Lots of stuff!

Ooops... I just made the mistake of looking at the kitchen organization section on the Bed, Bath, and Beyond website and now that's all I can think about! Lots of ways to create more space in my kitchen (which is pretty tight with 5 people using it). The reason I was looking at that section is because tonight we bought a hanging basket for fruit and stuff. I can't find it on the BBB website for some reason, but we got the exact one that they have at that Amazon link - although the link looks like there is cardboard or something in the baskets, which there is not. They're square at the bottom and round at the top and they are great! With the organic bin we get (yes we switched companies recently) we often have garlic, tomatoes, avocados, etc. and other things that don't need refrigeration. Plus we have a roommate that eats a lot of fruit. So this stuff just ends up as *CLUTTER* on the counter. The basket creates great vertical storage! I love the way it looks! :) I should have taken a before and after picture... oh well. Plus for the past two years I have had clear plastic letter trays for people's mail. I had them on hand and just set them up as a short term solution when Addy and Christine lived here... now through tons of roommates they have stayed and they are UGLY! So we went to Target and got a mesh three tier organizer (quite similar to this one) and it is so much nicer! We also got a brown storage "box" thing - something like this but not really at all. Helpful, huh? It is a similar size/shape, but it is brown leather. It's also square and was only $14. I got that to put on the coffee table as a catch all (even though I hate catch-alls) for keys, sunglasses, etc. At least it will keep that stuff together instead of finding it weird places, and it will keep it off the counter and make it easier to cook and eat there! YAY! The kitchen looks better already, and there are still some lingering items. I love love love organizing!

We also went to Home Depot for a few things and saw a garage door monitor (Geoff sorta has his eye on a keypad entry thing for the garage door so we were in that section). THIS IS PERFECT FOR ME! I told him this is what I want for Christmas. :) Every night I worry and ask Geoff a thousand times "is the garage door closed?!" About 10% of the time I get dressed and go downstairs to check. This comes from my mother who is a compulsive garage door / front door / back door checker. I swore I would never be her, and I honestly am not even half as bad as her, but I do worry a little with so many roommates. If it was just us I don't think I'd worry so much. Anyway though... with this thing, you have a sensor on the garage and a monitor (think baby monitor) anywhere in your house that has a green light if the door is down and red if it's up. There was a picture on the front of the package of this lady who was reading a book in bed and I was like "GEOFFFFFF!!! This lady is ME!!! Look how nice and relaxed she is with her monitor!!!!" It was too funny. I definitely might need to get that thing. Definitely might. Yes.

Geoff likes Thai food!!! Seriously... we went out for Thai at a place I love about a year ago. He got the medium pad thai and hated it... too spicy. So he wouldn't go and wouldn't go and wouldn't go. Then today we went out for lunch and he agreed to go to Thai for whatever reason. He got the mild pad thai and LOVED it. He kept saying how good it was... aye. A whole year of not much Thai food because "he didn't like it". Oh well, at least we can have it now!

Well... Geoff just got back from a motorcycle ride, so I guess I should wrap it up and go to bed. I didn't so much get to post about Hood to Coast yet, but I'll try to do that by this weekend. Peace out homies! (yes that is a tribute to Molls and Stine)

YAY!

I realized (okay I googled and found out) that by going to "Settings" and "Permissions" in Blogger, you can "invite others" to contribute to your blog. So I invited my new gmail address and now here I am posting from it. I no longer have to sign out of gmail to blog which makes me much more likely to blog! I also invited Geoff to blog on my blog. I am quite sure he won't, but if he does, you should see it at the bottom. I think it will say the time/date and then "by Geoff". Mine most likely will start saying "by Kelly" soon... let me go check!

Newest pet peeve!

Does it annoy anyone else that facebook always says "Jim Bob has removed kayaking from their interests"? Why not say his/her interest, or even use the gender designation that individual has chosen to determine which to say. Their is just so blatently WRONG!

I was crazy yesterday with being annoyed with just about everything! That's what no sleep and being cooped up in a van for 36+ hours will do to a person. :) Things are looking up today.

Full H2C update to come soon...

