painting!

So, Michael and I decided that it was time to do something with our "office", aka the dumping ground for a lot of stuff in a room that already had two desks, a few other small cupboards, a bookshelf , two filing cabinets, and a desktop and a laptop computer in it. Seeing as how school was finished, we figured that the two desk thing was no longer necessary. I talked Michael into letting me paint the room, since we'd essentially be taking everything out anyway, and the lovely tan color on absolutely every wall in our house was driving me a little crazy (nice color, but it gets old, I lasted two whole years). I have never really painted before, except for the little bit I did in the bathroom downstairs and one wall in the basement when we moved here, and I had help for that, and since it was new, it didn't involve much taping off. So, I gave it a whirl! Michael ended up helping me with the actual painting that evening, but I did all the prep work during the day while he was at work.

Doing the prep work, a lot of taping, baseboards, window, door, closet, ceiling. Overall I did a pretty good job, it only bled through in a few places, the worst of which ended up covered by furniture!

The supplies. In total, it cost us $60 to paint this whole room, I felt pretty good about that.

Pulling off the tape...

Sorry for the blurry photo, but here's the end result. Pretty awesome color eh? We scored an old roll top desk from Kijiji and have put one of our black couches in this room. Hopefully we'll have it all finished soon and then I can post some pictures of the whole room!

socks for Bethany!

ok, so way way back when (like before I moved to Winnipeg) I promised I would knit socks for my dear cousin Bethany. I never finished the ones I started for her and you know how much a kid grows in over two years? Well, enough that the said half finished socks were not going to fit, that's for sure.

So, thanks to my Aunt's sneaky round about way of asking Bethany about her favorite color for a pair of socks and managing to get some measurements for me, so I could actually make them, I made different ones (the other ones ended up going to my friend Colleen who has incredibly small feet, I'll have to get a photo of her modelling them, she told me they fit her well).

These are the socks that Colleen got:

Here's some picks of Bethany's socks:

Proud owner of said socks!

hangin' out with Cate (parenting looks good on us, eh?)

something to ponder....

Hello everyone. Some of you know, some of you don't, but Michael and I were participating in a program this past "school year" called Living Waters. We learned a lot about ourselves and grew a lot in our relationship with God and each other. I haven't talked about it before because it's a little hard to put into words. Then I got this devo from our pastor, and it sums up what I learned quite nicely...here it is: Proverbs 15:26, Those of the pure are pleasing to him. Peace with God is certainly something we should all strive for. The thought of meeting a just and holy God, who our sin offends and who is all holy, is daunting. Certainly peace with God is something that is worth spending the effort to seek, aspire unto, and secure while we have breath. I would like to first glance at some of the effects of having peace with God and then quickly look into what often hinders us having that peace. The first effect of having peace with God is joy. Joy and peace are often used together in God's Holy Word. They are friends. Who doesn't want joy? Who doesn't want to be happy? Sadly, we are all too prone to look for joy in all the wrong places. True joy is lasting joy. But even temporal joys can be real joys when they are under the umbrella of God's revealed truth. Temporal joys can be true joys and let us not forsake them. However, all too often we seek happiness and fulfillment in places that fall beyond or outside the lines of God's care and provision. This kind of joy is fleeting at best. It is joy that is sanctified in reconciliation with God through the blood of Jesus Christ that is of a lasting nature. Peace with God also brings us holiness. We can't have peace with a holy God if we are not holy or striving unto holiness. Having peace with God will change our desires so that we don't wish to sin, and are careful to seek not to lose that peace by falling into sin. We are guarded and fortified against sin when we live at peace with God. As we grow in the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-26), we seek to keep ourselves in holiness by following the commandments and will of God. "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires," Galatians 5:24. There are other effects in having peace with God, but let us quickly look at the sad reality that some of us struggle with having and knowing this peace. Satan comes against us with all his weapons. His desire is to steal away our peace or unsettle what peace we do have. Let us remember that there is no real break in the peace that the Christian has with God in Christ. We may not always feel that we have this peace, but a renewed heart in Christ is at peace with God whether it is felt or not. If we are living in habitual sin and have peace of conscience, our conscience is either seared or dead. It is when we lose our sense peace, because of sin, that we show ourselves to be children of God. A renewed heart in Christ will feel sorrow for sin. A renewed heart will strive to regain the peace that is robbed by sin. Lack of peace with God encumbers and impedes our ability to live up to our faith. Let us pursue gaining a full measure of this peace in our experience and conscience. The closer we live to the cross the deeper will be our peace. Gerry Michalski Lead Pastor www.soulsanctuary.ca

burger production night!

