Post-Holiday Relaxing

Thursday was a pretty awesome day. We get early release at work on the day before we're off for a holiday, so I was home before 2pm. We decided to go to the art museum to see our wedding photographer's (Steph Carson) photos hanging in the wedding exhibit they have going on right now. Yes, that's right, she has a ton of photos hanging in an exhibit at the Cincinnati Art Museum. 


So we go to the art museum and we're walking along and so exited to see the first grouping of her photos, and I look at the wall and my jaw drops and I just stare. Because I see this: 

I think Claire was in front helping/balancing me. Ladies--your backs are hanging in the art museum!

These are my bridesmaids!!!! I think it was cropped a little closer, and all her photos were in black and white, which was lovely. Brian tried to get a photo of me with it (there is very strictly NO photography in the exhibits) but he wasn't stealthy enough. The people watching the rooms have eagle eyes for this stuff. I have the original and that's good enough for me. :) (But for the record, if I had been in the photo, I'd be posting a pic of me with my photo right now hahaha. We would have fought security for that one!)


I've been renewing an interest in Groupon recently and got a $10 Groupon for $20 worth of pizza at Mt. Adams Pizza. When I was checking out on Groupon it said I had $10 worth of Groupon credit (I have no idea how I got that) so the Groupon was free! After the art museum we drove to Mt. Adams. It was way too early for dinner so we parked and just walked around. 


It sounds sad, but I've never walked around Mt. Adams. I've driven around it, but never actually been "in" it. It was warm out and the weather was beautiful. We looked at the gorgeous houses and all the crafty ways they get more space. And then we stood and looked out over the Ohio River for awhile and then looked out over the city skyline at the top of the steps at the Church of the Immaculata. We have such a beautiful city. Once it was about dinner time we walked back to Mt. Adams Pizza and got dinner to go and then came home. Streamed The Big Lebowski on Netflix on the TV (I had never seen it--pretty darn good!), ate dinner and relaxed. It was such a nice evening. Our beautiful tree was lit: 

You can see Finn in the bottom right guarding his precious.

And we had the candles going in the fireplace for the second time in almost two years. 

These will now be lit more often--so peaceful.

The cool thing about this day, besides getting to spend so much time with the husband, was the fact that it cost us $8 total. Yep, you read that right. $4 for parking at the art museum and a $4 tip to the owner of  the pizza place (since our meal was free from Groupon and all!). I was seriously impressed with us! 


Whoops. Just forgot. Brian ran out and got us milkshakes after the movie. Make that $15 for the entire day. Not quite as impressive as $8, but it'll do. :) Regardless, it made me realize that if you plan ahead (i.e. use Groupon, special discounts at places, free entertainment, coupons etc) you can really enjoy our city and have fun date days/nights for really cheap. I'm inspired and motivated to make this happen more often! 

PLAY

So the most recent series at church has been about PLAY (they had it in all caps so I feel compelled to do the same). And the last week was about how a day of rest was created for a purpose. And sometimes we just need to sit around and relax for our overall well-being. If you know me even a little bit you know that's incredibly hard for me to do, but I figured I'd give it a shot.


And I think I took it a bit too far. All our fall shows have started in the past two weeks or so, I've been pretty tired, and my business has been feeling a little overwhelming (lots of work + not so much sales = discouragement) and band season is well under way (etc. etc. insert more excuses here). And the moral of the story is I haven't been on my Etsy shop in a week. A whole week. Not a good feeling. So now I really need to get to work and nose to the grindstone and all that good stuff and get some items made and my name back in the rotation of new items on Etsy searches. When you value normal sleeping hours it's really hard to juggle so many jobs. But one thing is for sure--there will be much less tv watching in my future from here on out.


And speaking of the Etsy shop, there are so many things that one should do to fully promote one's store. It's exhausting. It's all such good advice but I simply do not have hours every day to dedicate to researching blogs and making connections and getting my name and products out on other people's blogs. It's such an important aspect but I don't know how to fit it in on top of actually making products to sell. I'll figure it out eventually.


In other news, did not get the job I applied for at my current company. I said from the start if I didn't get it then that means I'm supposed to stay where I am and pay off my student loans more quickly with the promotion/extremely generous raise I just got. But when you've been secretly hoping you got the job more than you've let on, and then you don't get it, it's very hard to put that in to practice and truly believe it. But, once those loan totals start slowly going down even more, I'll understand how exciting that can be--possibly even more exciting than starting a job that you would have loved and that could have propelled you on to other jobs you would have loved.


Everything happens for a reason and I'm sure there's lots for this one. Hope you all have had good weeks....it's almost Friday!!! LaSalle has their band invitational all day Saturday so I'll be the "Timing Judge" for that. (Sounds official...in reality not so much) :)