Proverbs 28:13

Have you ever experienced God in a slap-you-in-the-face sort of way? I mean you see God working in your life all the time, especially in hindsight but there are those times that you just know, that was God, no doubt about it. Well, I have experienced that twice now in my life. I will tell you about this last time.

I have never been a big fan of my brother-in-law's wife. There wasn't any justifiable reason, it was all petty and all me. If I had to pinpoint a time that it all started I would have to say that it was when Dom and I first got engaged. What I was told her reaction was to my future brother-in-law was this, "We're not going to beat them huh?" From then on I was in competition. I guess it just triggered something inside of me, I was offended, seeing as how they hadn't even been dating a year and she had just turned 18. So, needless to say we were not friends.

Family dinners became who cooked a better dinner, or who had the better activity? I guess it was natural that jealousy followed shortly after the competition began because if she won, which I thought she always did, I would be jealous that she did it better. As the year progressed these feelings only deepened into an unexplainable hatred. Now, I am not proud of this but even though I wanted things to change since it was making my time in NorCal miserable and all family activities miserable it was just easier than changing my entire way of thinking to do the opposite, get along with her.

Just recently I had reached my breaking point, I had hit bottom and I was finished with feeling like this. I decided to be honest with God and give it all up to Him. I boldly admitted to Him that I hated her and I had no reason to and that I wasn't going to do anything about it, He had to. No joke, a few days later she calls me to invite me over to hang out. I soo didn't want to go but I did in some kind of effort not to be a total B but my heart was not in it. The night was short but not too bad and I went home unharmed. Well, she invited me to hang out again for a longer amount of time and I was all, really? I don't know if I can make it through this one.

Even though I still didn't want to give in, we ended up having a really good time and found out we have a lot in common. She stayed over and talked with me even after her husband went home cause he was dog tired. Well, somewhere in the wee hours of the morning I asked her why, after all this time, she had all of a sudden decided she wanted to be friends? She said that they wanted to give us space because we had made it clear when we first got married that that's what we wanted, but she also said that she thought I hated her.........So, it was out there and what was my reaction? You would think it would be to cover it up or deny it or laugh it off based on my behavior so far right? No, I said, "I did." She had made me feel comfortable and we were being open and honest with each other and I thought that it was about time to put an end to this and God couldn't have made it any easier for me. Honestly though, I never thought He would use her to confront the situation. I thought He would eventually soften my heart or harden hers as well, something stupid like that but God faced it head on and made me feel completely at ease. :)

Now even though my confession was harsh and abrupt she didn't cower or get hurt she laughed and we spent the next few hours in confession mode, her telling me she had felt the same way and us reliving instances where we were both being ridiculous. I admitted that my jealously ran deep since she is pretty and talented and she admitted that she reads my blog and likes my hair. The feeling of liberation after letting go of such an awful, unreasonable feeling was heavenly. After dropping her off at her place at six in the morning, I drove home praising God. I couldn't believe what just happened, it was something that I had day dreamed about, just having the guts to confront her and get it over with but it was now a reality, God had made it all possible and so easy.

Since then, we have watched movies together, gone shopping, played walleyball and Nertz. It's so nice to have a friend here, a girl who I can vent to or laugh with, someone I can relate to about marriage or NorCal or being a new Parisi. I'm so happy that my idiocy had an end and that God still gave me a friend out of it. I only hope that He continues to work in me and our new friendship. :)


Proverbs 28:13 "He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy."

How fast can you type?

I have been wanting to improve my wpm (words per minute) lately and have been testing/practicing here. Dom and I will compete but really there is no competition, he kills me. On our first official date we went to Fashion Island and while we were walking around we went to the Mac store. We both got on the kids computers and raced for best typing speed and accuracy. I am pretty sure I beat him but oh how the tides have turned. His first time on the site above he got in the 80s! I average in the 50s with good accuracy but the more I want to beat him the worse I become. I think that I just need to focus on improving myself and not demolishing my husband in a wpm race. You should take the test and let me know the result, also, I love looking at where the excerpts are from that you just typed. I have gotten a few famous books and a few quirky ones. Let me know what book you got as well. :)

The Lovely Bones

On Friday Dom went skiing with his brother and while he was out doing that I did my errands for the day and then decided to kill some time at Chick-fil-A. Dom doesn't like this restaurant and so I thought I would treat myself to a late lunch/early dinner while he was gone. I didn't want to sit there alone forever with nothing to do so while I was picking up some stuff at Wal-Mart I grabbed some reading material for my meal. At first I thought about getting The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks but I didn't really feel in the mood for a sappy love story and decided to look for a thriller. I found The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, which I knew had been turned into a movie, which was perfect cause I love watching books come to life after I have read them and so I decided to get this one, especially after I read the first line, "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." I thought, this is going to be good.


