Best. Husband. Ever.

Where's the practicality, you ask?

The entire house was spotless, as well.

Two of a Kind

Hey, Laura here on Matt's login, simply because I'm too lazy to log out and back in again.

Anywho, this is a picture series I've taken that I've titled "Two of a Kind." Whenever I see my kittens posing the same way, I take a picture. Now, this is a common thing for photographers, but pardon the quality, as I took every single one of those pictures with my fancy pants 2.0 megapixel LG EnV2 phone. Lol.

Time to introduce my kitties!

This is Cloud. When we first got the kittens, she was so traumatized by everything that she hid under the couch for a week! Now, she has become the more cuddly of the two, such a lap kitty (whenever she winds down enough to cuddle...)If we have guests, she might hide for a little bit, but only for about 20 minutes, and then she gets too curious for her own good.
She seems to be the leader of the two, and I have no doubt because she is a whopping 10 or so ounces heavier than Cathryn (which is alot when you only weigh 3-4lbs!) I catch her grooming and taking care of Cathryn often.
Cloud is a very special kitty... Even though she might be the leader, that also means the leader of the mischevious type! She is ALWAYS getting into trouble! She pees on the carpet, scratches my cork board, and chews on the mini-blinds. She has also done a couple mad dashes to the bedroom (forbidden area) when she knows shes about to be punished because she can hide in there. I had a tub of pepperoni out once, looked away for no longer than 10 seconds and she managed to snatch one right out of the bucket without me noticing.
Cloud is techinically Matt's cat, he named her, and its quite obvious.... Matt prefers dogs, and lo and behold... She might as well be one! She's always begging for our food, chasing her tail for 20+ minutes at a time, and drinking out of the toilet whenever we leave the seat up, even if she has her own water. But we love her.


This is my baby, Cathryn, or Cat for short. I love cats and when I was little wanted my name to be "kitty." I thought it would be cool to name my kid Cathryn (cat for short) but there are two things that made me name my kitten the name I love instead... 1: everyone who has the name Catherine/Kathryn hates it. 2: I do not have the heart to knowingly name my child "Cat Stevens." :(... Anyway, back to the kitty!
This picture does not do her justice! She is completely adorable, the vets assistant could not stop commenting on how adorable and beautiful she was! You cant see in this picture, but she's got patches of color on her white little legs, and the patches of color have stripes just like the upperside of her body! They drive me crazy with cuteness!
While Cloud is more mischevious, Cat has always been the more playful kitty by far! She's always running around finding something to play with and nipping on your fingers and attacking your toes! Never once was she a shy kitty. She likes to be held, but only if you're standing up. She is reluctant to cuddle on top of you, but will happily ball up a few inches away. (Cloud would happily fall asleep in your arms if you held her like a baby... cutest thing ever...)


Yes, Cat has her naughty times.... Which is pretty much daily they both get the squirt bottle! But they've gotten better. They still wait outside the bedroom door, but don't try to hard to get in (at least with me, because I immediately put my foot out and push them away.) They also don't try to get on the table nearly as much.... When I'm looking. They don't try to sneak into the cabinets or fridge, which is a relief! But they do unroll toilet paper, knock over the bathroom trash can whenever they can, move every rug in the apartment that's not stapled to the floor, knock whatever they can off the desk, and try to steal human food whenever they get the chance.


But I love the little beasties.

One Month

As time would, life has been flying by way too fast.

Matt and I have been married one month today, and I just would like to briefly go through the craziness of this past month...

After the wedding, we came home that night, but left for North Conway the next morning. I don't really have any pictures, but I did take some video footage with the video camera we got as a wedding gift.

In North Conway, we stayed at the adventure suites. We went for the simple room (we really just wanted the jacuzzi bathtub) but for our one year anniversary we would like to go back for a weekend in one of the larger themed rooms... Probably the cave. We spent most of our time in North Conway relaxing in the hotel, but we vowed to eat only at non-chain restaurants. We ate at some place with a moose in its name, Peaches, and some other Italian restaurant. One day we did go out and walked the line of shops and we picked up a couple of sovineirs (less the traditional turtle.)

Since then, we've been adjusting to married life, trying to work out some sort of balance between work, school, together time, apartment maintenance and church. I've been promoted to full time at work, which I'm not sure yet if I like or not. Yes, every cent we can put towards school loans and saving for a house, but I find it hard to keep up with my homework and keeping the apartment clean. I already had benefits (less dental) as a part time associate, so that isn't a big deciding factor.

As far as school, I am so glad I have a two year degree, and whenever I'm watching lectures or doing homework I try to imagine my future... Five years from now, when I'd be done with school, I don't see myself wanting to work full time. In five years, I want to have children and I don't want to spend 40 hours a week away from them, especially if they're not with either Matt or myself for that time.

I don't need a BA in Accounting to stay home and raise kids or work part-time if that needs to happen to make ends meet. And I don't want to spend the rest of my time as a non-parent in front of a computer explaining to the teacher why or why not Kant would have a moral problem with sweat shops in third world countries.

