Christmas Thank-you Notes

Well. Here I sit. In the cozyest spot ever. Next to my husband. As soon as he reads that line he will roll his eyes and say "she's so pink". If you don't know what pink and blue is about ask one of us when you see us. ;-)


When I originally turned the computer on this evening, I had all intentions of writing our little Christmas letter. However, I'm still on a slight high with the excitment of our wedding so I was going to be super cheezy and do a combo thank-you notes and christmas letter. Some would equate this to lazyness but seeing as I love my husband, I love you reading this and I LOVE Christmas (if you REALLY know me - you know how much I really do love love LOVE Christmas) the combo letter made total sense to me. I even had super cute Christmas paper. I also have a love for sticky notes and fancy paper. :)

I've actually been debating this thank you card/Christmas letter idea since ..... well... October? It's in my mind - not always on the front burner - but it's in my mind nonetheless that the appropriate thing to do after recieveing gifts is to send thank you notes.

So the pressure starts.


I love Christmas. And I love writing. And I would have loved to have written a nice little Christmas letter. And by the day after Thanksgiving I realize I'm running out of time. Because the time goes so fast.


More pressure.


And now. Here I am. December 19th. I don't even really feel like my home is as Christmasified as I'd like it to be and I STILL haven't done the letter. Or thank-you notes.


Actually. It's almost midnight. On December 23rd. Merry Christmas Eve, Eve. :) I didn't get to even finish this blog entry when I started it.

See? I told you. Time flies.


I am glad I didn't freak out and write a bunch of last minute Christmas cards or letters or thank you notes. I'm not into doing things when I'm feeling stressed out about it.  ;) It may or may not make sense to you, but it makes total complete sense to me. Many times I have seen people (ok, mostly us women) who get pressured about things. Generally around the holidays. Things like letters, cards, decorating, cooking, cleaning, pinterest happy so our homes can look like the cover of a Better Homes and Garden magazine. Don't get me wrong - I think it's totally ok to look at that stuff - hey - I am both a Pinterester and a reader of said magazine. And it's fun to dream about hey, what if I did stencil my walls with that Moroccan pattern? Or what if I did try that new recipe? It's fun to have an "I Did It" board on Pinterest!! And it makes us proud. At least it makes me proud. ^_^ But let's not freak out about stuff we couldn't quite get done. It's not that it will never get done. It just hasn't gotten done yet. So I say....

One step at a time.
One day at a time.
Little Moments.


Because one day, years from now, the cards and letters are tossed, the decorations get replaced and sometimes we leave behind the Moroccan stencilled walls to live inside and paint new ones. ;) The people you're with will and should always mean more. This doesn't mean I'm not doing thank-you notes. I'm just saying. :)


Anyhow.....hopefully that encouraged someone......




Oh and would you look at that....it's 12:30. That makes it December 24th. Time flies. Merry Christmas Eve. <3

Thanksgiving In The Apartmentcastle

"Once in a while, right in the middle of ordinary life, Love gives us a fairytale." - Anonymous

Found that quote while I was actually looking for something else. And I immediately loved it. ^_^

Happy after Thanksgiving! Bring on the Merry Christmas!! I love this time of year. It is my absolute favorite. For different reasons. But this year is particularily special to me. For different reasons.

For one - it's safe to say we made it through our first married Thanksgiving. Without the in-law horror stories I've heard. I'm sure we've all heard. No scenes from "Everybody Loves Raymond" here. :) Thank goodness. 

I will admit to have a large mix of emotions (most women do - duh...) but none were really bad. I guess I felt a little pressure but not in a bad way. It wasn't a "DON'T MESS UP THIS DISH OR YOU'RE GONNA DIE!" type. It was more "I love baking this so much I sure hope they like it as much as I do!" pressure. I guess I felt more excited. Maybe pressure isn't the right word.... And I was super pinterest happy. I was looking up recipes galore on that thing. My Pinterest ID is almstphotogrphr if you ever wanna see the enchanting madness I love to look at :) Or you can just click my ID. :) 

Last entry I talked about how sometimes I feel like I live in my own personal fairytale. This is what my Fairytale Thanksgiving consisted of:

Wednesday: 

The mister off since the school is on break but he still had to coach. I worked. Until 5. Rushed home free from accidents and running red lights. ;) Made Cranberry Apple Walnut Stuffing and Pumpkin Dip. 

Here is where the fairytale becomes absolutely enchanting: In the middle of all this I discovered there was something hokie with our water pressure. As in, we didn't have any. Nor did we have warm water. -_- I like to wash as I go when I cook so this was not making me happy. I gave up and left what I absolutely didn't need again in the sink. After sighing at the thought of having to come back and face it later I moved on with life and finished my cooking project and got ready to go to my parents for dinner. Had fun over there. We talked, we laughed - it moved me bob. and I loved seeing my puppy. We would have her if we could. 