Resolution

I forgot to update you on what happened on Sunday! (or was it Saturday?) In either case, I talked to the guys and they were like "yeah, we knew you didn't want clutter... sorry, I forgot to pick up my ipod last night, but we're totally cool with the no clutter thing, we want this room to look good too!" So they were on board... only silly Geoff didn't understand. ;-) And the room looks great!

I am still annoyed about Blogger. I need to email Google to see what I can do about getting my blog moved over to my new Google account, because as it is I have to sign out of gmail to update my blog and that's lame.

I switched Geoff's car insurance to mine (I have USAA which I will rave about another time, although I think I already have) and it went down by 75%! YAY!

Hood to Coast is Friday... I'm leaving in about 2 minutes for the first of 6 trips to the airport between now and next Monday! I have the Tahoe... hehehe. :) I have my shopping list ready for all of the stuff I need to get for our pasta dinner tomorrow and also to just have in the car with us. I'm totally not in good enough shape running-wise, but who cares. It will be a blast anyway! And I'm so looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones!

Better!

Lest you worry, I feel much better after a good night's sleep. Geoff read my blog last night and felt so bad that I thought he thought I treated him like a pet. He said that wasn't what he meant at all, that he meant I showed him a different way of viewing the world. He said before that he never would have thought of fluffing the pillows on a couch, or making sure the remotes were back in their space. He also said he was a messy slob (that part was funny!) before, and didn't even know it! He is glad that he tries to think about those types of things now, because now he feels like he can go to someone's house and be respectful and polite, whereas before he wasn't and didn't even realize it. I'm probably not explaining it very well, but it was a very nice conversation and he felt so bad! Poor thing.

It is cool living with all of the guys and Geoff. I bring my thoughts to Geoff first because he is obviously best in the position to understand the "man's perspective" and my perspective. Like "is it crazy to ask guys to wear only pink on Tuesdays so that everyone that lives here all looks uniform?" "ummm, yes honey!" (okay that one never happened, but wouldn't it be funny if it did!?!? ;-)) We have fun!

I have the dishwasher running and a load of clothes in the washer. Today is big cleaning day before we have 3 out of town guests stay with us for all of next weekend! Off to scrub the guest bathroom...

ANNOYED

I am annoyed. It's a little late so I might be a tad crabby, plus I didn't get my run yet AGAIN. This week has been so dang busy and things just have not worked out how I've wanted them to. Here are things I'm annoyed about:

- RUDE people. I expect a basic level of etiquette from people. No, I don't care if you are Miss Manners or not, but know a few basics! (this might be partially left over from wedding planning)

- Blogger. I'm trying to switch names and it's not working very well with keeping me signed into my gmail on my new email address and blogger with my old email address. Google and their world domination...

- Geoff says I should complain about the guys. But I'm not really annoyed with them at all, just annoyed with myself that I miscommunicated to them yesterday! We moved a big TV from the "man room" to the living room, which was fine. We talked about how it was still the living room and they couldn't leave things laying around (dishes, etc). I thought it was clear that it is the room people see when they first walk into the house and would it would always be neat, clean, and presentable. The guys were down there playing video games earlier tonight, which was great. Then Geoff and I got home late tonight and I find a laptop, an ipod, and a video game contoller laying out, pillows strewn about, etc. I HATE CLUTTER. HATE IT. It probably should have been the first word in this bullet point. But anyway, so I tidy up and grumble about it. Apparently it was not clear to the male species that this was still the living room. It is a communial room for all, and when I want to go to the living room or have a guest over, I don't want to have to move a laptop from a chair or straighten up the pillows. It should be ready to go at all times unless people are in it. Geoff says this is impossible because guys don't get that. And I can't "train 3 guys the way I've trained him". Which also made me angry because it made me feel like he thinks he's my pet or something. He says the only solution is to just move the TV back to the other room. I don't want to TRAIN grown adults, but I don't want to just move the TV either. (they are all gone which is why I'm venting here, not discussing). I just want to discuss and see if they would rather move the TV or just work on keeping the room tidy. If you're done with your xbox contoller, put it back in the TV console. When you get up off the couch, put the pillow back against the edge. It takes 2 seconds but would save my sanity. Or if the clutter stays in the back room that used to be the man room, then I can ignore it. We'll figure something out.

