Christmas?

I told a good friend about this blog a couple of weeks ago, and have wanted to revive it since. It's a sweet memento, and I love reading your thoughts and seeing your pictures, so let's begin posting again?

I'm in San Luis Obispo now, working at a software company. It was a bit of a transition leaving Visalia and my job at the church, but everything is beautiful here, and I feel a little more at home every time I explore a new beach or get drunk and white-girl-dance at a new-to-me pub.

I miss you.

I'm thinking of throwing a Christmas party and inviting you hooligans. Anyone traveling, or how do your weekends look in Dec?

Tell me all about your lives, please.

As I sit here, feeding Fhloston the cat tortilla chips and re-reading all the posts since this blog's inception, I suddenly feel as if I've come a long ways.

We live in Montana now. We've survived one winter and are just entering another. We added another cat to our family: Mrs. B. I work as a freelance writer and Jared brews beer for a living. We're starting a church in our house. How can so much have happened in so little time?

Our life seems idyllic (minus the poverty part), but really the lack of friends (YOU) makes it hard. Lately I lack the motivation to do anything. My days consist of hanging out upstairs and watching Netflix -- Felicity, to be specific. (Beth, I'm officially addicted and I blame it on you.) Getting dressed, working, cleaning ... it all seems like such a hassle these days.

So what I'm trying to say, is, we're visiting LA in December. The 8-8th. Seeing you all will renew my lease on life, so if it's at all possible, BE IN TOWN.

First Farmer's Market of the season was a GIANT success.

If You Think I Look Bad, You Should've Seen The Bear

Part of me wishes that Beth had videotaped me looking in the mirror for the first time on Wednesday morning to see half of my front tooth missing. But another part of me is very glad she didn't. My first reaction upon waking up was "Owwww, my arms hurt," followed by "I need to get to work."

Beth wisely said, "I don't think you're going to work today."

Well, two days have passed and after receiving a root canal, I can finally look forward to not looking like I live in a trailer park. That is until Tuesday when I finally get the cap for my front tooth. Until then I've been telling my 4th and 5th grade students that I got in a fight with a bear. All things considered, it could actually be true.

For me, everything after a few swigs of drink is disturbingly blank.

All I know for certain from Trevor is that I spent a while running in circles around a trash can until he abruptly threw it into a neighbor's backyard.

From Vincent I learned that I was apparently functioning by following my body weight as I constantly fell over, turning each fall into a full-fledged sprint in whatever direction my body was leaning.

It seemed somehow, mysteriously, my life had turned into something out of a Judd Apatow movie.

Apparently, after I was dragged home on that fateful night, Beth said to me "You chipped your tooth."
"That's my name!" I replied.
"Your name is Chip?"
"Yeah."

Apart from the obvious I'm still dealing with a puffy lip and a sore leg, but luckily the mild concussion I suspected I had is no longer a fear when I'm going to sleep. In the meantime, I still consider it completely fine for anyone to call me Chip.

me zach and beth are dominating visalia, kT needs to recuperate already.

I've really been loving our fire pit/committee nights. I'm so glad I have all of you.

Well, I'm happy to say there isn't much to report because I've actually had the opportunity to see all of you in person rather recently. Zack and I have decided to stick around Visalia, hopefully for a good long while. We're very ready to be sedentary so lets hope we can make it happen.

While skimming Visalia's measly craigslist I came upon a listing for a FREE CORGI so I jumped on that opportunity, knowing that my mom wouldn't be able to turn him down. His name is Charlie. He's five years old. And he has the furriest butt cheeks ever.

OREGON
the oregonites were a bit weird in almost all cases, but the scenery is probably to blame, they've simply been exposed to too much green(possibly beauty and/or novelty?). misty mountains, wind sculpted trees, sun bleached driftwood, and people who pump your gas for you. :::end travel blog.
miss you guys. i'm going to officially say that i'm completely depressed over missing your visit to california(contrary to above image)

Surprise friends, yesterday I got a tattoo. It's a little bigger than I anticipated, and it also hurt a bit more than I expected, and took 4 hours.

The image is of a Seraph (angel), the six-winged, many eyed, fiery beings that constantly soar around God and chant hymns.

The text is called the Cherubic Hymn: We who mystically represent the Cherubim, and who chant the thrice holy hymn to the Life-Giving Trinity, let us now lay aside all earthly cares that we may receive the King of All, who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts.

It still hurts a lot.

Ps, lets keep this on the DL, as in, no mentioning it on facebook. I haven't exactly told my parents yet.

Good news. My mom had a couple biopsies biopsys biopseyes biopseez who knows how to spell that a couple weeks ago. Both showed malignant cancerous tumors in her breast and lymph node. She had a full body scan last week after getting prayed for, and the cancer shows up only in her breast now, which is awesome. She's getting a second and possibly third opinion within the next week to make sure it's not in her lymph node/anywhere else/actually in her breast etc, so we'll know more later. Which, as any of you who have dealt w cancer is the phrase of the day -we'll know more later. Anyways, not to make this a cancer update blog or anything, but I wanted my close friends to know first. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement :)

I saw Trevor's band play at Howies last night.

Reasons Why It Was Awesome:

1) There's a chick who plays mandolin. And she looks ethnic.
2) Trevor sang.
3) Trevor smiled and made eye contact with a lot of the audience, which was endearing.
4) Everyone was really groovin to the songs. Lots of Visalia stiff-legged swaying.
5) The crowd called for an encore, and the band obliged with a drunken meltdown song, which is the best encore there is.

