What a friend!

Ashley Puga, for those of you who know her, wow! You are blessed! I am so thankful for her special friendship. I spent last Saturday with her, treating her to a birthday surprise. She was told to dress up a little and be ready by 6:00. Much to her surprise, I showed up with a cute little poem that clued her in to what the night had ahead. We started out at Brick 29, an amazing restaurant. We had calamari, a salmon entree, and bread pudding and creme broule for dessert. Amazing! Then we headed to her house to snap a quick picture before we headed to Walmart. Yes, Walmart for her birthday. It was so great, we each had $12 to create a frame for the picture of us. We both got creative! Then we headed to see "New In Town" which we both enjoyed. Anyway, I am so grateful for Ashley. She listens, and pokes and prods, and hugs, and laughs, and all the things girls need a friend to do. I am so excited for this next year for her and all it holds. I hope you all have a friend like Ashley.

Studio D

I am so happy with my new hair cut and color. I have been ranting and raving about Megan at Studio D. She does such a great job and makes the whole experience so fun. Studio D is an amazing salon, it is in Nampa. If you live in Boise, Studio D is worth the Drive. I have never enjoyed the "salon experience" before, but now I am hooked! If you want to check out Megan's skills at Studio D let me know and I'll give you a referral card for $10 off! You will love Megan and your new look!

P.S. --My page background and our bedroom look a lot alike!

Sew...a needle pulling thread

While my mom is an amazing seamstress, I have come to the realization that I don' t have a clue how to sew. Sure, she tried to teach me, but I wanted my stuff to look good so I would usually have to do it all. Whoops! A couple of weeks ago I tried to hem a curtain for the office at work. What a chore, getting the machine threaded was a headache in itself, not to mention my thread kept breaking once I was sewing. After some frustration and seven calls to my mom, the curtain is hemmed. It was not an enjoyable!

I have decided that my little girls will not leave for college without knowing how to sew. I felt so incompetant, so this is what I am doing. I am going to teach myself to sew. I picked a bag pattern and some great fabric, so slowly but surely I am working on the bag. I've already made some mistakes, but that is the fun of it. I am hoping to find someone that lives near me that can teach me more after I get done with the bag. When I finish the bag, I'll post a picture...it could be a while!

Special times!

Yikes...that last blog entry was a marathon. Sorry about that! Tonight, after a long day at work, I am very thankful for friends and my husband. During lunch I texted Jessie to see if I could hang out tonight because after a day like today, I didn't want to be alone all evening while Tyler is working. Not only did she said I could come hang out, but she made me dinner and her husband bought us wine to help my evening finish well. It was so nice to have a place to go where I am surrounded by good friends. I have really been blessed by Jessie, she is my running partner and we have so much fun being honest and sharing our confrontational viewpoints. Haha!

I am also thankful that my boss is letting me go in late tomorrow for the sole perpous of sleeping in with my husband. Tyler has been working nights and he is working nights this weekend so the extra hour in the morning together will be amazing! Yay!

Christmas 2008

We had a great Christmas...four times! If you make it to the end of this blog you'll hear how my heart handled Christmas this year.

On Tuesday, the 23rd, we drove to Dallas, Oregon to spend Christmas with my mom and Nels. Tuesday was a rough day of travel, due to the winter storm, and we ended up staying in Gresham for the night to catch the BSU game and relax. The skid plate on the 4runner also was bent so we couldn't go any further until we removed it. We had fun at the hotel, walking to Burger King, watching the game (although BSU lost...grr), and just relaxing. We woke up Wednesday morning and Tyler went to the 4runner and laid in the snow to take the skid plate off...what a guy! We spent a few days with my mom and Nels were we did Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Nels' kids and Christmas with my mom's side of the family. It was really a lot of fun! My new brothers and sisters are so nice and my new nieces and nephews are adorable and very funny! Time with my mom's side of the family was fun, there are new babies and they are too cute. Everyone is doing pretty well, and we all enjoyed our time together.

On Saturday Tyler and I headed up to Lake Oswego to spend some time with my dad and his wife, Susan. Yes, you read correctly, I spent time at my dad's house. WHAT A BLESSING! Being about to spend time with both my mom and dad was wonderful. It is the first time I have been able to do this and I look forward to doing it from now on. I am so thankful to have my dad in my life again, every girl needs a dad! They took us to a really nice dinner, it was a very nice time!

On Tuesday, December 30th, Tyler and I did our Christmas together. It was so fun! He did an amazing job with my presents, especially my stocking. I would have picked everything that he put in there...it was such a treat! It was so nice to spend time just the two of us. I am so thankful for Tyler and the wisdom and levelheadedness he brings to some of the chaotic moments in my life.

On New Year's Eve and New Years we did Christmas Eve and Christmas with Tyler's family. His brother flew out from South Carolina and we spent most nights that week staying up late watching movies, playing games, etc. I lost at Monopoly and Yahtzee...which doesn't happen very often! We had a wonderful Christmas dinner and spent over an hour opening gifts and stockings. We went sledding up on the mountain with his family also, which is always a good time.