Vent over.

Goodnight. :)

Quote of the Day

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Quote of the Day

I am at work updating a lot of my marital status information through our online systems. I updated my life insurance information, then texted Geoff to tell him he was now on my life insurance. He wrote back "Yay! Don't die."

Wedding

Okay... I know you've all been waiting 4 days to find out the answer... did I run?! YES!!! I did. I got up at 8 AM and was out on the street by 8:10. I made a mistake though... the first half of my run I was on the east side of the street which was great because it provided shade... the second half I ran on the west side of the street. BIG MISTAKE... it was ridiculously hard/hot/sunny. Won't do that again in Dallas.

After the run I took a shower and then ate some of my sister's Trix. Hung out for a while and went to the church to get ready around 11. Taylor, Rebecca, Christine and I were there and just hung out eating cheese and crackers for a while. My hair and makeup was the only real thing we did... at 1 Annette (our photographer) and her crew (an assistant and another amazing photographer named Jason) came, and Geoff and Trevor came shortly afterwards. At that point we did lots of pictures in the Bride's Room, just stuff with us getting ready, giving gifts to the wedding party, stuff like that. TONS of people came to see me in the Bride's Room. Actually I think every woman who was at the wedding, plus my dad! It was awesome. At around 2:30 (I think, this timeline is all so rough) I put my dress on and put the finishing touches like shoes and veil on. I was cool as a cucumber the whole time - until I stepped out of the Bride's Room. Then I cried! Idiot. :) Oh well. I was like "get yourself together!" I pulled it together pretty quickly and by the time Christine and Rebecca started walking down the aisle I was good. Then it was my turn... I walked to Hayden's Serenade, which was the song I played in my very first flute competition. I practiced that piece for so long, it is by far the piece of music I've worked hardest in my life. I wanted something different and it was PERFECT! Geoff even asked me later to get the CD or something for him so he could hear it again, because he loved it (the only time he'd heard it before that was in the rehearsal). Geoff told me that the whole rest of the room blurred when I entered the room... he didn't even see my dad walking me down the aisle, he only saw me. (actually I didn't know that until today). He looked GREAT!!! The guys couldn't find ties until the day before the wedding, but they finally bought silver ties and orange pocket squares which looked great. I loved it. So we had our wedding... I couldn't look at Geoff while he said his vows to me so I looked at his chest. I looked at him when I said my vows though. While I was saying my vows, I didn't know how to make my voice sound so I kept changing it from low to high... people thought I was crying but I was just trying to sound good! That was pretty funny. :) The other thing I loved about our wedding was that it was funny. Pastor Anna made funny comments every now and then and Geoff and I kept squeezing each other's hands during funny or special parts to us... it was just really cool! Maybe everyone does that but it was cool. And then she prayed and I took that opportunity to fix my veil, which was literally about to fall off! I literally took it off and put it back on during the prayer! Ooops. And I think my favorite part was communion. I loved having communion! I've never seen that during a wedding before and it was so special to be able to serve each other communion and then serve it to all of our wedding guests. And Russ came to our wedding! I haven't seen him since a month after we graduated so it was awesome for him to be there! After that we took tons of pictures... it took a long time but was so worth it. I can't WAIT to see the pictures. Then Geoff and I went to a playground to take pictures... we wanted engagement pictures in a playground but it was too rainy, so we did them in our dress and suit! It was hot but I CANNOT WAIT TO SEE THOSE PICTURES!! It was sooooo much fun doing those, we were so relaxed and just having fun and I know they'll turn out great. LOL - Geoff is sitting next to me watching Mythbusters, and I don't know what reminded him of this (a commercial maybe?) but he just said "our photographer had an iphone. (Jason). He said he was eating a lot of ham sandwiches because of it but it was worth it." That's cool. Geoff loved Jason... he said if he lived in Dallas he'd definitely be friends with him. Then we went to our hotel... The Richardson Hotel... changed clothes, (got an upgraded room!) and then to our reception. We had my dad's car so we actually went in the garage door (it was at my parent's house) and kinda caught people off guard. My poor parents, especially my mom, worked SO hard that night. They'd hired a maid which was really great, but I wish I'd thought of that aspect before. Well, we were originally going to just have grandparents/parents/siblings at our wedding and a big dinner out which sort of involved to inviting more folks and having a BBQ at my parent's house. Which unfortunately meant that my parents were busy doing stuff and weren't able to have as much fun. If I had to change one thing about the wedding, it'd be that. But... I think everyone else had an absolute blast! I know I did! The "kids" (cousins and siblings) convinced me to even get in the pool at the end of the night! It was great. I loved talking to family friends and family and Russ and his girlfriend (she was wonderful and it was great catching up with Russ). We had probably 50 people there and I don't know what we would have done if it had been bigger! I felt like we neglected everyone! We had DQ ice cream cakes for our cake, which was a hit! (I think... at least it was with me!). Trevor and Christine both gave amazing toasts and we had fun cutting our cake. Annette took some awesome pictures... she did some cool things with our rings like putting them in our M&M favors and other neat artistic things. It was just such a fun night. VERY VERY relaxed and tons of fun. It was absolutely perfect. Geoff and I ended up going home around 11:30... we were the last people to leave! :)

