when something goes wrong, create something else.

hey all! i feel like i've been gone for a little bit and didn't really explain myself. not that y'all are demanding i have an excuse every time i don't blog, but i want to be a nice blogger and tell you about it! this past weekend we were in indy for a wedding. we left thursday evening and came back sunday night. the wedding was lovely. they are both in the military so they incorporated a lot of really cool and fun things into it. they even got to do that cool thing where they walk through swords! then they cut the cake with one. it was totally adorable and beautiful. i loved it! also, they did this awesome thing called LETTING PEOPLE SIT WITH THEIR DATES. i know, totally new concept, right? we did it at our wedding and terri (the bride) told me she did it that way because she hates going to weddings where, if one of them was standing up in it, they would have to be apart the entire time and sit with strangers. EXACTLY! i feel the same way, if a person is kind enough to stand up in your wedding (which means buying endless things and spending tons of money) i think you, as the bride or groom, should be aware that they have done a lot for you and probably want to be able to sit with their date. just sayin. it doesn't upset me or make me mad if a bride doesn't do that. she can have whatever she wants! it's her day! but personally, i did it that way because you want to make your guests and party be as comfortable as possible! anywaayyyy, all that to say i got to sit with awesome people (my husband and our friends) because terri and steve were so thoughtful and had so. much. fun.!

the last couple days i just didn't feel like doing projects or typing for long periods of time, so the blog got pushed back. sorry! but the good news is that i am back today with a project, yay!!

i love. love. love. it!!!

so when i was in indy the last time (for christmas), phil's mom offered to give me a mirror. she had a few to choose from but i needed a bigger size than what she had... so dumb me said, "oh i don't really have any place else for a smaller mirror right now..." and after i got home i was kicking myself for that. she had one that i thought was pretty and when i mentioned it she said it was mine and whenever i had the space, i could take it home with me. here she is:

very old and maybe not the most beautiful thing ever, but i love the details

pretty, right? yah, that's what i thought too.

otis wasn't too sure, but i was.

so i cleaned it off and realized something.. there were black specks all inside the mirror. i thought it was some sort of spray paint or something so i tried to scrape it off, but it was underneath the mirror.. like, inside it somehow. i don't know, i figured it was from being old. i was just going to roll with it and let it have specks (i thought it might have a cool vintage feel to it like that) but then something worse happened..

as i was pulling the nails out so i could paint the frame without the mirror inside, it started scraping the backing off so some spots weren't refleting anymore... oops. my bad.

so i figured i would just hang an empty frame and fill it eventually... with what i do not know. i figured i would get an idea. so in the mean time i realized this little guy comes off

which made me very glad. i kinda liked that thing on there, but i like it much better without it! we may or may not have found this out by pulling it off the mirror while trying to get it out of the box....

so then i started painting the frame martha stewart's persimmon red. while it was drying i was thinking and searching and wondering what i was going to frame. i looked up "wall art crafts" on google and decided i wanted a "b" up on the wall for buben. i thought about just straight painting it on the wall and framing it.. then i thought, well i could get some scrapbook paper or something and put the letter on that, then frame it. but that involved buying paper and i wanted to do this for free. then i realized i already had a perfectly good canvas! the mirror itself, duh! so i decided to use my favorite cover-upper, none other than dun dun dun! peel and stick laminate!!! yup. i used it once again to wrap the mirror. and immediately loved. it.

i love the white with the persimmon. i knew i was sooo going to love this. (ignore the terrible comforter i paint everything on haha. this comforter is like a scrapbook of every past paint job i've done.. ahh memories.)

so this is where i just started making stuff up. at first i wanted to make the letter out of flowers or something.. but as i started to lay it out i didn't like it. it was too busy and took away from the lovely frame. plus i knew it was for the wall in the bedroom and i already have stuff on the wall in there, so i didn't want it to be like extreme decorating with crap everywhere and you aren't sure where to look first.. or you can't stop moving your eyes around because there's just so much junk pulling your eyeballs everywhere. no thanks. i like calming environments, thank you. so i decided one little pinched flower was enough in the corner. i also decided to paint around the edges of the mirror. this was risky, but i figured if it looked bad i would just peel the laminate off and start over with a new sheet. so i slapped paint on it, then wiped it off with paper towel and was left with this

cool, right? i never did anything like that before so i was kinda nervous, but then it looked awesome and is one of my favorite parts of this project. love!

