Oooohh!! So Excited!!!

Well, it's 12.40am and I've been waiting up for this moment (despite deep tiredness!)

I've gone and signed up for Elsie and Rachel's online class!!!!!!

Sign-up can be found in a number of places... Rachel Denbow's blog, Elsie Flannigan's blog, or the Red Velvet Art blog. I wouldn't recommend going through Elsie's blog because it seems to be a dead link - freaked me out for a moment but some gem in the comments section informed us of the alternatives!! Whew!!!

I'm soooo excited!! If anything, it just gives me a hardcore chance at really getting back into my craft!! Plus, I'll definitely learn new things - the list of 30 projects looks like so much fun!!

In honour of my registration (and hefty USD$60 fee... ouch!) I've started tidying up my craft area, readily awaiting February 15th - Kat and Andrew's engagement party!! ;) Also, that happens to be the starting date of class, but I DO have my priorities straight!!!

THIS is the puppy I want...

Nawwwwww!!! This little guy is a REAL puppy, born in Japan. I think I definitely want one JUST like this...

Snopes reference: http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/heartkun.asp

Hourly updates of the last 24 hours...

1pm yesterday: I ate my Mum's yummy chicken puffs for lunch!

2pm yesterday: I decided I still had the whole day ahead of me, and worked a little too thoroughly

3pm yesterday: I got to the end of a marathon run of form-writing, query following up, cheque signing, general accounting and stuff with my poor boss (who is technically on leave but had to come in for me)

4pm yesterday: I freaked out, realising just how much work I still had for the day

5pm yesterday: I was at work, madly trying to finish data entry (I did, 15 minutes late...)

6pm last night: I was in a car with Kat & Hatti, wondering what surprise-ful place we were going for dinner

7pm last night: I was eating bruschetta at Paradiso in Attadale (soon to be followed by some mouth-watering home-made pasta...!!)

8pm last night: I was at Gelare for half-price waffle-night with my ladies :) We were making big plans. MP3 this year is going to be OFF THE CHARTS!!

9pm last night: Still at Gelare, having recently unwrapped a particularly cool birthday present from the girls (A kikki k recipe folder... so cute! And perfect! Now my bridal shower recipes shall have a nice, big, comfy home!)

10pm last night: Kat drove me home, and of course we got chatting about all things fun, and I properly met her cool friend Lexie. Good work.

11pm last night: I came home to discover that the prickly plants which once hindered my lifestyle at home, had been lovingly ripped up by my GORGEOUS husband!

12am today: I turned 23!!

1am today: Thankfully I was asleep by this stage!!

........................

6.30am today: Serious snuggle-time with the husband, to the detriment of my getting-ready time! (But so worth it!)

7.30am today: I was washing my hair. Birthday girls have to look and smell their best!

8.30am today: I left for work, hair freshly blow-dried, feeling chipper.

9.30am today: I got to work, seething (but still with good hair). Yep, exactly one hour after departing on what I thought would be my usual half-hour trip. Roadworks suck balls, and there was way too many of them on my trip to work today. Thankfully, Mum was waiting for me at work, McMuffins and a frappe in hand. Yum!!!

10.30am today: I was following up some emails and queries. Nothing major.

11.30am today: I realised I had an hour till lunch :) So soon!!!

12pm today: I found out that an article I'm writing about my lovely friend Kirstin is going to be published not in our internal church newspaper (which has just been put on hold), but in the state-wide BAPTIST ADVOCATE!! So happy for her!!

12.30pm today: I headed out for yummy lunch with Mum, Dad and Steph. Groovin'!!

Currently: I am looking forward to Mexican for dinnerrrrrr!! Yes!!

Ohhhh....

*Sigh*

I

Really


Desperately


Want


My


Very


Own


Adorable


Puppy!


We have to wait till the house is ready, but I'm going nuts! I've gone all puppy-clucky!!

HELP!!!!

Whoa!!

There's another Klara Donovan out there!!

