Go Brewers! Brew that...beer...?

Yesterday was something out of the ordinary--I actually got to spend most of the day with

my husband, and we could go out and do something without breaking the Sabbath! The Milwaukee and Madison offices are apparently the top sellers in the company, and they won an incentive to be taken in limos to a Brewers baseball game at Miller Park. (Milwaukee is so all about beer. It's really kind of disgusting. Notice the guy selling it on the top right.) So two Expedition limos rolled up and picked us up (the wives who could make it were invited along), and I rode in a limo for the first time. It was very cool, but not worth paying for. They took us to a ritzy mall where we pretty much only had time to eat lunch, then they dropped us off at the game. It was fun seeing everyone outside staring, probably wondering what famous/rich people were high-rollin, and then to see their faces when a bunch of rowdy 20-somethings piled out. We definitely had fun playing with the radio and complaining that there was ice and goblets but no beverages, talking about non-existent stocks, etc. Why does rap music in a limo make you feel like a high-roller? "The Humpty-Hump" is such a bad song, but it has the best beat, and I just felt cool listening to it.

The game was cool...but not literally. It was SO FREAKIN muggy for awhile, we all splurged on frozen soft lemonades and Jason fanned us both with a Pinnacle sign he had in his binder. He's so sweet like that. It did cool down after a little while, but this guy with the grey hair right in front of us was eating peanuts, and what happens from eating protein kept happening every so often and wafting right up our noses. GROSS. What can you do but point the fan at him and laugh though. Hopefully he doesn't see this. :)

One sad thing was how raggedy and unkempt a lot of the people looked, and the sheer amount of alcohol that was being consumed at that game. Do you really have to have a beer or a hard lemonade to have a good time? Not to mention all the disgusting nachos and...actually, I need to stop, there's no point in worrying about things you can't control. I do that too much.

Not much else to report. The garden's doing pretty well. The cherry tomato plant is monstrous. It's awesome. Can't wait for all of the tomatoes to actually turn red. My latest scheme is to try to learn enough about floral design to work in flower shops for awhile, then with the experience I get, do flowers for weddings. So far, not a lot of luck, but I'm not giving up yet. I talked to Brother Lang who owns the flower shops (was SO scared to do it, didn't want to bug him again), told him what I have in mind, and he said that although things are really slow for florists in general in this area right now, he'll try to find opportunities to help me. I want to try to get a job at Michaels, namely in the floral design dept. Dang temp agency is doing squat for me, except making me look stupid and lazy because while I wait for them to call me, I still have no job.

Oh well. Whatever will be will be.

How can the world be bad when there are an aqua-blue towel and a ripe cherry tomato in it?

Things have been good, but still a little hard. Sales have not been plentiful, the temp agency has not found a job for me. I'm trying harder to make up for my lack of job (and lack of desire for one, to be quite frank) by being a better housekeeper, and my garden is doing well. The first cherry tomato will probably be ripe enough to pick by tomorrow, though I'm not sure I want to pick it. Two months of willing it to grow and turn red, just to pop it in my mouth for two seconds of rapture before it gets mixed up with all the acids in my stomach? I wish I could frame it. And I think there might be actual tiny pods forming on the snap pea plants! Plus I have sixteen snapdragons growing, and one tall cornflower that should bloom soon. So it may not be worth the investment financially, paying for seeds, soil, pots, and cages, but I love my new hobby. I could hang out there with my plants all day. (Don't worry, though. I don't talk to them or anything. Much.)

That's really what I wanted to say--what I have to be grateful for. Yeah, this is not the miracle job we thought it would be, where you earn oodles of money right off. Maybe that can still happen before the summer's over. But we're doing okay. We pay our tithing, we try to be very frugal, and everything always comes out okay. We have so much to be grateful for.

I've made a new policy: I try to go out of the apartment (in the car, anyway) as little as possible, and I try to stay completely away from places where I want to spend money unnecessarily. I try not to even drive by them. Why bother going to Target, Kohl's, or even Wal-Mart except when I really need to? I just get discouraged at all the stuff that I see and can't buy. At first I was trying to be super wife, making a nice meal every night. But it's really not so terrible to have just a can of chili for dinner, or a grilled cheese sandwich, and have a nicer dinner maybe 2-3 times a week. I haven't been grocery shopping in maybe two weeks, but before I was always "needing" something else, some ingredient to some new dish I wanted to make, or some snack food it just seemed natural to have, and it sure added up.

Yesterday I worked out with Jason before he went to work. That was awesome. Then I talked to my mom for an hour and a half, took care of my garden (yay!), put on my swimsuit, and went to the pool. I even took a small, healthy lunch with me. There's something about eating outdoors. I have a pretty aqua-blue towel that I bought for swimming (about the color of this font, in case you missed the connection), and just looking at it, and sitting in the warm sunshine with a good book from the library made me happy. Yeah, eventually we'll need more if we want to start a family, but for now, so much in life is good. Most especially Jason. I never in my life thought I would land such a wonderful, caring, loving husband. How can I be truly unhappy, knowing I have him?

I really need to start a gratitude journal. I spend too much time worrying, and not enough time counting my blessings. I think this was my first entry.