while all that dried, i decided to print out my letter. i used microsoft word and looked for the font i liked. i wanted it to be curvy, but not too frilly. you know what i mean. i settled on "french script" for my "b" and printed it out. then i got the little exact-o-knife thing-a-majig to make a stencil

after cutting out, i taped it down where i wanted it

it moved around a bit, i probably needed a little more tape.. i didn't care though. it looks kinda cool that way. i think if it was too perfect it would look a little weird with the rest of the "imperfect".

then i was left with this : ) the brownish color is the color of my bedroom walls. it's martha stewart's natural twine.

we decided to tape the mirror back onto the frame. ghetto? yes. necessary? probably. the wood is so old and kinda fragile and i didn't think it would stand up to pounding nails in to keep the mirror in the frame.

then i nailed a picture hanger into the frame and hung it up in my bedroom. all. by. myself. : )

yes... those are still my knobs... still sitting on the dresser..... : )

so that's how my mirror mishap turned into an awesome project that i just so happen to love. yah, i love it a lot. : )

phil and me part 3

the '06-'07 school year started and it was seriously one of my favorite years of my life. i was a junior and phil was a senior (i know, older men are better right?) we started the year as a couple. in fact it was nearing the end of august and we had been together almost a month (plus the 5 months of seeing each other before that) without one little kiss. nothing. i was waiting until he was ready, but i was growing impatient. i didn't feel like we needed to be physical all the time or anything, but i really liked my boyfriend and was attracted to him so naturally, i wanted to kiss him. well one night we took a walk to a little park and we bought some shakes along the way. we were swinging on the swings and just having a good time talking. he gave me a hug and as i pulled away, i used to do this thing where i would look up at him and pretty much making it obvious what i wanted to happen. as he came closer to me i thought, "oh gee, he's going to think i'm trying to make him kiss me!" so i put my head down.. but then he pulled my face back up and gave me the best kiss of my entire life. : ) it was sweet and just lovely, right there at the park next to the slide and swings. then the second time he kissed me that night, he asked me for permission... a little late for that fella! : )

september came around and my family had made the decision to move to georgia. unfortunately that meant i wouldn't see my house again since i was at school in ohio and they had to be in georgia pretty soon for my stepdad to start his job. well, phil came to the rescue and told me he would ask his baseball coach for the weekend off to take me to michigan to see my family and house again before the big move. it was even his birthday weekend! he spent his birthday painting my parents' garage..... what a great guy, right? he wasn't even unhappy about it either! so after driving me 4+ hours there and back again to school, helping us pack up the house, painting our garage and missing baseball and his birthday (at least a more fun birthday) on the way back to school when we stopped for gas he asked me if i needed anything from inside.. i said no, but i was just blown away. here he was, basically making me owe him my life with all these favors, and he is still giving. that is the moment i knew i was in love with him. i started to cry when i realized it and i was kind of in shock. i wasn't expecting it, at least not yet! after all, we had only been in an official relationship for a month and a half! that's too soon, right?...... : )

then in october one night we were walking along a rocky path by the school. he kept staring at me and tripping over rocks so i told him to watch where he was going "for heavens sake". he told me he would rather look at me. now while i will admit this is corny, this is exactly what my grandpa had said to my grandma when they were dating. ever since i heard the story i thought it was so sweet and romantic and i prayed one day my husband-to-be would say it to me. so when he said it i knew, october 2006 i was going to marry this man some day. i was absolutely certain of it from that moment on. of course i didn't tell him that, he is a much slower mover than i am.

the year was spent going on about a billion romantic walks, studying together, a few romantic dates sprinkled in there (hey we were college kids with no money!), going to my roomie's wedding followed by phil holding me while i cried since she was no longer my roomie, listening to michael buble every time we were in the car together, attending junior senior together... and finally the night.

one of our many walks we took around cedarville

a photo scavenger hunt... i am not sure what the idea was here. maybe to look as weird as possible? haha



us at clifton mill... an awesome place at christmas with tons of lights everywhere!



at my roomie's wedding!



elliv in the spring. basically cedarville's student award show/our version of oscar night... kinda..







junior senior banquet. affectionately known as js.

