a side note. So...the first week has been great. Top ten things I love about being married:

1. Waking up in the middle of the night with someone to snuggle up to
2. Coming home from a long day to a big hug and a kiss
3. Cooking dinner for someone other than myself
4. Nice conversations with the bathroom door open. If ya know what I mean.
5. Someone to scratch the unreachable awkward part of your back
6. Someone who laughs at all my clumsy moments. But he hugs me too.
7. Sleep overs in the living room
   
8. Midnight cake and a movie
9. Uncontrollable smiles 24/7
10. Budgeting our tiny incomes

This week has been a total blast. Gideon has been late for his morning class almost every day because we seriously stay up late goofing around, organizing our closet, making plans, deciding on baby names for all 25 of our unborn children, etc. It's more wonderful than we ever thought. Last night was probably the highlight of the week:

First...we had dinner. A success FINALLY. Can't go wrong with a crock pot. I love whoever invented those. But of course, we threw some excitement in there when I realized I couldn't open the canned corn because we don't have a can opener. Don't worry; this man is resourceful.

That's right. He used a hammer to pound open the little can on our doorstep. I hope our landlord's didn't see.

I cut my hand on the shard later. THEN, we decided it was a perfect night for a movie. Since we don't have a couch...

The mattress was our only option. Sleepover in the living room! Then we decided we needed some cake to go with our movie. So finally around 12:30, after baking the cake (and taking it out of the oven with my shirt because we don't have any oven mits yet) and running to redbox where I convinced Gideon to watch New In Town (so cute you should all see it. Good clean fun. PS He loved it), we finally watched our movie and kept laughing pretending like we were on a first date or something.

And the final part of this really long and boring blog post is....now we have a couch!!!

I came home from work tonight and Gideon had me close my eyes and hide in the bedroom until he finished his labor of love. He got it all moved in and washed the cushion covers, vaccummed it out and everything. He even covered it with some sheets because he knew I would think it was yucky (50 bucks at D.I....that screams germs).

This man knows how to keep his wife happy. Vaccuming my sofa? I knew I picked a good one. Then he made me dinner and graciously gave me the last piece of cake for dessert.

The cake had a mosquito on it that I found two bites in. I almost vomited. But it's the thought that counts, right?

And the top pic of the week:

This is what happens when you let your new husband put your clothes away. I was in the kitchen and he came out like this. He said it would be a great pad for wrestling matches! Oh my goodness. I died.

A Bed

Gideon is so good at doing all the husband-manly stuff around the house. I'm so glad he knows how to connect the DVD player, hook up the internet, put a bed together, and tie a mattress to the top of a tiny car!! It was quite the adventure getting our bed all put together, but he did a great job. It was so funny driving that mattress down from Sandy on top of our car! I can't believe it made it, even through some rain! Thanks Gideon.

We managed to fit our entire queen bed frame completely dissembled into our little kia, but it had to poke out the windows. The mattress managed to stay tied to the top, thanks to some good ol' fashioned boy scout knots from Gideon.

NEWLYWEDS

Welcome to the new blog from the MEDLEYS (yes, I LOVE being able to say that). We are just two people who found each other and fell in love...twice. We love our story and we love each other. Gideon and I have been married for a grand total of 5 days and we are loving every minute of it. I love his socks at the end of the bed every night and I love how he sweetly arranges the silverware in our drawer that we don't even have a silverware holder in yet. We live in a little one bedroom apartment, but it's ours and we love it. We are just enjoying life, taking care of each other, compromising, loving each other, and still having the whole "I can't believe we're finally MARRIED" conversation over and over. Last night, I was supposed to be looking for the info to pay my car bill but instead we found all of the letters Gideon sent me while on his mission, and some old journal entries from while he was gone, me saying how much I missed him and I loved him. Then we just sat looking at old pictures from before his mission and comparing them with our wedding pictures. I, of course, started crying as I snuggled up to my new husband, thinking just how wonderfully happy I am at the way everything turned out. I dreamed of marrying him for so long and sometimes it catches my breath to realize that it's all come true. I feel so lucky to have married the man of my dreams. It's a blissful little reality check, being married, and we LOVE the reality we have found ourselves in. Thanks to everyone who helped out with the wedding and sacrificed time and money to come and support us on the big day. We love you all so much!!