When Do Nothings Do Something

In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth… From dust He formed man… from the creation man, man in his infinite wisdom began to screw up… When man brought sin into the world man was punished by having to work hard for the rest of his existence… And here we are today suffering the consequences of “free will”… (no charge for the short and sweet theological discussion)

I started working at the young age of 14… I have had various jobs, of which have not always been my favorite, but they have given me little patches of knowledge that I randomly use today… I tried construction the summer after I turned 14… Boo I hated that, I quit that job every morning when Cheryl woke me up…

I learned rather quickly that I’m not very builder friendly, not that I couldn’t lift heavy stuff or drive a nail, but rather that heat and physical labor wasn’t for me… So we moved on to electrical wiring… This lasted perhaps 2 weeks because of how awesomely thrilling it was not… And let’s just say that my boss (AKA Scott) was less than desirable to work with…

I did manage to lay hardwood floors for a year, but even that paycheck lost its luxurious luster after a while… The rest of my time has been spent in and out of restaurants… Needless to say I am a huge winner in life can’t ya tell??? I’m sure that you aren’t interested in a biography of me, so I’ll get to the point…

So here we are all grown up and ready to embark on a new journey… Full of ambition and fairytale beginnings, hopes and dreams of what life has in store, eager to start a family and make a home… I found the greatest gal who accepted my proposal, and loves the house that we decided that we could make our own… We just forgot probably the most important thing… “We are poor”… Oh and neither of us dig the manual labor…

We are those people who like to conserve our limited amounts of energy by taking a nice nap or catching up on a TV series by watching the DVD because we hate commercials… Oh its true people… We have some awesome plans for the house, but no one to fulfill them for us because free labor is so hard to find these days… Therefore we are faced with the worst possible scenario… “Do it ourselves”???? Are you kidding me?

After a long day at “The Office” (awesome show if you haven’t seen it you should give it a try) who wants to deprive themselves of relaxation to do more work… As active members of the “We do nothing club”, we think there should be a petition to the government for the free labor of those people that we pay for all year long who have an “excuse” for not working… (And he steps down from the soap box)

At first it was hard to get used to, but as things are progressing and looking more the way we’d like them to, I must say that the times we spend working on McNest are the best for us… We’ve not only started our life in a sense, but we have also created many memories that we’ll cherish for a life time… Although we may not agree on everything (picking colors and décor), at the end of the day we’ve realized that we make a great team… You never know what might happen through this crazy process, but I kinda look forward to it… We are not sure what the end product will be exactly, but “When do nothings do something” who could tell anyway???

Hubby2b

Waving the We Want Wedding Wand

So apparently my public desires more posting of what’s going on with me and Ed – but where are you in the comments section public? How am I to know these things unless you tell me directly :)

I guess I’ll fill you all in on what we did the other weekend. We ventured into the world of wedding registries. What is the point of this you ask? Well the point is to imagine how good McNest is going to look one day when we put something in its empty rooms :) It was a little overwhelming, but I guess that is to be expected when you’re pretty much starting from scratch. Eddie and I both live at our parents houses so basically we’re coming to McNest with nothing more than clothes, shoes, and dvds – and when I say nothing more – I really mean far more than the average person should have.

We decided to go to Target first, where we met with an unenthusiastic girl behind the customer service desk who told us in monotone about the rules of registering. Honestly – show some excitement here – I’m getting married! I didn’t really hear the rules, because I was already picturing myself running off down the aisles with the scanner gun zapping bar codes and beaming things to our wedding wish list. I pretty much had one goal – look for something understated and mid range that didn’t put off a vibe of overinflated sense of self worth. I think Eddie’s goal was to look for anything that looked like it could decorate a safari room (just kidding love!). Our tastes and styles are different but I guess that’s all part of what makes us interesting together :)

Since I’m practicing the art of sacrificial love, I let Eddie have the scanner gun. I figured he would understand how it works better than I did anyways (it has buttons just like a remote – so he should totally know what he’s doing). Plus I wasn’t sure how into the whole registry thing he would be, and I thought maybe the scanner gun would remind him of the Nintendo Duck Hunt game and he’d think it was fun like video games.

I think we probably should have done some homework before we ever started. Not knowing the difference between non-stick, stainless, copper and anodized (I had to look up the spelling on that one) pans made it hard to know which ones we would choose. However , knowing each others cooking habits did help out in the end. My cooking habits consist of not cooking, while Eddie’s consist of master culinary chef skills (hands off ladies – he’s all mine). So basically it was all me when it came to picking out a toaster and microwave (yes baby I can make you toast and heat up a Hungry Man meal for you in just a couple of minutes). When it came to actual cookware, that was all him. Eddie also took care of the coffee maker since I hate coffee, but he finds it a necessary part of life.

I didn’t find a cake stand that I like yet (which is essential since I plan on wearing an apron and doing much baking), but I did register for many knives and other food accessories that I vow to figure out how to use and will think of whoever bought me that vegetable peeler each time I use it. Eddie graciously let me scan a few items. Bad idea. I was completely overcome by the combination of power and desire that the scanner gun gave me. I went from being simple and understated to …what a waffle iron ? YES!!! A self service ice cream maker? YES! We must have it! A juicer? -Wouldn’t be caught dead without one! SCAN IT ALL EDDIE SCAN IT ALL! !!