So, Michael has had this brilliant idea to premake a bunch of hamburger patties, so we have them at the ready whenever we feel like having hamburgers this summer. I thought it was a great idea, that it would come in handy when we neede a quick last minute meal. We were at an impass for a while, I didn't want to do it alone (I'm not a big fan of handling raw meat), and he didn't want to do it either, he wanted me to do it. Finally, we agreed to just do it together, and here's what it looked like:

This is Michael's method of making patties, one that I had never seen or thought of. I go through an elaborate process involving my mixer, muffin scoop, lots of wax paper and cookies sheets in order to avoid touching the raw meat. Essentially, Michael did all the work, while I washed dishes and gave him encouragement. He even mixed up the meat, adding some seasonings and not just the standard egg and bread crumbs.

Pretty nifty way to do it, eh? Our burgers almost look store bought because they are so perfectly round! Anyway, here's a clip of the man in action to end off with. We (this is the proverbial married "we") turned 8 pounds of ground bison into hamburgers that night, and they have tasted wonderful!

my man loves me...(more than he wants a lawn mower)

SO, guess what I did this weekend? lots of amazing stuff! Last Wednesday Michael told me that Angela & John wanted hang out at the Forks for the afternoon and then take us out for dinner on Saturday (funny because just 20 minutes before that I got an email from my friends Allison who cancelled our dinner plans for that same day). So, I said ok. Later on Angela called to tell me more. The more included staying at a hotel together that night (a nice fancy hotel). I didn't take to well to our nicely planned out life getting rearranged like this. We had fallen behind on some of the things around our house that needed attention, especially during spring time and Saturday was supposed to be a day to tackle some of this stuff. It turned into a big ugly fight with tears and the whole bit, even talk of calling it off. After a conversation with a very wise person in my life, I got a grip on what's really important (relationships, more than my to do list and sense of accomplishing things on that list), and told Michael to go ahead with the plans and not cancel it. In my head I have to say that I thought it was a little bit lame to go to such a fancy hotel with my sister-in-law and her husband, but I was determined to make the most of it, afterall we don't see them all that often. Then Michael warned me that I still didn't know everything that was happening, which made me a little nervous (I asked him if it involved a group of people jumping out at me, he said no). Saturday we got in the car, late, to go and meet John & Angela at the Forks. This is when Michael told me that John & Angela were not coming at all, that was all just a scam to get me to stop planning stuff for the weekend (the dinner plans got cancelled because Michael asked Allison to cancel them). We were going for lunch and then going shopping, I had $300 to spend on new career clothes. I also had a spa appointment at 4:30 and we were staying at the Fort Garry Hotel for the night, and eating their famous brunch in the morning. The spa was totally amazing. Michael had booked me in for a body scrub and a manicure. The body scrub was amazing, it felt so good and my skin felt even better afterward. We then dressed up and went for a fancy dinner to a local restaurant called Fude (the owner actually goes to our church), which was totally amazing and if you're in Winnipeg you must try it! We had the chile chocolate chicken and it was awesome. Their whole menu was full of combinations that I would never think of, but it sure tasted good. We spent the night in a feather bed! It was amazing, I've never slept in a feather bed before. It felt absolutely luxurious! We had softness all around us, there was like 7 pillows in the bed, the down duvet and the feather mattress underneath us. Glorious! Michael kept laughing at how strange it looked, me in the bed, but the covers were totally smooth still, like it was just my head in the bed without a body. It slept very well (although rolling over proved to be a bit of a challenge!) The next morning we had brunch. Oh. My. Goodness. I'm not a huge fan of buffet foods, it's not usually the greatest quality, nor as they particularly sanitary. But this was totally different and very well done. Even my eggs bennedict tasted totally fresh! Freshly squeezed orange juice (I kept thinking about how many oranges it would take to make all that juice, like a truckload probably). There was the table with your standard breakfast items, eggs in various forms, bacon, hashbrowns etc. Then there was a table with lunchy stuff, pickles and pates, cold cuts and so on. Then there was the bread table (my favourite!) A carving station with ham & roast beef. An amazing disply of fruit. And to finish, a dessert table. It was totally insane. We ate as much as we could and didn't even come close to tasting everything. (I managed to leave without feeling like a stuffed toy though). So that was our weekend, totally awesome. Michael paid for all this out of his hard earned money (made driving truck on weekends), which was supposed to buy him a lawnmower. What an amazingly sweet guy, eh?

road trip!