I ate and read, and kept reading and reading and decided it was time to go home after they had cleaned up my tray for me and asked if I wanted a refill twice. When I got home I plopped down on the couch and continued to read. The author's style was unique and I loved the way she explained things or described people or situations. Example: "Had my brother really seen me somehow, or was he merely a little boy telling beautiful lies?" I guess it's nothing profound but it flowed well and was different. Anyway, I read until we went to bed and then read in my pajamas the entire next day until I finished. I wasn't a huge fan of the ending but I think that's because it wasn't traditional, this was purely a story, something to make you think and feel and doesn't really fit into any category that I know of. I would definitely recommend it and I hope to be reading another book by this author, also, I can't wait to watch the movie. It's next in my queue on Netflix.

Painted Nails

You know those things that just make you feel dainty? Like, dangly earrings or perfume? Well, a big one for me is painted nails. I painted my toe nails and finger nails today and I feel so girly. I used OPI because it's just amazing and the colors I used today were:

"I'm not really a waitress"

and "Sweetheart."

The names crack me up and make the experience even more comical. I say comical in the sense that you just have to have a sense of humor when painting your nails or you'll just end up in a little frustrated ball cursing whoever it was that invented nail polish. It is just inevitable that right after you put on a fresh coat you will smudge it doing something absentmindedly and you just have to shake it off knowing that if you paint your nails yourself they just aren't going to look professional. I hope the nail polish will last long this time and all the dish cleaning and hand washing doesn't destroy it too early on.

1st Year Celebration

So, it has taken me a week to write about my adventures but they are still just as amazing as they were a week ago. As I have mentioned before, Dom and I went to Mendocino/Fort Bragg for our first year anniversary celebration. We rented a beautiful loft surrounded by redwoods that sits on top of an art studio. The whole house was beautiful with its vintage barn look. I am getting ahead of myself though, let me start from the beginning.

Dom got Friday off and so our celebration started Thursday night. We decided to exchange gifts then since what I got Dom was too big to bring in the car. He opened his first. Here is a video of the fun. :)

I got him a Djembe if you didn't know what it was he pulled out of the box. His roommate had one and he always played with it. He said he was waiting to ask for one for Christmas but I though he deserved it now. I covered it with one of my quilts and when he said, "You got me a quilt?" I thought he thought I made him one. He laughed at me later for that. :)

I was next and so excited about presents. Dom wrapped it when he came home and when he came out of the office I just laughed. He did an amazing wrapping job that I was quite impressed with but he accidentally wrapped it in Birthday paper. He said that he was half way done when he realized what he did but it didn't really matter. Here is my video.

Dom got me pearls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The clasps has diamonds in it and is the shape of a star/flower. It looks beautiful and vintage/antiqueish, which I love. Here is a better picture of it that Dom has taken:

Now in the video Dom said, "He will explain that later." He was talking about the writing on the box, which said, 3/7/09 1st Anniversary. Now I have always wanted a pearl necklace. I think they are elegant, classic, and beautiful. I always pictured my dad giving me one on my wedding day or my husband presenting me with one on some special occasion. Well I never told my dad but I did tell Dom shortly after we got married that I loved pearl necklaces and wanted to own one someday. Well they had one in the shop and it just so happened to be his favorite piece and so he had it put on hold for me a year ago and planned on giving it to me for our first anniversary!!!!!!!!! How perfect is that? Needless to say that I love them and am so happy. :)

After our wonderful gift exchange, we packed everything for our trip and went to bed early. We left at 7am Friday morning since the drive was supposed to take 5 hours. We took his parents route to Mendocino which took small highways through beautiful scenery. I drove the first three hours while Dom slept and then we switched. I got about 15 min. of sleep in before the road got too bumpy for me to even stay in my seat. It turns out that one of the little highways is in the middle of nowhere and ends up going down to one lane on a horribly paved road.

Whilst making a blind turn on this horrible paved, one lane road someone was coming the other way a bit too quickly and was cutting in the inside (where we were) and Dom had to slam on the brakes and the guy swerved and barely missed us. He ended up sliding off to the side of the road and would have gone over the edge except his car got stuck on one of the road reflectors and it stopped him. The whole thing could have been much worse.

