new york fund

I am saving up a little extra cash for NYC. As you can see, I am keeping it in a piggy bank. Last night, Matt suggested that we put it in the real bank "so nothing happens to it." I responded, "What? Are you afraid someone is going to break into our house and steal it or something?" You might not be surprised to find out that he is actually just afraid that I am going to steal it.

little nephew

This is Peej. Just before he got in this odd looking position he said, "I have to poop." I asked him if that was how he pooped and he said, "Yeah." He lied, though. He ended up just doing somersaults.

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What a sweet smile! BTW, I taught him to say, "Uncle Matt's a ding dong."

for the Love of God!!

Two reasons boasting in the Love of God in Christ is not arrogant:

1. Because you know that you did not do one thing to deserve it.
2. Because you know that he loves the next person just the same.

blows my mind

It's easy to believe in a God that forgives you when you make mistakes for the first time or in difficult situations. But it's mind-boggling to believe that he loves and forgives even when we should have known better.

terrible

Depressing: The mileage sign right by the exit to our house on I-35 that says "Austin, 15."

Depressing: My putt-putt score of 45, which is considered "amateur par." I actually cheated to get this score.

Depressing: Matt knows the words to the water conservation song that the Austin Water Utility has put on the radio.

more mattisms

Well, it's way past my bedtime, and I can't sleep. So, I will do my favorite thing, which is to tell you more exciting things about Matt. One thing you may not expect about Matt (since he is very responsible and dependable) is that he loses things ALL THE TIME. I'm telling you, the man needs a purse!

I can't possibly begin to tell you how many times he has "lost" his wallet. The first time was our freshman year of college in the CiCi's parking lot in College Station. I remember frantically looking for it all over the place and then finding out it had fallen behind a seat in his car. At this point, I had no idea that losing things was such a common occurrence or I wouldn't have gotten so worried.

Now the story goes a little differently. It usually starts with Matt telling me in a somewhat unsettled tone, "Hmm... I don't know where my [fill in the blank] is..." And my response is usually either to ignore him altogether or to reassure him that he will find whatever it is that he lost this time. I NEVER get frantic when he loses things anymore.

Twice now, I have spotted Matt's belongings on the side of the road while driving. The first time was right after we got married, and it was a pair of shoes that had fallen off the car on his way to work. The second time was about 8 weeks ago, and it was his Ray Ban sunglasses which had also fallen off his car. I must admit that we knew those were lost, and I was actually looking for them on the side of the road. (They were barely visible- sticking out under a pile of leaves.)

In the past month he has "lost" his wallet twice. The first time it was (thankfully) turned in at Whole Foods. The second time he just forgot that he had left it at home.

I find it funny that he has never managed to lose the crackberry.

someone help me figure out my husband

I want to take this opportunity to tell you something about Matt that I have recently discovered but find very odd. When it comes to food, Matt can be very hard to please. The reason is that (this is my recent discovery) he won't eat the same thing twice in one day. So, he was still hungry the other night after dinner, and I pointed out that he could have a waffle and eggs, and he declined because he had that for breakfast. We had the same incident yesterday afternoon. He wouldn't eat a granola bar because he had already had a granola bar in the morning. I don't get it because, you see, this is the guy who has been eating the exact same lunch every day for the last 6 years. So what's the big deal about repeating a food on the same day? I am really not sure.

I have a lot more Matt stories to come. He is very different than you might expect.

P.S. Some of you may have already seen the "good-morning" picture of Matt that I posted. After thinking about it, I decided that I probably wouldn't want him to put really terrible pictures of me on our blog, so I took it off. Sorry, you who were not on top of things... you missed out on some great entertainment.

mean duck, glass window, spelling test

Poor Matt has gotten the brunt of my humor the last few posts. So I thought I'd take an opportunity to make a little fun of myself, and tell you 3 things that happened this weekend.

1. The mean duck. We went to the Arboretum with my nephew on Saturday to see the ducks. We were walking around the pond, and I was just walking innocently when all of the sudden... a terribly ugly duck started chasing me! And he was freaking scary! All I could think was, "Holy crud, this duck is about to start pecking at me." So, I did what any 24 year old would do... I started screaming and crying! Haha. Of course, Matt was laughing.

2. The glass window. Today, Matt and I were leaving the gym, and the whole front entrance is covered in glass. I was inside, looking up at the sky (because of course we were talking about the weather), and before I knew it I had face planted into the glass window. Just straight up walked right into it. I guarantee I had NO idea it was there. Matt's response was, "Really? You didn't see that?" Nope, sure didn't.

3. Spelling test. Matt works for a property management company, and because I am a good wife, I volunteered to take minutes for him at a home owner's association meeting last week. Today he was helping me condense/edit the minutes, and he found a couple of misspelled words. They were: "gesture" (spelled "jester"), and "cul-de-sac" (spelled "coldosac"). I've never claimed to be a good speller.

Moving on. The next few days should be sunny with a high in the mid to upper 90s. Also, you and Matt can all celebrate because the hottest part of the year is behind us.

A real conversation

Leah: "Since we aren't moving, can we go ahead and work on our house because there are a lot of things I want to change?"

Matt: "Like what?"

Leah: "Like everything."

Matt: "Like what specifically?"

Leah: "Like, specifically... everything."

Matt: "Oooohhh. This is what I love about you."

Leah: "And also, we will need to hire contractors because I don't know if you know this but I am not really a do-it-yourself type person..."

Matt: "Oh really? I had no idea."

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Newsflash! It is pouring down rain, and yes, I just caught Matt looking at the radar again!

more proof

(read previous post first!)

first thing matt said at dinner tonight = "did you see the radar today?" He wasn't kidding.

five seconds ago... "let's check the radar." also not kidding.

hahaha. I love Matt.

the other thing i forgot to mention is that matt gets even more disappointed when it doesn't rain or when it's too humid than i do... and he complains about it also. okay. enough about weather. no more. the end.

how many times a day does Matt check the weather?