Sunday we had a brunch for the grandparents/parents/siblings. It was soooo nice... my mom used all of her "fancy" china and crystal and stuff and it was nice to have a smaller group to talk to. After that people started leaving for the airport and Geoff and I spent the day hanging out with my parents and sister. We really didn't do much. :) We had dinner (leftovers of course!) at my parents and then went to our hotel.

Monday morning we had room service! It was the first time either of us has had room service and it was delish. A great post-wedding treat. After that we went to my parents to get packed up (it was so hard being between home/church/2 hotels). Then off to the airport. We got home around 10 last night. Trevor and Kristy picked us up from the airport.

Today was movie day... we stayed in bed most of the day watching the "Bourne" movies except to go to the theatre to watch the third. I've never seen them so that was fun! Our room/house is a disaster - we have Geoff about half moved into our "new" room (the master suite / my old room) and in addition to that we have our suitcases and some wedding gifts taking up our entire floor space. Plus downstairs there are boxes from wedding gifts everywhere. We have tons of work to do to get the house ready for 3 visitors and a team dinner for H2C next week! But it will get done. :) Very fun! Back to work tomorrow!

My last post as an unmarried woman

okay, I know some of you are probably throwing up in your mouth right now with that title! But I just feel like I should blog so I have SOME record of these days. Today was perfect. This morning I woke up and started helping my mom clean the house. Geoff and his family (Taylor, Julie, Trevor, and Kristy) came over around 11:30 AM and the guys mowed the lawn, the girls cleaned the pool, and Mom, Julie, and I cleaned inside. Gary dropped Rebecca off at around 2 and brought lunch, and took Julie shopping. They stayed until about 4, and then went back to their hotel. I went to David's Bridal to get my dress... and got a call from Geoff that the Malibu, my sister's car that he was borrowing, broke down (the battery died). I told him to call my mom. LOTS of spiritual warfare going on today with all sorts of stuff... which I figure is good, because of the Devil doesn't want us to get married, that must mean that it's good and God does! So I got my dress and picked up one extra corsage, and then back home. Geoff hadn't even called Mom, he just got Gary to pick up a new battery and a couple of tools and fix it (what can I say, he's a car guy!!). Poor thing. I showered and got dressed and ready for the rehearsal, and Geoff brought the Malibu back over. That left us down a car which was kind of an issue. We went to the rehearsal at 7 and it was great. The organist had to leave to go to the church play at about 7:15, so we had to get started right away. Because of that it was VERY fast. But I think it will still go smoothly. i hope. ;-) So then off to the rehearsal dinner - it was a blast! I love Geoff's stepdad (Gary). He is just awesome and was especially so tonight. We had just a great time talking with family and eating great food. Then I came home and wrapped gifts for the wedding party and now I'm going to bed.

The alarm is set for 8 AM tomorrow to get out of bed and go for a run! Even if I just do a quick 20 minute jog, that's better than nothing. H2C in 15 days... ;-)

Pre-wedding

Well, the house is all quiet and I'm just spending some time catching up on work and personal email. :) My family is mostly asleep (my mom's in the office also on the computer, I'm in the living room) and Geoff and his family are at the hotel.