Well, Michael had the chance to take care of his drivers itch in April. He was flown to London, ON to pick up a truck and drive it back to Winnipeg because it had been sold. He did this two weekends in April.

Michael also got to stop in and visit his cousin Barry and his kids.

I'm done!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone! Ok, so I just got back from writing my last exam ever! (actually I took a little detour on the way home). I figured that since I'm no longer a student of the U of M, I didn't want to carry a student agenda anymore (besides it only goes till August and I'd have to get something then anyway), so I stopped at Staples on my way home from school (probably one of my favorite stores) to pick out a new day timer. I'm such a geek. I absolutely love looking at all the cool stuff at Staples, I could spend a lot of time there. Anyway, found one that I liked, now I just need to set it up and transfer stuff out of the old one. Michael is away this weekend, he flew to ON so that he could drive a truck back to Winnipeg. It's really great that he can still jump in a truck, to take care of his itch, and to earn us some fun money (most of which is going to go into landscaping and other house projects this summer). So I'm planning on chilling out quite a bit. Tonight I'm going out with two long time girl friends that I met my first year of university to celebrate. Tomorrow I'm planning on knitting a lot. I finished one sock of a pair that I'm working on, that have a deadline of May 5, so I'm hoping to finish or nearly finish the second one this weekend. They are absolutely gorgeous! I wish I could keep them, but I think there might just be enough extra yarn for me to make myself some ankle socks! Yay!

window into our conversation...

Ok, so I borrowed this idea from Debbie, she does this on her blog (and I always find them priceless), and today's conversation struck me as a good one to record. Here it goes: Esther: I am feeling like I could use some "I am a schmuck flowers" right now (said quietly, in a slightly pouty tone). Background Info: a couple of weeks ago Michael blew it by coming home from work really late when we were having dinner guests and catching a show afterward. He arrived with a bunch of tulips to let me know that he was a schmuck. I was totally taken aback, because he's never given me flowers for when he's been a schmuck before. Michael: Yeah, I know. I thought about getting some, but then I would have been later, and that would've made me even more of a schmuck. Esther: Yeah. The thing is, as much as it was nice to get "I'm a schmuck flowers" because it was something tangible that indicated that you really got it, that something you did affected me, it wasn't exactly nice to look at the flowers everyday for two weeks and be reminded that I got them because you were a schmuck. I think I'd rather have something besides flowers. Michael: Like chocolate? Esther: Yeah, I think chocolate would do the trick. Michael: That way, you can eat the chocolate, feel all warm and fuzzy and forget that I'm a schmuck! And when I want to say "I love you" then I should bring home flowers, so you can see them everyday for a week and be reminded that I love you. Esther: Yup, I think that sounds just about perfect. Michael: We should write a book about this, and you can write about exactly what kind of chocolate to give for different "I'm a schmuck" situations. Esther: Yeah, somehow I think I'd be writing the whole thing!

home stretch!

ok, so this is the last week of classes. then i have several projects and final assignments to hand for the two weeks following that. then, last but not least, exams. the only two i have are on the same day, the 26th, which by the way is like the second last day of the exam period. sigh. it's hard to imagine that this phase of life will soon be over. we've finally adjusted to it, i'd say that since January we've finally figured things out and have a workable routine way of doing life, that's working for us. it feels good, and now it's all going to dissolve. we will have to start figuring stuff out all over again, develop a new 'normal'. i know that change is good and all that, but part of me feels a little apprehensive about it. i mean we have worked incredibly hard to get to where we are at, the first year in winnipeg was really tough going. i have to keep reminding myself that not nearly as many things are changing at once this time. it's just one thing, i'm going from being a student to working. it won't be that bad right, it's not going to turn our life into shambles again, besides we now have new skills and abilities for coping with the change, right?