Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Our Little Apartment

After writing my last entry I realized that we have been living in our apartment a year and a half and I have never taken any pictures of our first home! I want everybody who has never been here (especially our grandparents) to see our cute little apartment!



Here is our living/dining room! It is not really big but it is plenty of room for us!




My favorite part of the living room (minus the television!) My beautiful rocking chair, my sewing box, and my great great grandmother's Singer Sewing machine (the machine is really in there and when we move the TV will not be on top of it!)



Our table where we eat every meal!



My tiny little kitchen! It is nothing special but I can still cook yummy meals from there! (And it is easy to keep squeaky clean!)



My stainless steel pot rack! John David and I found this at a Goodwill the summer we were married and both really like it! I love it because it is a solution for the lack of cabinet space!




Since this "The Grand Tour" of our apartment I had to include the teeny, tiny bathroom!



Our bed with my beautiful quilt my Mama gave me as a wedding gift!



John David's boots at the foot of our bed! (A great cute storage solution!)



John David's favorite part of the house! His "studio" area! He can't wait for our new home and a room for all of his technology!



My work area, where I do Co-op work, homework, and where I am writing this! (I guess you could say it doubles as a vanity because my "makeup mirror" but I don't use it for makeup. It is a beautiful mirror and makes the area very girly!!)

February

It has been a while since I last wrote, I have stayed busy between school and work this past month!

School is going pretty good, I have had tests in all of my classes and I am doing well in all of them so far! The semester will be half over at the end of this week and our Spring Break is this coming week! We don't have any big plans for our break. We would like to go camping but that is completely dependent on the weather. (I would not enjoy sleeping in a tent if it is 40 degrees and rainy outside!)

We had our second Valentine's Day as a married couple and we weren't supposed to buy each other anything (at least that was the agreement!) I held up to my part of the agreement...he did not. I guess that is what good husbands do though! He bought me a Lodge Porcelain Enamel Cast Iron Dutch Oven in Blue (which is something I have been wanting for awhile) and he gave me a beautiful tulip! I was really excited about the tulip because it is so beautiful and makes me think of Spring and I am taking an Interior Plantscaping class this semester and I have a flower of my own to take care of!!




My beautiful tulip!!



On February 15th and 16th we attended the Tennessee Alumni Convention. That was a nice little weekend trip! We both competed in the Collegiate Contests while there, John David in Extemporaneous and I competed in the Agriculture Professions Interview. I also made the Collegiate FFA Scrapbook which took a long time but turned out great! As always we enjoyed this FFA trip because we were able to see our FFA family!



My plaques for winning the Scrapbook and Agriculture Professions Interview!

Last Tuesday the School of Agriculture had a career fair which we both attended. It was the first career fair that I have attended that I have actually seriously talked to anybody about a career! It is somewhat scary but very exciting at the same time! I talked to Farm Credit, UT Extension, and of course Co-op! I would love to work for Co-op so I would have happily just stopped there but if I don't get a job with them I want to know what else is out there and I think I would enjoy just about anything in the Agriculture field!

John David still hasn't secured a job but we are confident that God will work everything out and we completely trust in him for our future! He graduates May 3rd which is only 2 months away! I am really excited about something new especially a new place to live! I am getting tired of our apartment, it is not the size that bothers me, it is the little things like not having a sidewalk and having to trudge through the mud to get to my car, climbing stairs, and having neighbors that we can hear through the floors and walls! Oh how I long for the quietness of country life which I took for granted when I was at home! (Living in the middle of nowhere would be amazing!!)



A new picture of me!

Monday, February 4, 2008

A fun trip and a finished quilt!

This past weekend John David and I had the opportunity to attend the Young Leaders Conference in Pigeon Forge hosted by the Tennessee Council of Cooperatives and Young Farmers & Ranchers. We were sponsored by Tennessee Farmers Cooperative and I was also sent to work taking pictures of the conference. It certainly was a great working weekend in Pigeon Forge! We drove up Friday morning and drove into Gatlinburg to eat lunch at Parton's Deli (we both had Reuben's and they were delicious!) That afternoon we toured the Apple Barn and Old Mill with other conference participants. While we were at the Apple Barn, I enjoyed a wonderful fried apple pie and hot cider! The conference began that afternoon and we were busy attending sessions and I was taking pictures between sessions of other couples. Saturday afternoon we met Annette and Jill and went shopping with them which was a nice little outing. The conference ended Saturday night and we drove back to Cookeville to go to church Sunday morning!
John David and Me at the Young Leaders Conference
(This is the only photo of the conference I didn't take! 
Mr. Jerry Kirk took this one of us!) Be sure to look 
for us in an upcoming Cooperator!

Monday was a lovely day! All of my classes ended up being cancelled because professors were out of town and it was raining and it is hard to survey outside when it is rainy! I did not sleep in, although that would have been wonderful, instead I woke up before 8:00 and decided I was going to have a productive day! It was a productive day, I was able to work on a presentation, do some reading for school, study for a quiz, and get a few other things done that were neglected over the weekend since I was gone. 
 
The biggest accomplishment of Monday was finally finishing the quilt! I have just lacked the binding for over a week and I finally convinced myself to take the time to finish it! It looks really good, it is not perfect but it is my first quilt so I didn't expect perfection!

A view of the whole quilt!

A close up view of the patchwork! 

My quilt, folded up on my blanket chest!

A full size view of me and my quilt!
(I can't believe I made it, all by 
myself!)

This is my TA-DA!


Frugal Hackers badge