  

our shoes enjoying js.



<3.



it was april and i had been in love with phil since september, remember? well he had yet to tell me he loved me, so i was trying my hardest to keep my feelings of love to myself until he was ready. and it was now april. it was making me go crazy! one day i realized that maybe i should open up to him about the things i had done in my past. i had a few boyfriends before phil and i had made some huge mistakes with a couple of them. i won't go into detail here, but i hadn't respected my body or truly realized it didn't belong to me and that it wasn't mine to give. i didn't demand respect of that fact from the guys i dated until phil came along. i had never (only by the grace of God) fully given my body away, but i had still crossed too many lines. i had never been completely open about that with phil. he knew there was a past there, but i never spoke of the details. just that i had repented of that and God had totally changed me and showed me who i was in Him and as His daughter, my body isn't mine to give to anybody i choose. i am only to entrust it to my husband, and that is how our relationship had been. i gave him the option of knowing everything about that part of my past and he said he did want to know. so one night we went away from the school and i sat there and cried and told him everything. i wondered what this would do to our relationship and his feelings for me since, to my knowledge, he wasn't even in love with me yet! i thought, "now he will never love me, but he has a right to know if he wants." if he was going to love me, he would have to accept all of that. well, you know what that guy did? after i cried and told him every dirty thing from my past, you know what he had to say to that?? he said he loved me...!!! i was shocked that he chose that moment. that he could even love me at that moment.. then to choose it to say for the first time? i am pretty sure i said, "are you sure?" and he was. : ) then we were officially in love. yay!!

then one of the worst days ever came. phil was graduating the next day. i was going home to georgia the next day. then after a summer of training for teach for america, phil was moving to st. louis to live and work. 6 hours away from cedarville. we had no idea what was in store for us, only that we were going to be apart. really far apart. and we had no clue when we would be able to see each other again. it was the beginning of may and we weren't sure if we'd be able to see each other again until the fall... some time... it was crushing and devastating to me. i know this is totally dramatic and looking back i am like, come on. what, 4 months? get over it! but it was so terrible to me. i had seen him every day, and now our whole relationship was changing. we didn't know when we would see each other, how often we would, and he was now onto a completely different phase of life. he was starting a career, moving to a big city, becoming an adult. and i was still just a college kid. i cried. and cried. then i cried some more. and then even more, just for good measure. it was a horrible, terrible night. it broke my heart to walk away from him that night, not knowing the next time i would ever see him. 



indiana and a wreath.

this weekend phil and i are heading off to indiana. phil is the best man in his good friend steve's wedding. steve was also our best man.

my sister rebecca and our maid of honor on the left and steve on the right. : )

i am excited to see him marry his little lady terri. steve is one of the nicest guys i have ever met in my life (my husband chooses good people, what can i say?). he is getting married in indiana this weekend, which is where my in-laws live so we will also be visiting and staying with them. part of me dreads the car ride up there, but the other part is excited to go. plus i get to see our friends amanda and phil too! what a fun weekend!! all that will most likely make up for the 10 hour drive there and back.

here is a teeny project i did this week. i bought fur to fix my office chair. i will show that project soon, but for some reason i am just not ready to show it yet. i feel like i haven't taken a good picture of it yet.. i don't know. "blah blah, jess" is what you're saying now, right? well i paid about $8 for half a yard and i have a tonnnnn left over. so i am thinking up ways i want to use the rest, and here is one way i used just a little bit of it yesterday.