Well we parked our car and put on the hazards and went to go see if he was alright. We get to the car and out steps this white, freckle faced Rastafarian. I am not even kidding. He had the massive head wrap, wreaked of weed and talked just like Bob Marley. We tried to push the car out but it wouldn't budge and so our new friend began to ask God to, "Send love from a broda wit a truck." I am pretty sure that Dom and I were praying that God would do the same thing so that we could get out of there and sure enough less than 5 min. later two hillbillies come around the corner in a truck.

They stopped and said they would help and with big smiles on their faces said we could "burn one after." They tied a rope to the car and pulled it out. We were all relieved but the hillbillies were anxious to receive their payment. As they were working out the weed deal Dom and I hopped in the car and took off. This experience was one we will never forget.

We finally arrived at the cabin and it was even more gorgeous than the pictures. We were so excited to be staying in this beautiful place. We headed into town and had some lunch after seeing our cabin and later we went to Fort Bragg and walked around the beach and through downtown. We came back later that night to a little coffee house which had live jazz music. It was kind of different. There was a piano, a mandalin, and the drums. It was great to listen to. Here are a couple pictures:

That says Happy Anniversary. :)

The next day we barely made it to the Skunk Train. It a train that was built in 1920 and you can smell the engine before you can even see the train, that's why it's named the Skunk Train. It takes you an hour and a half into the Redwood Forest and stops to have lunch at this little campsite and then brings you back. It was very pretty and there was an open car that you could walk out onto and take pretty pictures. That night we decided to do the fancy dinner for our anniversary since we would be on the road home during dinner time the next day, our actual anniversary day. We went to this gorgeous French Restaurant that over looks the water and had live music. The food was unbelievable and the dessert was even better. We spent the night talking about our past year of marriage and what we learned about love and how it met and differed from our expectations. It was very romantic and encouraging to know that we love each other so much and we made the right decision.

I bought this dress for our rehearsal dinner and ended up wearing something else but I knew that I wanted to wear it for something special and chose this occasion a year ago. I was so happy to finally wear it for my handsome husband. :)

Our last day was spent sight seeing. We went to Glass Beach, which ended up being a total dud so I am not even going to show a picture and then Russian Gulch Park and the Point Cabrillo Light House. I loved the light house!! it was so cute and they reconstructed one of the Lighthouse assistant's houses to 97% accuracy. I love historical things like that. We bought a Point Cabrillo Christmas Ornament for our souvenir, since we got an ornament on our honeymoon too. I think we will start a tradition if we can.

After the sight seeing we had our honeymoon lunch over looking the water. On our honeymoon we had a little kitchen and so we bought and made all our own food. We had the same lunch everyday, bologna and cheese on a asiago cheese roll with chips and snacks. I got all the stuff again for this trip and surprised Dom with the meal. He said I was thoughtful and cute which is pretty much what I was going for.

After this we went back to the loft and packed up and left. We took Google's original route home and made it there in 4 uneventful hours. All in all, this was a perfect trip. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I enjoyed celebrating with a wonderful man I am proud to call my husband! :)

My Second Job

Whenever Dom needs new clothes I am the one to get them for him. I am his personal shopper. When we got married he said that he wanted to start dressing better for work, sort of like a business casual.....jeans and button downs mainly. Well last time we went down to visit my family we lost a pair of his jeans.....I don't know how. Since then he has been short a pair and that just won't do and so I have been on the hunt.

Three pairs bought and three pairs returned later, I finally found a pair we like at a great price. $20 Vans jeans from Marshalls. I love this store. He is wearing them now with all the tags still on. I think it's safe to say he likes them.

Lots To Look Forward To

It's the beginning of a new month, a month full of amazing events that I honestly can't wait for. Event number one, my husband and I will be celebrating our first year of marriage this weekend!!!! We just booked this amazing barn type loft, as seen above, in the Mendocino area. We plan on enjoying our time together lounging around this gorgeous little place and then adventuring out into the town and even heading up to Fort Bragg. All I need to do is get a gift for Dom. No worries though, I already know the perfect gift to get him, phew.

Next up on the list of events is seeing my mom!!! That's the two of us when we went to a work convention in San Francisco. She is coming to visit and bringing along the new little addition to the family, Piper. She is the one asleep on the desk. I can't wait to see this little girl. I figure my mom and I will knit, shop, and maybe cook. I am hoping she can try and teach me how to create something edible.

Only a few days after my mom goes home, my wonderful friend Brookie is coming up to visit!!! This picture was taken during my birthday trip to Chicago. I don't know how it all worked out this way but I am just too freaking excited to care. We will also be knitting, then beading, visiting a childhood friend of both of ours who happens to live by me now and who happens to be my hairdresser and will be cutting both of our hair while we visit, and chit chatting about any and everything. I am just too excited for words. When God wants to cheer you up, He really goes all out. :)