Happy Halloweeeeeenie!!

Hope everyone has had a great Halloween!! Did you see the Google webpage today? So cool!

I would post cute pictures of our carved pumpkins....buuuut we didn't carve any.

And I would post pictures of our fun costumes....buuuuut we didn't wear any.

AND I would post some pictures of our cute trick or treaters....buuuuuut we didn't have ANY!

What a pitiful and boring Halloween this year was :)  Guess this just means more Snickers & Milky Ways for me :)

Little more right now, a little less what's next

With all of the changes happening in the Hibbard household right now, I've decided to keep us sane we need to focus on the present and less about the future.  There's a country song by Eric Church called "Smoke a little Smoke" and although that's not really how we plan on living our lives (you know, drinking a little drink and smoking a little smoke), there's a lyric in the song that goes like this:

"Need a little more right now, and a little less what's next"

I think by focusing on the day to day, it will help Ryan and I focus on the now rather than the later.   November is just around the corner and life is going to only get more stressful from here.  My sweet, frugile, planning husband wants everything done like, right now, and I keep urging him to do things one at a time.  If he or I get too stressed, I just take Zoe, throw her in our faces and then everything is suddenly all better :)

On another note, I've been told by several women (not to name names ;)  ) that I need to come up with a "10 Reasons Why I'm Still Young" list.  So, here it is:

1.  No kids yet.
2.  I have lots of room to grow in my career.
3.  I still get ID'ed when drinking.
4.  I haven't had my 10 Year High School Reunion....yet.
5.  I can still wear clothes from the Junior clothing sections.
6.  No wrinkles, no gray hair, and I can still remember everything I did the day before.
7. I still have a lot of friends dating and getting married.
8.  We don't have a mortgage payment.
9.  I won't go to the gym for months, and one day I'll suddenly feel like going and can run 2 miles instantly.  Something tells me I won't be able to do that for much longer.
10.  I don't have saggy boobs yet.


Hope you guys like that list better than the Reasons Why I'm Old list :)

Reasons I'm Getting Old....

I don't know why, but I've found little things in life lately that have changed from when I was a kid, and this makes me feel like I'm not a young buck anymore.  I know, I know - being 27 is not old to a lot of people.  Let me explain why I've been feeling a little older lately:

1. My 10 Year high school reunion is next year.
2. When I was in high school, if we wanted to communicate with someone while in class, we hand wrote notes.  Not only did we write notes, we spelled our words in it's entirety.  None of this "lol, rofl, u, c, 2 stuff". Now, everyone in high school has phones and text message.
3.  As a kid, I would play outside for entertainment.  When stuck inside, I had this awesomeness to keep me company:

Now kids have this:

4.  The highlight of my weekends were TGIF shows:  Full House, Family Matters, and Step by Step.  Now, I have NO clue what kids and teenagers watch, but they can't be half as good as the TGIF line up.

5. I actually care about the weather.  I used to go outside in a t shirt even if it was 40 degrees because I really just didn't care.  I'd constantly have my mother yelling at me "Put a jacket on or you're going to catch a cold!".  I now tell her all the time you actually can't "catch a cold" just by being in cold weather, but her words must of finally gotten to me.  It was 70 outside today and I found myself putting on a fleece.  Whattttt??

6.  I can't eat whatever I want, whenever I want anymore.  This makes me sad.

7. When I come home from a long day of standing on my feet, I go straight to the foot massager.  In high school, I could go to school for 7 hours, play 3 hours of soccer, come home to dinner and homework, and still find energy to want to do something that night.  

8. PJ's are on by 8pm most nights and a fun Saturday night to me is a nice dinner and a snuggly movie with Ryan and Zoe.  5 years ago my night wasn't fun unless there was dancing, drinking, and/or boys involved.  

9. I like to eat vegetables.  Not only this, but I voluntarily take a daily vitamin.

10.  I'm spending my spare time creating a Top 10 as to why I feel old = I'm an old fart.

Marriage

I came across this story today and even though I don't know if it's true or not and it's a bit extreme, I thought it was an interesting one to share:



“When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly. She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company. She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane. When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day. She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me. On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy. I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart. Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away. At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push through with the divorce.— At least, in the eyes of our son—- I’m a loving husband….

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves.

So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!"

Girls' Weekend Golden, CO 2011

For those of you that didn't know, about 10 years ago my mother in law and her sisters, along with their mother, decided to get together once a year to have time alone with just themselves.  They travel to a new place every year...only if it's for a weekend!

Ryan's grandma passed away last year after a good, long fight with breast cancer.  My mother in law and sisters decided that Barbara (Ryan's grandma) would of been happy to have the daughter in laws start to come on the girls trip to carry on the tradition.

This is where Alysa, Anna and I come into play.  Kim, LeeAnn & Deborah invited us along this year to their trip to Golden, CO.  We had so much fun and it was so nice to have uninterrupted time with a family I'm still getting to know.

Our trip started on Friday where I met Alysa and Kim at the Denver airport.  We got into our rental car and drove to the cute and quant town of Golden, CO.  Deborah, LeeAnn and Anna drove to Golden, so we beat them to the rental house.  Anna is pregnant, so we clearly blamed their 8hourturned10hour drive on her need to pee every hour or so :)

Our house was nice and big (even though it spelt of moth balls and the study area reminded me of a scene from the game Clue) and we even had our own bedrooms! No Ryan and Zoe meant I sprawled out on my big comfy queen size bed and slept like a baby.