i knew i wanted a wreath, but i wanted it small and free. my budget for projects this month is basically zero, so i had to figure out how to make this for free.

enter cardboard box.

we had old christmas boxes in the closet. i used frisbees to trace the circle. no i did not trust my abilities to draw a good circle, ok?

my traced circles. i'm a good tracer, aren't i? : )

then i cut the sides off the box to make it easier to cut the circle out.



after that i used my elementary school cutting skills to cut out the circle i traced, then i folded it in half and made a cut to cut out the inside of the circle. i was having major elementary school art class flash backs people.

then i started cutting out strips of fur to glue around the form. i found it looks better and fuller if you cut it thick enough to wrap around the "wreath form".

then i just wrapped it around and hot glued it down where i needed to. you will probably want to make sure the fur is all laying the same way when you are gluing it down. it made mine look way better and gave it more symmetry... or something... : )

the back looks pretty ugly on mine, but i didn't care so much about the back of it. i mean, it's hanging against something, right?

of course it's good to have a fur specialist around in case you run into trouble... or need some one to lay on the fur to keep it from getting up and running away.

i left an empty space for a bow. i glued the ribbon down first, then i tied it in a bow... just for good measure. i added a loop onto the back, then i had the task of figuring out where this little baby should go. it ended up on the refrigerator as you can see. you know, as all elementary school crafts do : )

now just how to keep it from getting all dirty.. i have terrible images of spaghetti sauce splatter and red raspberry preserves attacking my pretty little white fur wreath...

i think she's pretty cute. : )

i will probably be back monday with part 3 of the phil and jessica saga. i know you are all on the edges of your seats just waiting to read the rest. trust me, it just keeps getting better : )

phil and me part 2

the summer of 06 was coming and phil and i had just started seeing each other. we went on tons of walks, coffee dates and i went to watch him play baseball the spring we met.

seriously hot, right? yep. needless to say this totally suckered me in. : ) i thought he was just oh-so-dreamy when he played baseball. he was so focused and intense and i mean, who doesn't love a guy in uniform? so i knew it would be bad when the summer came since i lived in michigan and he was from indiana. we weren't serious enough to be all long distance relationship-y, so it seemed it might just fizzle out.... until God did something so. cool. i had decided to work at lake ann baptist camp that summer (one of the best summers of my life by the way). they are always looking for male counselors and phil had interviewed for a position before we even started seeing each other. all that was left was to talk him into it. : ) i didn't really have to do much work, he was already strongly considering it. i like to think that me and my roomie (who also worked at that camp and got me involved) just gave him that tiny final little push to make him decide to go. but it was totally God who led us both there that summer.. i am not sure, but i think camp is where i did most of my "falling in love" with phil.. *sigh*

 

he likes me even when i have no make up on. : )

 

this is the day we decided we were probably headed for a relationship.



camp was unbelievably fun, but also the hardest thing i have ever done. the camp was so huge that most weeks we would be on totally different sides of it working on different age groups. there was also a rule about keeping your significant other a secret from the campers so they wouldn't get distracted by something like that.. my campers always figured it out since any time i might get a little glimpse of phil at camp i would smile for 3 hours afterward. we weren't even really supposed to talk during the week. we sent each other letters a lot. i have all of them still. then when the weekend came i was just like, giddy to spend time together.

one night at camp the campers had all gone and phil and i went on a long walk together. at the end of it he went to hug me goodnight.... well, i accidentally held on to him for too long.. about 2 minutes too long. i couldn't help it, i just didn't want to let him go i was just becoming so crazy about him. then i got embarrassed so i didn't want to let go and have to see his reaction to what i just did. luckily he wasn't upset and we spent the next hour talking about all the things we liked about each other. then he gave me another huge long hug goodnight. seriously, i am not exaggerating about this; when i went inside the cabin i had to hold onto the counter in the bathroom to keep myself from falling over. i have never ever gone literally 'weak in the knees' and until that point i thought it was just an expression. no. i am here to say it is not. i held onto that bathroom counter for a good couple minutes until i could stand to brush my teeth and wash my face. i didn't know it yet, but i was falling in love. : )

during this time we would hug a lot, but we never kissed and phil never even held my hand during that time. that stuff was important to us and we thought there's no reason to add the physical part of the relationship before we were serious and committed to each other. we basically flirted with each other all summer and i think any time i got a glimpse of him my heart would skip about 5 times. not just one beat like they say, but a whole bunch of beats.