I’m kidding by the way. We didn’t scan the waffle iron, the ice cream maker (sadness) or the juicer. I came down from my registry-high, and we went on our way buying classic registry items such as dish towels, knives, glasses and wall art (pretty see?). Later on I started getting nervous about the registry. Why? Well because this is all some people will ever know about me. They will judge me for eternity based on what sort of blender I chose and what the thread count is on the sheets I picked out. It was almost enough pressure for me to delete the whole list, but I didn’t. Mainly because I didn’t know how.

We thought that the whole registry thing would be a piece of cake and take about an hour. Three hours later when Target closed for the evening, we weren’t even done, and I have no clue what is on the list. I’m not sure if Eddie scanned stuff when I was turned around or not. If there are TV seasons on DVD listed on there – he did it!! If there are items of clothing – my bad!! Just kidding :) We still have to go modify the list (thank goodness you can do it online – I’m computer savvy to say the least), and figure out what should have been on there and maybe what’s not supposed to be. We’re new at this ya know.

It really was fun imagining how things would one day look in McNest and what kinds of food he…I mean we…will make in our new cookware. I can’t wait til our happily ever after :)

You're a Winner Either Way!

Not a lot of progress on McNest this holiday weekend due to a couple of things…paintballing on Saturday…and laziness on Labor Day (ironic? Yes).
This post isn’t going to have a lot to do with home improvements…sorry fans! I want to talk about paintball instead. Our church youth group voted on this activity as a back to school event, so that’s how it all started. What better than a friendly game of aggression to get the church kids to come together and fellowship with each other.

Now I have never been paintballing before in my entire 28 years, but it sounded like something fun and worth experiencing at least once in my life (kind of like buying a real pair of Manolo Blahniks or getting front row seats to a New Kids on the Block concert). Oh yeah, that and the fact that I didn’t want my 6th and 7th graders making me feeling like a wuss if I didn’t play.

We headed out from the church and arrived at New Gen relatively early for a Saturday morning. Brit and I were the only girl “leaders” who were going to play. Here we are before any of it started. Pretty hair and makeup still intact. Right after this photo was taken we were taken into a little room and some paintball professional guy explained how everything worked. I didn’t really hear anything other than “it will hurt” … “you’ll get your eye shot out” … and “raise your hand when you get hit or want out of the game”… fun!!

I pretty much knew all I needed to know though. Basically the goal of paintball is simple. Shoot everyone else without getting shot :) Then he told us to put on these terrible face masks. Eddie had to help me out with that one. Obviously it was super attractive which caused him to laugh in my face as he adjusted it on my head. Bye bye good hair day.

We headed outside into what I can only describe Saharan Desert high temperatures. Who planned this trip during the hottest time of the year? Oh yeah…us. We split into teams and ran (who am I kidding I walked) out onto the fields. I planned on hiding behind the closest barricade (mainly because it was the closest – but secondly because I thought if I was further away I wouldn’t get hit). My style of paintballing can be described as less precision shooting…more volume shooting. I just fired and fired and fired. Not really aiming at anything, because I couldn’t really see out of the mask anyways.

The first time I was shot…it was a hit to the head. Yes…you read that right. Adam fired away and orange paint splattered right onto the part of my head that wasn’t protected by a terribly ugly mask. I remembered to hold my hand up and I walked off the field. It didn’t hurt at all! I was super psyched about that. The next game started and I assumed my sniper position again. I was trying to aim at a kid that I thought was Craig. I totally got him. I would like to say that it was skill…but since I was merely shooting in his general direction and not expecting to hit anything I’m thinking it was luck. Still – pretty psyched about that good luck.

That feeling lasted approximately 2 seconds when all of the sudden I felt a burning sensation on my right arm. It felt like I had been stung by an entire hive of bees. The pain was excruciating for about five seconds, then it pretty much went away. And the kid wasn’t even Craig – but new kid Caleb. Apparently I shot him twice – once in the neck and once in the side – Welcome to the youth group Caleb!

We played a few more games after that. I got shot a few more times and did some more shooting of my own. By this time my internal body temperature had to have been around 212 degrees…my makeup had melted off my face…and my hair can only be described as tragic. As I sat on a little grassy hill watching the kids load their guns for the last game…I tried to decide if I should go ahead and throw up from heat exhaustion or try to play the last game with the kids. Afterall – I didn’t want to be a wimp at the very end. Totally should have. Once I put that mask back on my face, I felt like I was going to suffocate. Basically I sat behind the barricade and just pulled the trigger over and over and over. I was either going to hit someone or run out of paintballs. I didn’t care at that point.

Game over. A quick trip to McDonalds and then a devotion at the church ended the days youth activities. Eddie and I planned to go to his house and jump in the pool. Good plan – but what actually happened was a three hour nap instead. The next morning I realized that I had been hit a few more times that I had originally thought. My legs were so sore that I briefly considered staying in bed the entire day. But I didn’t. So yeah, I may have a few battle wounds, and my body temperature still hasn’t returned to normal…but I survived. And it was actually pretty fun :) Oh and if you’re still waiting on that after picture – wait on :)