Another Day, Another Dollar

Work, Work, Work

The past couple of weeks have been a big blur. Work has been incredibly busy and I have been putting in a ton of overtime/late nights. I can do anything for a limited period of time. I know this, too shall pass, but for now I am starting to feel a bit worn out and may or may not have had a few break-downs last week.

The Bear

We had to retire one of our sets of sheets. Is anyone else married to a bear? I have never worn holes in any sheets ever in my entire life... but James is another story. He has sandpaper heels or something. I got his permission to say this and post this picture of our sheets.Notice how you can see the wear in that general area and then the condition of the fabric improves as you get further away. This is why we can't have nice things. ;)

  

The Dresser

I didn't get a ton of people weighing in on the mirror for the dresser, so I decided on my own (yes, i'm a big kid sometimes) to go with painting the original mirror and using that. Here is the end result with the mirror in place:

Farewell party

We went to a farewell party for all the interns at James' work. We had a good time. Good food, good fun.

Golf 

James has been golfing a bit. Here is his contribution to this blog post:

So I guess I'm being "invited" (read: strong armed) to make some contributions to my wife's blog about my life. I make no guarantees of entertainment or appropriateness, so consider this your warning. Anyhow since I've graduated a couple of months ago, I figured I needed a hobby. I've been trying to pick up golfing, with mixed results. I grew up going to the driving range occasionally with my father and brothers and before graduating I had played legit golf probably less than a dozen times in my life. I am not a good golfer, poor technique, and such, but I enjoy the sport and being outdoors and such, so I figure I should at least try and be decent.

I've been lucky enough to play for free at work golf tournaments 3 times this summer, and I've been trying out a few golf courses here in KC as time and money permits. I lose a lot of balls, so I like golf courses that either have wide open courses that I can chase the ball onto the other fairway, or I can pick up other lost balls in the woods/tall grass when I play. Some day I hope to cure my wicked slice, but for now i'm still working on it. I have an old set of clubs (probably 20 or 25 years old) that I stole from my dad, which I've managed to make some upgrades this summer. I scored a nice used Taylormade driver, and I won a free putter at a work golf tournament for winning the longest putt competition (it was a rather pathetic 10 ft putt but nobody else beat it, so I lucked out).

Anyhow I won't bore anyone with all my travails on the golf course. But I played last week at Painted Hills golf course, it was about 95 degrees when I started playing after work and after 12 holes I was pretty hungry and tired (I didn't have time to eat dinner before my 4:30 tee time) so Wes and I called it quits for the night.

I'm not good, so there really isn't anything to say, it's rather embarrassing but as I mentioned previously I was being strong armed into this activity and it's late and I have work tomorrow early so I am not real motivated to keep writing. Sorry for the rambling.

James

Dance

We had the opportunity to chaperone a youth dance. We had a good time and were out on the dance floor for most of the night. We did think there were WAY too many slow songs, but rumor has it someone complained in the past that there weren't enough, so maybe they were going overboard in the opposite direction. It was a 50's sock-hop theme and the best-dressed ward got a $50 gift card to Sonic. Our ward won, so all the kids went and got shakes after the dance. We dressed up too and should have taken pictures, but we forgot. sorry.

Tender Mercies

James went on an overnight campout with the young men. I guess they acted out Book of Mormon battle-scenes or something. It was quite the overnight with a bunch of holligans from what James tells me. Before James left on his camping trip, we had family prayer and he prayed that I wouldn't feel too lonely or sad while he was gone. It was the end of a VERY long week. I already felt like I hadn't seen James in a month because work had been so busy. I was feeling worn out and a bit emotionally unstable and lonely and found myself working late-ish for a Friday night. All of these feelings collided and as the tears started pouring down my cheeks I felt an outpouring of love and encouragement from 4 or so different people (in about a 30-minute time-frame) who didn't even know I was having a tough time or that James was gone. Some friends even invited me over to play games with them, so not only was I saved from wallowing, I actually had a really great time. The next morning I went to help out at a soup kitchen breakfast with a family in our ward. I recognize now that all of these things were tender mercies of the Lord and an answer to James' prayer for me to not get too lonely. Its so cool to know that Heavenly Father loves each of His children and is mindful of their needs.

Baptism

When James got back from his camp-out, we got showered up and went to a baptism for an 8 year old and an 18 year old. It was awesome.

Oklahoma Joes

We went to Oklahoma Joes again. I got the Z-Man sandwich again. I am pledging to branch out next time! I think I will get ribs. Yum! 

Debt-Free

This week was an exciting week in the Low family. With the help of Heavenly Father we were able to pay off our student loans and are happy to now be debt-free! Wahoo! We have been working on bulking up our emergency fund as well and saving for retirement. We look forward to being able to start saving for our next (and hopefully better) car, a house, and other various goals. We have been SO BLESSED and recognize that we have only been able to do what we have because of Heavenly Father. 

Temple

Thursday was our ward temple night. It was so lovely to be able to get out of this world and feel the peace that is so abundant in the temple. There is so much confusion and craziness in the world, it is so nice to be able to escape that and be able to forget the troubles of this world and gain a little more perspective and understanding.

The Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun, mostly because I got in a lot of James time when my tank was running low. Friday night we went swimming and then made a steak dinner for ourselves at home and then watched Dead Poet's Society together.

Saturday morning we got up and got ready and went to a later breakfast at Succotash to celebrate our paying off our student loans. Its a totally hipster little place with funky art on the walls and interesting people running the show. The food was great and it was a fun experience. I got freshly squeezed orange juice and the "Peachy Swedes" – Swedish pancakes filled with ricotta and topped with hot ginger-infused peaches. James got french toast, eggs, and bacon and freshly squeezed grapefruit juice with a splash of beet. The portion size was pretty large and neither of us were able to finish our food. So delicious.

After breakfast, we headed to the Plaza and walked around for a few hours. I have been to the Plaza a few times before, but it has always been to go to one specific place (restaurants), so it was fun to be able to really explore. When we were about done with walking around, we popped into Panera and got some water and a loaf of sour dough bread to tide us over. Next we went to Costco, picked up some needed items and then headed home to tidy up the house in preparation for the Sabbath, then off to take a dip in the pool again. 

I had a lovely Sunday as well. Church was great. After church we took naps, enjoyed some simple meals together, and took a long walk together. One fun thing we like to look for when we go on our walks is deer. We have this field behind our apartment complex where a herd of deer like to graze. The other day I counted 24 dear out there and there may have been more that I didn't see since we were kind of in a hurry when we passed (I think we were actually in the car when we went by that time). Overall it has been a fantastic weekend and my love tank is feeling much fuller!

The Challenge

So at work this month we have had a health challenge where you get points for doing or not doing certain things related to your health and you are teamed up with another person from work. It has been really hard to not eat any sweets... and get so many fruits and vegetables in every day. I am sure it has been good for me in some ways, but I think I might go on a sweets binge September 1st! This is the last week of the challenge, so I am trying to keep going strong for my partner. We discovered that we are in second place and the people in 1st place have a perfect score (we are only behind by like 6 points) and are not likely to mar their record in the last week. There is no prize for second place, so its a lot harder to feel motivated to keep going. One thing I am grateful for is that this challenge has helped me get back into the habit of running in the mornings as I have to exercise for 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week to get maximum points. It has been fun to watch the sun rise. I have been drinking smoothies basically every day to get my fruit intake up, which isn't all bad either.

The sunrise this morning on my run...