I can't think of a Visalia show I've enjoyed more. Honestly. You all really missed out. Here's to hoping someone youtubed it.

Zack and I are flying to Portland on the 1st to pick up my car. We'll be making stops in Visalia and LA. Hooray! Hooray!

P.S. It's Claire's birthday!!! And Lehua's very soon. Lets party. Together.

I moved back to Visalia this last week. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I felt like coming home would really help my family as well as me, so here I am.

Visalia hasn't been hot since I've been here, but it certainly has smelled like cow poop. Other than that, it's actually quite lovely to be back in my old stomping grounds.

My mom was prayed over last night and although I haven't really been a believer in such things lately, I think it definitely helped, if not completely healed, her.

Joseph and I have been talking about renting a sweet house (once our jobs pick up) and doing community living. Perfect situation for us all to live together? I think yes.

I got a haircut recently. I was hoping to look like this:

but I'm feeling more like this instead:

Plus I'm driving Jared's dad's truck for a couple of weeks. Needless to say, I've been making an effort to wear a lot of dresses and heels lately.

Zack and I are all party, party, party these days. Two of the Himes girls, who we are currently living with, have had birthdays within the past two weeks. I was on the decoration committee hanging cellophane, draping tulle, making minotaurs. I'm pretty sure none of my birthday parties growing up were quite as epic.

Last night we were made aware of a "open bar" going down at a place up the street which we were told would provide free booze. I was a bit skeptical about the place, assuming that the bar would probably be filled with the typical queens crowd, but was completely content ten minutes later as tequila was being poured directly into my mouth by a sweaty, dancing Greek. Was it all a dream? Sometimes I'm not sure.

In other news, I got an internship with an artist in Brooklyn who makes cool stuff out of plastic bottles. It's unpaid and a bit like working in a sweat shop, but it's pretty fun making art for art's sake. Sometimes I forget that real people actually do that for a living.

wedding recaps.

Wedding photos have arrived! I've been working with Mark on a commercial, as well meeting a few characters. One is the Newcott's suspiciously-similar former neighbor, Kevin.

Here is one winner from the selection. Smizing, I believe.

Claire, where have you been??

Well, it seems that after my fourth and final interview, the human resources department at 30 Rock thought I was either a tad too young or too much of a loose cannon to take on Jimmy Fallon's web site. It's a bummer. I suppose in retrospect I shouldn't have told them I was planning to take NBC down from the inside and screamed into the phone "Let's burn this mother down!" while laughing maniacally.

In the meantime I've been blessed with an opportunity to work a freelance job with SNL taking screen capture shots of every skit ever produced on the show. The gig lasts four to six weeks, but part of me wonders if I could stretch it out by only clicking the mouse once every half hour. It just might be the deal of a lifetime.

Beth and I have been having a fun time here in the city, although we've been missing our love child Georgie Fruit. It's been hard not being able to have an animal around to talk on behalf of, or just cuddle with, especially since my niece's guinea pig is constantly pooping Mike & Ike sized turds every couple seconds. Luckily we have noticed a large husky who likes to watch us from a neighbors window whenever we venture outside.

Today is our sixth month anniversary! Can you believe that? I feel like we've lived so many places already that we've been married for several years. And that's not a bad thing. I hope we'll be visiting all of you soon!

oh, and here's a video of a chinchilla with a paper hat. Enjoy.

Well, I quit my job. My big fat paycheck play on the internet while the baby sleeps 4 hours a day free delicious food cuddle with sweet little baby job.

I'm hoping for a job in OK that really blends my unique gifts of getting too passionate about new music to strangers, cuddling babies, smoking jack star, never admitting that another's recommendation of anything is good, and hating all things Elmo.

I'll be at Trevor's show this week, Beth will visit me in OK, and Joseph's driving down one of these weekends. Friendwise, I'm all set.

Serious question: Have any of you considered fasting one week every month to save money on groceries? Did it work?

We're still in New York waiting to see if this job pans out for Zack. It's been about three weeks since his last interview, with his next one scheduled for friday. For some reason they're taking their sweet time trying to fill the position. Rawr.
In the meantime we've been trying to get out of the apartment as much as possible without spending all of our money on metro cards and water bottles. Living in a small apartment in New York with six people (three adults and three girls) has taught me a few things..

#1 Guard and protect your valuables:
-- goldfish crackers
-- toothbrushes and clean towels
-- anything that a guinea pig might consider to be food

#2 Learn to enjoy the little things:
-- mice scurrying through the kitchen
-- the way the power goes out every time someone turns on the microwave
-- the feeling of crackers between your toes

#3 Drink wine when:
-- there's no more toilet paper in the house. again.
-- you're about to make eggs for breakfast only to discover a carton full of empty egg shells
-- that wet spot on the couch turns out to be urine

Oh, housemates!!

I will be living alone for the next 19 days. My love left for Oklahoma, and I'll soon be following. Sept 1, actually. The dates have been different every day for the last month at least, but this seems concrete. We'll see.

During my last days in West LA, I will invite friends to stay (queen bed and twin bed, come over), smoke mass amounts of green crack, and drink Jack.

Those are my plans and I'm sticking to it.