this is when i found out he loved sharing the Gospel, working with children, teaching about the Bible, was goofy on the outside but completely serious about spiritual growth and his relationship with the Lord.

when my birthday came (july 28th if you want to send presents!) he gave me a thoughtful/funny/wonderful gift. it was a "counselor survivor kit" and had things like duct tape (for campers), a hotwheels car (to get away from them if i needed), purple sunglasses, a cd and a bunch of other fun and silly things. did i mention it was in a princess castle-shaped bag? yah. totally up my alley. that's when i saw how thoughtful and sweet he is. then 2 days later...

he put me in a row boat and rowed me to the other side of the lake where he had a blanket set up and roses around it. mixed in for good measure were some snickers candy bars (he knows the way to my heart is chocolate) and that's where he told me how much he liked me and asked me to be his girlfriend. july 30, 2006 i was officially his girlfriend!!!

phil and me part 1

i know i promised i would get back to projects soon, and i will! trust me. : ) i just felt kinda like my boys got their own post yesterday and i figured i should write about my most important and favorite boy. : ) there are people who read this who don't really know much about me or my history, so this post is so y'all can know more about me and my husband, phil.

**warning: this post could get extremely long. i'm talking novel here people. it's hard to condense when it comes to this so if you are prepared, then read ahead. : )

this is what he looked like after i tried to put a tiny litle pony tail in his hair... hahahaha it makes me laugh every. time. and this was taken 5 years ago. : )

phil and i met a couple times before we actually "met". he was good friends with my roomie (who i love to pieces and miss so much!) in college. it was my sophomore year, his junior year. i was dating somebody else at the beginning of that year when we met, so i paid little attention to him. there were about 7 of us all crammed into a car going to church and he was the last one to get picked up, so naturally i was mad at him for making us cram even more. geesh. that Sunday was the harvest offering at church and you were supposed to take your offering to the baskets in the front of the church. now, i was stuck in the middle of the row and nobody else got up to give an offering. i wasn't going to be the only one! and what, push everyone out of the way too so i could give it? no way, i decided i would do it after church so nobody i came with would know. i wasn't ashamed of offering, but i just preferred to do it quietly because to me it was about something between me and God. i didn't want people thinking i was doing it so they would think i was some sort of super christian or something. pretty silly, huh?

so i snuck away while people were chatting after church to give my offering. the baskets were gone so i decided i would just give my offering to the pastor... but who is talking to the pastor? phil. yep. and talkingggg and talkinggggggg and talkingggggggggggg. so finally he walked away and i was able to give my offering, but not without people noticing i had been gone for awhile. so naturally, this made me dislike this crazy kid who smushed me in the car and wrecked my plans of keeping my offering a secret. what a loser..... ; )

i didn't really interact with him again until the next semester. it turned out we had physiological psychology together (i majored in psych, he double majored in psych and bible). the first day this kid was late to class. can you believe that? if you knew him, you would believe it. he has so much on his plate (especially at that time) that sometimes he forgets to factor in time. so this day the professor called out "phil buben" and a guy in the class said "booooobs!!" which was apparently what people called him for fun.. i guess... so naturally this brings a look from the professor, which brings the guy to explain about boobs being short for buben. this is when i said to myself, "oh man. that is an unfortunate name.." and i can just IMAGINE the laughter in heaven at this statement. : ) so of course when phil walks in late and tells the professor his name, the professor says to him, "oh yah, phil buben... we were talking about your boobs." hahahahahaha this story makes me laugh TO. THIS. DAY. and i told all my friends about it. it was hilarious. if i had only known....