If you are still reading, here is the part I have really been looking forward to sharing with you. The holidays are always a weird time of year for me. While I look forward to going home and seeing family it isn't the feeling of utter joy. In the past I have had a lot of painful holidays and there is still uncertainty weather "this year" will be a dramatic year or not. Luckily, this year was not. That was such a blessing. At the same time, it was fairly emotional for me. I really noticed that I long for stability during the holidays. I have had so many holidays without traditions or with some traditions ending. I shared with Tyler my longing for stability, and he understood. He was so helpful in coming up with ways we can create traditions and give our children the joy of the holidays that Tyler grew up with and still enjoys with his family. I am not saying that my family isn't a good time, but I am noticing the effects of not having both parents, together, to share the holidays with. I am really looking forward to creating traditions with Tyler. I am amazed at his understanding for my feelings. I have really been affected by my family's past more now than I thought I would. I can't imagine working through these feelings without the Lord, and I am so thankful that He has given me a Godly man to be here with me.

I hope that you all enjoyed your holidays and that you created traditions of your own. I have been thinking of all of you lately and I hope you are blessed in 2009. I am so excited for 2009...it is the first year that I will have my truly joyful spirit year-round. Yay!

The roses from Tyler..."just because"















Well, unfortunately, our pictures from 2008 aren't all that great. They are quick snap-shots, one of us looks bad, etc. So we set out to the lake to get a good picture for our Christmas card. We didn't really end up with any spectacular, we used the picture at the top of the page. It is a cute winter picture though. Here are some of the shots we took just for fun while we were out at the lake.

My "strike a pose" husband

Josey...all smiles in the snow!

I haven't blogged for quite a while. I have some new pics but haven't put them on my computer yet. They are of Tyler and I on a date night...it was spur of the moment but the best part was Tyler bought me yellow roses before we even had the date planned. They were awesome!

Life has been good, busy, but good. I changed offices at work today...and I'll finish tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 7:30am! Yuck! I tried to go to a play tonight with some friends but it was sold out. The cool thing is that my running partner wrote and directed the play, I am so pumped for her that it was such a sucess. We are going to try and catch it again tomorrow at 2:00.

December is such a great month. Last weekend we had my work Christmas party, it was a lot of fun! Afterward, Tyler and I watched my bosses daughter, Katelyn. We love her to death, serioulsy, I might steal her! It is so fun to watch Tyler with her, but not fun enough to have one of our own. :-) We are happy being "just the two of us" right now, so we'll continue watching other people's babies. The best part was Katelyn sleeping next to me in bed, so sweet!

We are going to Oregon for Christmas, I have been asking my mom if we can bake a bunch of stuff for months. I am pretty excited to try some new things, maybe some pies and other goodies. Before I can get too excited I have to finish finals. I have three left, I'll be done on Dec. 18th. Next semester should be much more enjoyable...yay!

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, I'll try to post some pictures soon!

Mr. and Mrs. Nels Olsson

My mom is a married woman. She married Nels on September 27, 2008 in one of his fields. It was a beautiful day, and what I am most taken back by are the pictures. Usually I have to remind my mom to "smile real" so that we get a good picture. There was no need to remind her to "smile real" on her wedding day, these smiles are for real!

The Lord is blessing their marriage and they are learning a lot about each other. Congrats to Nels and mom! I love them both!

Friends

Today I caught up with a friend from high school. Her name is Alyssa and she is a doll! It was so fun to catch up with her on the phone, although I need to get her out to Idaho soon! I am thankful that we can see eachother/talk on the phone only 2-3 times a year and I know that she loves me and that I treasure her friendship. Although I am thankful for that fact, it also makes me wish I could see her more. So, here I am, declaring to the world, that I am going to call Alyssa more. She is such a great friend and deserves more than 2 or 3 phone calls a year. I have a lot of friends that I need to call more. It is so fun to see how we are all changing and enjoying life.

I guess the message of this blog is, don't sit around and wait for someone to call you. Call them, it'll make their day and in turn, yours will be better as well. We are all busy, we all value our time, so let someone else into your day. You will find true joy by putting others before yourself.

Glass Half Full

Well, I am proud to say that I have revamped my outlook on life. I wouldn't say I had a negative outlook, I would say I was a realist. I am a list maker, I go through steps to accomplish a goal and if something doesn't seem feasible I move on. Tyler on the other hand is an optimist. He dreams big!

For the first year of our marriage I can remember Tyler saying that I was "downing" all of his ideas and I had no idea what he meant. I didn't think I was downing them, I just didn't understand how he was going to accomplish his goals. To me it seemed like a waste of time to dream of things that were out of reach.

Well, this summer, while attending a huge conference for work, my outlooked changed. There was a speaker who spoke to women about our outlook on life. She opened my eyes to my negative attitude. So, I took to heart everything she said and went home and tried it out. In the first weekend that I was home Tyler told me that he loved the new Macey. I was laughing more, shaking things off that really didn't matter, and dreaming big. While Tyler noticed the change and people at work noticed the change, no one else really commented. Then, in October, peopel started to notice. My father in law commented that I seemed so much happier. AND I AM!

I have really re-written my outlook and it has benefitted nearly every area of my life. It is so cool to see Tyler now too. I think before, when I was being a "realist," I was crushing his optimistic spirit. Now we both spend most of our time together laughing. Don't get me wrong, I still have my moments (or hours) when I am not so pleasant, but they are fewer and farther between than before!

Anyway, if you can relate to this at all, I would encourage you to change your outlook! We only live once, and why look back and think "I should've laughed more." JUST LAUGH!