Friday night was spent hanging around the dinner table waiting for our very, very spicy taco soup to become more on the "A Team"s level and just talking about life.  On Saturday we went down to an outdoor shopping area where we got to see some local shops and whine about cold and rainy (and snowy!) weather.  It cleared up in the afternoon and we had a nice lunch at a French cafe and finished off the lunch with a locally famous ice cream shop called Bonnie Brae Ice Cream where we stuffed our faces with fattening and incredibly satisfying deliciousness.

We had dinner in Golden that night and woke up somewhat early the next day to prepare for our Banjo Billy bus tour!  Kim, Deborah and I took a hike up the hill behind the house in the morning which turned out beautiful.  We then got to explore more of Downtown Golden where allof us purchased absolutely nothing with the exception of Alysa buying gifts for her girls and Deborah buying gifts for us.  We headed into downtown Denver that night for the Banjo Billy ghost bus tour and a nice dinner at Ted's.

I'll stop boring you with words and show some pictures of our trip:

Snowmageddan!  Can you see it??

myself, Kim & Alysa before some shopping!

beautiful skyline while driving to Golden

Howdy!  This picture brought to you only because Alysa blocked all incoming traffic.

myself, Alysa, Anna, Kim, Deborah & LeeAnn at Red Rocks Amphitheater

Lower part of Red Rocks!  I imagined Dave Matthews singing to me here.  Who woulda thunk this would be such an exercise kingdom for Denveridians?

Banjo Billy waiting for our arrival!! 

Pretty restaurant area in downtown Denver

I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to, but Deborah & some others got some really good ones that I just don't have saved yet on my computer.  Ladies, thank you for a wonderful weekend away and I can't wait until we do it again next year!! I had so much fun!

In other news, Ryan and I have LOTS of changes coming into our lives in the next couple of months.  We're stressed/anxious/nervous/scared/excited/worried.  I'm not going to announce details just yet, but I'll leave with a prayer that has been helping me get through these last couple of weeks:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

Slacker Status

I've been meaning to update my blog and post about our girl's trip in Denver last weekend, but I just haven't gotten around to it!

The thing is, I took 1 day of PTO and scheduled my day's off of the week together, so coming back from Denver I realized I scheduled myself to work 7 days in a row.

Stupid.

SO, I will be posting soon with lots of pictures and details about our girls trip in the beautiful state of Colorado!  Stay tuned :)

SOON TO BE MRS. SAPP

If you could choose between the last name of Borton or Sapp, what would you choose??

Well, my very good friend Paige, doesn't have a choice!  Why??? She just got ENGAGED, and will be Mrs. Sapp by next year!!!!!!! (really she does have a choice but for my blog's post we'll pretend she doesn't)

CONGRATULATIONS PAYJEEEEEEEE!!

I met Paige my freshman year in college and we become closer over the years.  We lived together the last 2 years in college and lived together 2 years after college.  I spent many a night hating her for studying just an hour or two to Ace a test while I stayed up all night to scrape by with a B. We share a love for dogs, dip, and our boys.

I will never forget the first night she met her now soon to be husband, Jason.  Ashley, Paige, and I lived together in the Fan in Richmond and Paige decided to go out with her friends Susanne for the night even though she really didn't feel like it.

Ash and I hadn't gone to bed yet before she came home, and I can very distinctly remember Paige running in the door YELLING (if anyone knows Paige, yelling is not an uncommon thing) "I met the CUTEST boy Jason tonight and I HAVE to go out with him again.  He is sooooo good looking".

From there, they started hanging out regularly and she found out Jason is more than just good looks.  For Valentine's Day that year, Jason showed up at the door with not just flowers for Paige, but a rose for Ashley and I.   At that point, Ash and I both said HE'S A KEEPER!

3 years later (I think?), Jason and Paige have made the commitment to be together forever!  Jason proposed to Paige on Sunday at the Clock Tower in Richmond (Paige has loved that place for 20384038 years) and got down on one knee with one beautiful ring!!

See for yourself!

It's a blurry picture, but beautiful nonetheless!  That's 1.2 carats staring back at you!

Paige and Jason will be getting married in July or August or next year and I can't wait to be a part of their big day!  Kristin's wedding will be following shortly after (September 12) and couldn't be happier for her and Mikey.

I loooooove weddings, and I love even more when it's with my closest friends!!

CONGRATULATIONS PAIGE BORTON & JASON SAPP!! Love you both <3

Craft-astic

I don't know why it has taken me so long to discover this website, but now that I've found it, I can't stop.

There are so. many. cute. ideas.

What's the website, you ask?

www.pinterest.com

I'm pretty sure most women knew about this site a year ago.  I heard about it, but never took the time to go to the site and explore.

It's amazing!

There are SO many cute ideas on this website it's insane.

The idea of the website is to "pin" pictures and/or things that interest you onto your boards.  Boards range from recipes to styling to interior design and a whole lot more.

Because I've been on the website a decent amount this week, I wanted to do a little crafting and let my domestic side shine.

First of all, I went to Hobby Lobby & Michael's and got enough stuff to make a fall wreath.  With my 40% coupons and sales, I spent only $30 to make it!

It only took about an hour to put together, and I'm pretty happy with the final result:

Also, I had a strong urge to make Halloween cupcakes, so I grabbed some quick funfetti from Target and whipped some up.  Hobby Lobby had the cutest bone sprinkles which taste pretty freaking good!

We'll end up bringing all of the cupcakes to work because we always eat one or two and then they waste away until I throw them up.  I think our co-workers will enjoy them, too :)

Orange and black cupcake liners!  Halloween funfetti cake!  Orange funfetti icing! Bone sprinkles! Oh my! 

While I'm on the subject of Halloween, I have to say I don't like the person who invented candy corn.  Actually, I love them, but my body doesn't.  I can't stop eating them!!! Why does it have to taste so delicious??? Can't we have holidays without delicious foods being associated with them?