Thursday:

Slept in. Woke up. Started cooking stuff again. Half way through cooking I ran into this:

That goes to my mixer. =( I was making cheesecake filling for strawberries. I popped it back how it belongs then kept going. I'm not sure how it ended up that way. And if anyone knows where I can get a spare please let me know. Thanks. =)

I was hallowing the strawberries, getting ready to fill them with said filling....and well.... 10 strawberries down and I discovered a worm INSIDE a strawberry!!!!! =-O

Needless to say I didn't finish. I just tossed them. I didn't wanna finish and take them and have an inner panic attack not knowing what else was dwelling in my precious berries.

Enter chocolate cake. Since I can't have the berries. I made chocolate frosting. It was terrible. Long story short I threw in some vanilla extract (had to go to parentals to get it since up until then I didn't own any) and walnuts and I saved it. :)

After I made all that I made this:

Remember I said no water pressure? This affected our shower. So. Bucket showers for the day. lol. Eventful Thanksgiving right? Well it ended up not being the water pressure itself and I'll spare you the gory details and say all is well now. We can wash our dishes. We can shower. With semi warm water. We'll have normal warm water on Monday.

Black Friday: 

We bummed it all day. Saw Lincoln at night. I LOVED IT! Loved the man's personality. I think if I lived in his era and was allowed to work with him we may have butted heads many a time but we would have had a good time doing it. I would have loved it. =) And my friend made my day by selling me her camera I've been using. I officially have my own camera. That's a big deal to me. You need your own camera to be a photographer. It's kind of essential. =)

This morning (Saturday) we may have started a new Thanksgiving tradition: Thanksgiving breakfast. Honestly it wasn't all that big. Simple really. Pancakes. Eggs. Bacon. Blueberry Muffins. Cranberry Juice with Ginger Ale. I was gonna make (yes make) apple sauce but discovered I only had one apple left so, so much for that. We cleaned the kitchen. Bummed it a little bit. He's at the UCLA game and here I sit listening to classical piano and blogging even though I should probably be cleaning. I was kinda making a big crafting mess when he was leaving and promsed it would be out of the way when he got home. Poor man. lol. 

All of this to say:

Despite the random mishaps. Water. lack of frosting.  broken mixer. worm in the strawberries. I enjoyed my thanksgiving. And I'm glad I wasn't super intimidated by what everyone else thinks about x-y-and-z. Don't let the messups mess you up. Enjoy your family for the season you have them. I'm not a pessimist. At least not in this blog post. I'm not running around thinking everyone is going to die tomorrow but I am well aware that we only have them for a season. Enjoy that season. 

Share the funny worm stories thank Jesus no one ate it! 

Teach someone how not to make bitter chocolate frosting.

Make messes. 

DO your Pinterest TO DO list!

Clean the messes. 

Take pictures. Take LOTS of pictures. You can't go back and re-live those moments but you can see them through a tiny precious window on paper. I just saw a video of my Naeda while I was at my parents home last Christmas. It was my last Christmas there. I love my husband and I'm SUPER excited for my Christmas with him, but I know I enjoyed the time I had in my parents house. Even the not so good times taught me something. ha. =) 

Anyways....I'm off to clean the apartmentcastle.

Happy Thanksgiving. Merry Christmas. 

Happy Ever After 

--- Annika

My Own Personal Fairytale

Welcome to my new blog. I had an old one. I hadn't written in it in a little while.

Ok, a long while.

Two years. 

I tried MANY times to get back into the old blog, changed passwords, emailing the website and whatever else I could try but was never able to actually log into it. I just took it as a sign that I should just "move on". I'm kind of glad that I couldn't get back into it. There is something sweet about being able to start fresh, clean, untainted - new. 

"'Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.'"

Isaiah 43:18-19

Before I continue writing this blog, I must give two confessions:

1. I am a singer/songwriter at heart who lives in her own personal Nashville. I will probably mention songs in my blogs. I even named my blog "Liner Notes" as if to write a letter at the end of an album I have poured my heart and soul into. I hope the good parts of my album/blog will pour into you, and you will just be forgiving for any bad parts. True fans/friends are loving and forgiving. :)

2. I also live in my own personal fairytale. And that was before I was a newlywed. :) my closest fans can testify to this. I have a great love for Disney and an even greater one for my Jesus and I truly believe I have the best of both worlds. :) Welcome to my fairytale. 


Once upon a time.....

Two years ago today, October 21st, 2012, my husband and I started dating. 


And we are never going to stop. :)


This month we will have been married for 5 glorious newlywed-months.