Matt LOVES to check the weather. I mean LOOOOOVES it. He checks the weather almost as frequently as he checks fantasy baseball, ESPN, and his e-mail combined. Never in my life have I known so precisely the chance of rain at a given hour, but thanks to Matt I now know. (Poor Matt. Sooner or later he's going to have to contribute to this blog to defend himself or at least make fun of me somehow!)

One thing you should know about me is that I try really hard not to have expectations. I'm not saying that I try to have low expectations; I just mean that I try to not have any expectations at all. If you're expectations are too high, you constantly get disappointed, and if they are too low, then that's a whole other problem that I don't have time to get into. Anyway...

This obsessive weather checking thing has inevitably created expectations. How can it not? And since meteorologists are overly optimistic when it comes to highs and lows and chances of rain, I am increasingly disappointed... I have found myself saying things to Matt like, "The more you want it to rain, the less likely it is to rain." Also known as looooow expectations and extreme pessimism.

Since Matt's love for weather.com and weather on the eights and the weather channel aren't going away anytime soon, I will have to learn to live with predictions while not succumbing to expectations.

Anyway... that's all I really have to say. And, take heart. If you are ever without access to weather information, you can ALWAYS call Matt.

To Do

Love
Be Loved

Peej!!!

Next week we will be taking our semi-annual birth control. (That is, a week babysitting for my nephew who I looooove... but don't kid yourself, it's still birth control.) His parents don't blog about him, so I thought I'd give him a little tribute on the world wide web.



We are trying to figure out if he will be on the football team or in the marching band. Or he could pull a Matt and play varsity sports AND pursue musical interests.



This is at his 2nd birthday party in H-town.

the meat thermometer

Santa (aka my mom) likes to buy us stocking-stuffers from the dollar store. The latest and greatest stuffer? A meat thermometer. Needless to say, this dollar store gem did not last very long. However, the dollar-store version made us aware of our need for a "real" one. So...

I went out and bought a $20 one... you know, nothing too fancy, but still 20 times more expensive than the old one. I was actually excited about it, especially because Matt doesn't get toys very often, and this was sort of like a new toy for him.

Well, you can understand then that when he told me "I don't like our new meat thermometer... it really sucks," that I was feeling like a bit of a failure. That is until we had some friends over to grill out one night and they showed him HOW TO USE IT...

Turns out that Matt didn't realize that the fancy thermometer has a cover... so for about 3 months, he's been sticking the thermometer in the meat with the cover on it. No wonder it sucks! I have attached a picture of the old thermometer, the new thermometer with a cover and the new thermometer without the cover... for those of you who appreciate visuals!

big apple here we come!!!

December 18th-23rd we will be traveling to NYC for a little Christmas Spectacular of our own! I am super-pumped.

you'd think we don't have a shoe rack...

But we absolutely do have a shoe rack. We also have two shoe closets. Matt hates all of them. Based on this post, you might also think that I don't have a life...

beginning to rub off!!

Get excited...Matt is becoming a little more Leah-like! (Should I be happy or nervous? Probably nervous.) Yesterday morning, after being at work for about 45 minutes, Matt decided that "work really sucks." This conclusion propelled him to leave work for about an hour at 9AM to go mosey around in the Arboretum. I am so proud...but I don't know if our family can survive with two Leahs.

great sinner, Greater Savior

One look at all of my shortcomings, failures, trespasses, and I am tempted to despair. But I hear the Lord telling me that his blood is enough to cover it all, and that his great love reaches higher than the mountains. I hear him telling me that I can rest. "Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He's asking me to be more obsessed and enamored with the Great Savior whose blood paid the price for my sin than I am with the greatness of the sin itself.

oh Sarah

me: sarah just called me back
rachel: yay
she isn't ignoring!
me: she just called a farm
rachel: what
3:06 PM me: that the maker's diet suggested
rachel: a farm?
for what?
me: like dwight's beet farm
3:07 PM rachel: for advice on food or something? i am lost
me: she wants to make sure it's "legit"
3:08 PM before they start delivering weekly goat yogurt
oh my gosh
hahahahaha
she thinks that she's normal
or "semi-normal"
3:09 PM rachel: that is the weirdest thing i have ever heard
how are we friends?

Well look at what the cat brought in...

This morning I was rummaging through some old journals, and I found... the quote book! Let me introduce you to the quote book.

The quote book first came into our lives in December of 2002.
It was my first ever Christmas present to Matt.
Its purpose was to record "all of the ridiculous comments that come out of people's mouths." (Matt Gibson)
And some of it's pages read:

"Rach isn't gonna worry about the whole dating thing. She's going straight to the 'F' word." - Sarah Michel (Apparently the "F" word in this sentence was supposed to be fiancee.)

"Well, at least we know I am not invincible anymore." - Matt Gibson, College Station after a failed attempt to leap over a pile of mud in which he fell while simultaneously spilling a blueberry smoothie all over himself. The funny thing about this incident is that apparently Matt did not know he wasn't invincible beforehand.

"I hate when people give me pity wins!" - Me (Leah), after losing a game of Connect Four to Matt that I thought I had won.

"Some days I wake up and I feel like I'm rotting." - Rachel Rogers Erwin

"Hold on... tilt your head up. Yep, you look like a Cabbage Patch Kid." - Me, referring to Matt's hairline/face shape.

"It's not that I don't like them; they're just not my kind of people. I have people!" - Andrew Erwin

You're welcome.

Luke 18:13

the longer i live, the more i pray this prayer...

"LORD, have mercy on ME, a sinner!"