Do I regret spending a lot of time getting my associates degree? Not at all. I know I would regret NOT getting it. I just don't see the practicality of me staying in school to get a BA.

As far as Matt's education, I know he would really love to get into computers, and I really want him to have a profession he loves. Where there aren't really a whole lot of small businesses left, I do see a lot of small, privately owned comuter repair shops. I would prefer putting my energy that I now put into schooling into taking on more household responsibilities so he could focus on doing whatever he needs to do to get into his chosen profession, whether it be college or a certification course or hands on experience. (Right now Matt helps out a lot with the cleaning and dishes.)

As for work, I'm still at Walmart, but not happily. I don't mind the work that I do all that much, but they're understaffed and a lot of time I have to do other jobs that require a lot of heavy lifting (one night I stocked a literal ton of sugar) and my body just can't take it. Not to mention the constant battle between management contradicting each other and themselves and just being all around unprofessional enough to scream someones name in an empty Walmart when you want to find someone. But it pays the bills, and hopefully I'll gather my courage and enough time in the very near future to do some job hunting.

As for living with Matt, I love it. Sometimes I wonder how I would go a week or two without seeing him and have it be "normal." Now I miss him even just on the days where he's working and I'm home. I just can't seem spend enough time with him (not that we don't spend a lot of time together, just that I always want more!)

And lastly, to end this obnoxiously long post, I have gotten wedding pictures!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151851&id=599723064&l=fe18cfb439

That's the easist way for me to share them, haha!

My Favorites

Pastor Anthony (Matt's dad) took some pictures of us the day after Valentines Day -- Here are my favorites.

Wordless Wednesday

Festivities is RIGHT

Family resemblance?

we nuts.

No, wait... Karen's nuts!

Two cameras. Both flashed at the same time.

Matt the model

There she is with that tongue!

Chelsea played "princesses" with Hailey, and was therefore: her best friend.

Happy 2009!

Christmas Picture

These are my very select favorites.

They are select because I chose them out of about 90... :-D

This picture made me laugh today.

It's hard to believe that this picture was taken over a year ago already...

Forget Turkey...

We're roasting the cat this year!


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
<3 Matt&Laura

This picture needs no narrative.

Pumpkin Carving: Part 2

On to Sunday afternoon! On this day, we had a visitor: The Meesh. Unfortunately, she is in none of the pictures because she took 90% of them.

Matt's pattern was too large for the pumpkin, but since it was a fairly simple design I just drew the symbol onto his pumpkin and he traced the marker line. I proceeded to use the more tedious pinhole method. He finished carving his entire pumpkin before I even finished punching out the pattern!

Let me create a visual: Matt. With a seraded knife, much like a two sided saw. If you don't know Matt... Just imagine a 7 year old boy... Excited, but impatient. He was sawing it so fast that he accidently pulled the knife out of the pumpkin while sawing and jabbed it in a totally different place 3 times.

20 minutes later, Matt's masterpiece is finished. Rough, but finished. Meesh cleaned it up a little bit after that.

2 hours later, my masterpiece is finished. My hands are cramping, but my masterpiece is finished!



P.S. I wasn't really sure how to go about roasting pumpkin seeds until after I had already left them in the oven at 425degrees for about 25 minutes. (The recipe said 300degrees) About 5 seeds were eaten, but the spices weren't all that great that I chose anyway, so they're now going to become part of a landfill. Yay me!

P.P.S. ITS A ROSE! Not a cabbage, not a snail, not a one eyed pig. ITS A ROSE!

Pumpkin Carving: Part 1

Here's the gist of my conversation with Matt on Saturday night.

L: Okay, time to carve pumpkins!
M: I don't wanna carve. Let's just carve your pumpkin together...
L: So basically - I carve and you watch?
M: TOTALLY!
L: No.

*discussing pumpkin carving*

L: But the pumpkin seeds have to dry overnight!

*discussing pumpkin seeds*

The art of compromise: We began our pumpkin adventure with just gutting them on Saturday night!

Me: Woah, this stuff is so gross, I love it! *up to elbows in pumpkin goo*
Matt: I'm supposed to stick my hands in there?!
(I used my hands, he used primarily tools, and washed his hands at least three times)

I'll lay your guts out on a table!"

The inside of my pumpkin after about a half hour

The inside of Matt's pumpkin after about a half hour... Slacker.

3 Tests down...

So I just completed the 3rd test of the semester, and after having 2 not so great scores, I'm finally feeling halfway confident about this one. We'll see how that goes.

In other news: there is none.

So... How about a story!!

The other day at work, we all had our faces painted as some of the guys on the higher part of the hierarchy of management were gonna show up, and we wanted to look spirited... Ally and I got the same design (mirrored) so that we were like each other's half. But then we didn't take if off, and hung out around augusta, and got some interesting looks. Ally tried on a kids size dress, and surprisingly it ALMOST fit! Umm.. we got slushies. We made them pretty. :)

Here's a couple of pics:

Aren't we cute?

Good Morning, Glory!