a couple months later phil noticed me sitting by myself one night. he came over to talk to me and ended up making fun of me for not having a driver's license (i got my license really late in life, ok?). so now he has smushed me in a car, ruined my offering plans, has a crazy last name, and made fun of me. it is not looking good for this guy. not at all. i thought, "who does this guy think he is?" and something to the effect of i could never be interested in a guy like him. once again, cue laughter in heaven.

then something happened. something great. we both came back from our spring break trips early. i went to florida with my friends, he had gone to florida with the baseball team (yah, he played baseball. i know, so attractive, right?) so i saw him at chucks (what we callled our little cafeteria at school) sitting at a table full of baseball players. now, this is not my most mature moment in life, but i knew my ex-boyfriend was probably in there at the time and i wanted him to be jealous..... i know. not my finest hour. but it's what gave me the courage to walk up to a table full of baseball team and talk to phil. if you know me, i would never do anything like that under normal circumstances and looking back, i still can't believe i did it.

well a couple days later, i received an e-mail from phil asking if i wanted to study together for our midterm coming up. of course i thought, "oh gee. is this some sort of angle here?" but my roomie who knew him assured me that if he asked to study that's what he wanted. a study partner. that's all. so i agreed. i told myself this was nothing, just help for my exam....

then i showed up to study.....

he was wearing his baseball practice stuff (i know right?) and we were studying pretty hard, but i had never had so much fun doing it. we had a ball studying, which i didn't know was even possible. and i thought he was just oh-so-cute in his baseball stuff. and when he showed up to class in his uniform? forget. about. it.

we started e-mailing back and forth, then he asked me to get coffee. we just talked and laughed for hours. we way outlasted the coffees : ) then on the way back to campus (we walked) he walked on the side closer to the street to keep me safe. that is when i said, yep. i like him.

then came our second date. we went ice skating and got ice cream. i told him everything about my past and he listened and didn't run screaming in the opposite direction. we had so many fun little dates like these. he helped me raise my grades in my really hard classes. i helped him get out of the library on weekend nights. then summer came and we were both leaving.

otis the cat.

i will get back to projects really soon i prommmmise... this is a busy week. who am i kidding? it's a busy month. even so, i have been doing projects and i have some on the way, so juuuuust wait for it and they will get here : ) today i am blogging about something else. the other other man in my life. i wrote about my cat hobbes and how he is a crazy little creature. he fills our lives with lots of laughter and funny moments. well, this is otis. the other cat.

isn't he pretty? if hobbes is the silly little whiny baby, otis is the street-wise cool old grandpa. he is kind of skittish, but once he gets comfortable he's a sweet little guy. this is what happened after i took this picture

he wanted me to pet his belly : )

i have decided i really love cats. i am an animal person for sure. i love animals in all shapes and sizes. i grew up with dogs (so i totally love them) because my step dad is a cat-hater. he will tell everyone he is a dog man and that's it. i can understand when people feel that way. they feel like cats are disloyal, unaffectionate and sometimes just downright nasty. people that never have them believe all they do is hide, then come out once in awhile to eat and contribute nothing to the family. i believe there are cats like that, but i haven't met many. my cats are super affectionate, they always want to be with us or around us. they are sweet and soooo easy to take care of. i love the freedom of just leaving food and water out for a short weekend away. i love that we can be gone all day and we don't have to feel guilty because we need to "let the dogs out". i love that they don't bark. with cats, there is no chewing on things that don't belong to them. there is almost no "potty training". i don't have to spend hours teaching them what they can't do. i just pick up a bottle of water and give them a little squirt so they know they've done wrong. they are so. easy.

i completely love dogs and will probably have another dog some day, but right now my cats are plenty for us.

hobbes in our old apartment... obviously in the dishwasher...

hobbes wearing shorts... why? i don't know. we're weird around here.

making a home under the christmas tree.

hobbes is always hiding in the bookshelf. : )

taking a nap together. awwww. (our old apartment.)

silly cat. he loves to be on this railing outside. i don't like it, it makes me nervous.

i mean, come on. how cute are these faces? i just love all my guys. : )