It has been a fun week! The only bad thing is I haven't been to the gym since Monday. This is a HUGE problem - Hood to Coast is 15, yes, 15 days away! That is going to be one painful weekend. I'm hoping for a good long run tomorrow. The good news about that is that both my back and my knee are feeling stronger, so I guess I can just view that as some good rest and recovery time before H2C. Even if I don't run tomorrow, I WILL run on Saturday... that will be my wedding day me-time! It will clear my head and make me feel fresh and fabulous! I love how I feel after a good long run.

Monday and Tuesday were just finishing up things in Oregon... working, packing, stuff like that. Tuesday night Cindy (my fabulous coworker) picked me and Geoff up and we left for the airport! With Wilma the Wedding Dress, of course (pictures to be posted of Wilma's journey at a later date ;-)). Anyway, we got to the airport WELL in advance, checked in, and enjoyed our time at the airport. We had a nice empty flight to SFO which went by quickly. SFO was AWFUL - we had to leave security to get to our next flight, to find that terminal we had to walk through the parking garage, there was mold growing on the ceiling, etc. GROSS. Sorry to my Bay Area friends. ;-) We arrived in Dallas about 6:30 Wednesday morning. My dad picked us up and we came home and went to the justice of the peace for our marriage license (they opened at 8). Well, they don't do marriage licenses until 9! So we came back home (it's only about 5 mintues away) and hung out for a bit. Then we went right at 9 and got the marriage license. Then home for a quick nap before we went to David's Bridal and Men's Warehouse (right next door to each other, how convenient!) to drop off our stuff to be steamed. We came out the doors at the exact same time - yay for good timing! Then we picked up some Boston Market for lunch and came home for a while. Geoff took a looong nap while my sister, mom, and I just talked (we might have done some other stuff but I don't remember!). At 3 we had to go to the church to figure out how we wanted the altar and stuff set up. We ran into both our pastor and organist which was fun! We got that all done and then picked up my sister and went to the mall to get our nails done. Geoff looked for ties while we were doing that (that's right people, we still don't have ties for the groom and best man. And I don't even care! I love our wedding). Then we picked up Taylor and Mike, Geoff's cousin and uncle who are here (Mike came in early for business). We went to dinner at Pei Wei (owned by PF Changs, but fast-style like Chipotle or Panera). Then home for LOTS of swimming in the pool. I judged hand stand contests and races for 2 or 3 hours. Then finally, sleep. :)

This morning we woke up about 9:30 AM to the flowers being delivered! YAY! They are GORGEOUS. They are from costco.com and seriously they are absolutely fabulous! Picture below (okay, I decided to just go ahead and download the pictures tonight, so Wilma pictures below too). Then we needed to get started on errands, so we woke up Geoff, picked up Taylor, and off to Ikea we went. We need tons of candles for the church, so we picked up most of those. Then Costco for food for the reception. I love Costco. Seriously I do not understand my obsession with Costco! Then we came home. We got Geoff working on programs, my sister and Taylor working on favors and running to WalMart, and my mom and I went to Central Market and Tom Thumb (a grocery store). When we got home, we started chopping onions and peppers for kabobs for the wedding. My mom is awesome and had already bought meat and chopped it up and frozen it several weeks ago, so that just had to defrost! Then we skewered, Geoff kept working on programs (the whole thing took him 7 hours!) and Taylor and Christine went out to the pool to clean the deck, swim, and clean the pool. Quite fun! Around 7:30 we were all starving from working all day and not really eating, so I went to Raising Cane's and picked up chicken (I can't remember if I already linked all of this stuff when Geoff and I were here in June... and I haven't linked much lately!). I got a 25 piece tailgate box and 4 orders of fries which ended up being perfect for the 6 of us (my dad was home from work by then). Then we all ran around cleaning up the house (just the clutter so it's ready to really be cleaned tomorrow) and then Geoff and Taylor went home. BUSY day. I can't believe I haven't really been online all day or been to the gym. But we got a LOT done, and my very stressed out mom feels MUCH better. She was most worried about the programs and the kabobs and those were both done by 9 PM, so that's great. Plus I think now she sees what a lot of people can do, and tomorrow we get 5 additional people to add to the mix! (Geoff's family is all here now, YAY!). I'm glad that we were able to get enough done so that Mom can relax a little more. Tomorrow is mostly just cleaning, getting tables set up, etc. The rehearsal is at 7 and the rehearsal dinner is at 8:15. Should be a great time!