In keeping with my slight fairytale theme of this blog entry I wish to share a piece of something I gave to the wonderful women at my bridal shower:

"Dear Sister,

It means a lot to me that you came to my bridal shower today. I’m writing this note (well typing cuz it looks so much nicer, right?) so I can let you in on a little secret. Okay? Here goes:

I believe in fairytale love stories.

Sort of.

I realize this may sound like I own too many Disney movies (I probably do) but in a way, I really do believe them. Or at least I like to think I live in my own personal fairytale. As I think about Tom and I getting married (Gah!) I know that it's God who put us together, because He loves us and He gives good gifts.

The fairytale feeling comes from seeing God do things that only He could do to bring us together.....

...Happy Ever After,

♥ - Annika"

That was part of the thank you note I gave to the married women. I'll get to the single ladies in a bit but for now, I wanna tell you about my fairytale. 

Being married is pretty much everything I expected it to be. Except more fun. ^_^

Instead of a castle we live in a two bedroom apartment but it works out great, considering the lack of servants. I mean really - who wants to clean a million royal chambers, bathrooms and kitchens, right? And since we're not the super wealthiest in the land we both get up and go to work every day. By the way -- the Seven Dwarfs are not singing "hi-ho" if you listen carefully enough it's "I owe, I owe, so off to work we go..." ;)

The Prince and I speak in our own secret codes called "Pink" (me) and "Blue" (him) and if we forget to speak the right codes 

BAM! 

WACK! 

--- ok not really but sometimes it can be a bumpy ride for a few minutes there. 

I make dinner every night, 99% of the time, and it usually comes out good, sometimes it comes out REALLY good, and sometimes rather funky/interesting but always with the best intentions. The prince is always super patient/understanding about the meals and when we both think it's REALLY bad we go for the backup frozen pizza. :)

My desserts are always awesome. You can see photos on my facebook. :)

We learn.

We learn a lot. 

We learn things like:

We could both afford to be less and more sensitive. But I think that's most couples so we're ok. 

If we don't put Jesus first and spend time in His Word, we won't know how to put eachother first instead of ourselves. 

Sometimes we're really good at reading eachother's minds........and sometimes not so much. :)

We argue sometimes. But we always make up. Sometimes faster than others.

 We sometimes don't like eachother, but we always love eachother.

We always have eachother's back. 

We always trust eachother.

Forgiving is a must! :)

We go on dates. Stay up late. Eat ice cream. Grocery shop. Pay bills. 

He bought me my favorite flowers yesterday. (technically today is Monday - i didn't get to post this last night but i insisted on keeping the date) :)

Today our fairytale consisted of me cleaning the apartmentcastle and prince charming is sleep next to me as I type. He's sick. I so hope he feels better soon cuz I feel bad for him. Lol - he's more concerned about me getting sick than I am. :)

I love our love story. I love the wonderful loving God who gave it to us. Only He could do what He's done in and through us. 

Now for my single women. This is for you:

"Dear Sister,

I wanted to share a quote with you. I love this quote because even though it’s not directly from the Bible, I believe it has a reflection of God’s heart for us…

“My Dear One,

No man can ever claim you unless he claims you from Me. I reserved a man for you who has My heart and loves Me more than he will love you. Soon you will meet him. I have the perfect time. You are My princess, you are My daughter, let no prince claim you unless he asks you from My hand for I am your Father, the King of Kings. You, my princess, are worth loving and deserve a prince.

♥ -- God”

I remember the first time Jesus told me He had someone for me. I thought I was crazy. Truthfully I didn’t want to be with anyone because I was hurting, but He said He had someone and I’d meet him in a year.

True to His Word, one year later He brought me Tom. You are getting this note from me because I want to encourage your heart to hold on, hold out for that which only God can do for you. If it’s continuing a relationship you have, repairing an old one or bringing you a new one or living out your love story with Jesus, Himself, I guarantee you no one else can beat what Jesus has for you. It is no silly saying that God writes the best love stories. It’s Truth.

A sweeter Truth is that He is the best Love Story.

He loves us when we’re unlovable. He wants us when we feel unwantable. He says we’re beautiful makeup and hair done or not.

He always, always keeps His promises. There is no one like Him.

I love you sister and I’m so excited to see what He does for you.

Enjoy this part of your happy ever after."

Princesses!!!! He - Jesus - THE creator of the Universe - the KING of kings has a WONDERFUL plan and purpose for you!!! Prince or no prince! mini princesses and princes or not!

As long as your are God's daughter you have a purpose. You may be single, but you have a purpose. When/if you get married, you are married into a new purpose. But you are never, EVER without purpose.  You are never, ever not loved.

 

Happy Ever After. :)

-- Annika ♥