Praise: my sister arrived from Spain on Sunday but without her LARGE suitcase with gifts and wedding things in it. It just arrived!

Okay, picture fun time!

Wilma all packed up and ready to go!

Me and Wilma, about to load her into the car!

Me in the Alaska Airlines line with Wilma

Geoff guarding Wilma while eating his Panda Express

Me with Wilma in the parking lot at SFO... and that's the end of her journey pictures, but she really did make it the whole way just fine! She's at David's Bridal being cleaned now!

The flowers, in the GIANT box they arrived in from Costco! They are beautiful, SO fresh, and I just love them!

This is a random. But we were at Costco and saw a car with Illinois plates. Then we saw Harper College and Palatine Township stickers on there! Those are from Palatine, the town in Illinois I'm from! It was so cool... I had to take a picture. My Palatine friends will appreciate this!

Christine and Taylor decided the hot tub was too dirty, so they emptied all the water and threw it in the pool (the pool cleaning system is better than the hot tub). It was a HILARIOUS site to watch, they had an assembly line going so they could get it done quickly enough before it filled back up. Too funny.

10 more days!

YIKES we're getting married in 10 days. :) Actually, I'm surprisingly not freaked out or stressed out about it at all! It will be grand. http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/KellyRobinson&GeoffreyMohr is our wedding website for those of you who haven't seen it. Email me if you want the password. We leave for Dallas in 6 days and we get in Wednesday morning. By this time next week we should have our marriage license and we'll have dropped our suit and dress off at Men's Warehouse and David's Bridal for steaming! :)

Okay this is funny - my friend Emily said this morning "oh Kristin from high school facebook messaged me this morning and asked me to join the service". I was like "WHAT?!" Emily is not military like AT ALL... just very random! I was so confused... then Emily explained that she meant she asked her to join FACEBOOK - not the Marines. That was slightly more normal - although still a little odd since we weren't particularly friends with Kristin. I just thought it was hilarious - "Hmmm... I just love the Army so much! Who should I ask to join me? OH!!! Emily!" Yeah, that would never happen.

So Geoff has a VERY HIGH pain tolerance. When he was a kid, he used to get HORRIBLE ear infections (side note: why do I use caps so much? ugh!). But his pain tolerance was so high that he wouldn't say anything to his mom until they were really bad, and then she'd take him to the doctor. The doctor once said "you need to bring him at the very first sign of pain, this has gotten really bad and it's not healthy". She was like "this was the first sign!" Similarly, Geoff's teacher at school used to ask him all of these questions about his home life, trying to determine if he was getting enough to eat at home because he would always eat so much at lunch! He was like "oh yeah, I had three hamburgers, a salad, and fries (or whatever) for dinner last night!" He was just a hungry kid. His poor mom though - always being accidentally accused of neglect!

Anyway, the reason for telling you about the pain tolerance is because last week Geoff was like "my tooth REALLY hurts". This only went on for a couple of days and he went to the dentist right away. Turns out his wisdom tooth came in and there wasn't room in his mouth for it, so food and stuff got in his gum because it had grown in weird, and it was VERY infected. They put him on penicillin for the infection and vicodin for the pain. Then he was to get it out yesterday. The reason he had to wait until yesterday was so the infection could actually go down a little before they did it. He has lost like 10 pounds in the past week because he can't eat much because of the pain. I think if I was in this much pain I would not be moving. He is a trooper. But yesterday he got it removed and he is in SO much less pain. Most people are down for a couple of days after they get wisdom teeth removed, but it's like he was just let out of prison! He worked on his motorcycle last night and took down a dining room table and chairs and moved them to a friend's condo (we got a new dining room set this weekend). Today he's picking up our new hutch, doing lawn work, and hanging up some shelves. Hilarious...