I've always had a unique name... Klara Jury really was one of a kind... but Facebook search has confirmed the strangest realisation I've ever had. Someone out there shares the exact same name as me. Weird!!!

My Take on 2009...

I want to start by making a confession. Do you know why I don't blog very regularly? It's because I hate the way my blogs look without a picture!! And I'm too lazy to put my pictures on the freakin' computer and upload them to my blog. So now you know my dirty secret...

Now that's off my chest - WELCOME TO 2009!! (Yes, it's been 2009 for 5 days now. And I've been enjoying my last few days of freedom before returning to work, so meh!!

The only pictures I could share with you are from this last weekend (the one above is my sister. We had lots of fun with Steph's underwater camera!!). Please expect to see these pictures interspersed throughout my dialogue, for no reason other than to provide extra visual stimulation.


Without further ado, I present my (in theory) goals for 2009 (New Years Resolutions are so tacky. This year I will just set goals. So different.)

1. To read at least 1 book per month
2. To save enough for a new bathroom
3. To have a set collection of work clothes
4. To plan our weekly dinners each Friday, and do the grocery shopping the next day
5. To create and stick to a budget
6. To prepare our house for a puppy
7. To go to church, Salt & Clarity with regularity again
8. To not lose touch with my friends (and prove that married people can still keep up with the rest of the world!!)
9. To be wayyyy more creative, and explore new things to try
10. To be the best damn wife out there!!!!
11. To make time to do with things with my family members
12. To make my hair great
13. To take more photos... of everything! (Using the sexy new camera I got from my sexy new husband for Christmas)
14. To have many friends over for dinner (1-2 at a time though!!)
15. To settle into my suburb (not fit in. I don't want to turn into a bogan!!) and get to know some of our neighbours
16. To convince Kat and Andrew to buy much, much closer to me than Canning Vale ;) (Probably won't happen, but a best friend can dream...?)
17. To make my life at work 1,000,000 times easier by keeping uber-organised!



Major bubble-age!!

So that's my list. Currently I'm at work hanging out for some lunch, and wishing I could've snuggled with my man for an extra hour before he went to work this morning. But such is life. You need to leave by 6.45 when it takes 1.5 hours to train & bus it to work :( Poor boy!!

The Jury's Out...

... Mrs Donovan is in the house!!!

So, I'm pretty much the laziest BUT I'm finally back, haunting the walls of my blog, ready to ramble. But first, (despite it being almost a month ago) I want to talk about my wedding...

You know how it sounds incredibly cliche to refer to any momentous occasion as 'the greatest day in my life'? Well. It literally was THE greatest day in my life.

The build-up was horrible. The pits. I pretty much didn't sleep the whole week beforehand. I stressed myself, my family, and my friends with the volume of stuff I had left to the last minute. I disliked my make-up trial. I was belittled by older women who thought it was funny that I would stress about something so trivial as a wedding. I cut my leg shaving at 4 in the morning on th day of the wedding. Yes, I shed blood in a sting-y, plentiful way, 12 hours before walking down the aisle. I had family issues, and in fact guest list issues as a whole. I had weekly nightmares of the wedding turning out horridly. In a bizarre twist, both my engagement ring and my wedding ring simply wouldn't fit on my finger the week of the wedding (the ladies in the jewellery shop looked horrified when I tried them on upon picking them up - and told me to come back next week to get them re-sized. It was that bad). Driving to the venue, I was on the verge of vomiting from the nerves, and upon getting out of the bridal car, I burst into tears and did not stop when I would have liked to.

But.

The moment that I saw Mr Christopher waiting there for me, grinning at me as I sobbed my way down that aisle, holding my Dad's hand, I knew the day would be perfect.

It was perfect because Chris cried during his vows (and made countless numbers of ladies cry too!!)

It was perfect because the sun was shining its brightest, at the end of a cold, rainy week.

It was perfect because I was surrounded and supported by my 4 best friends in he universe (and they all matched in little purple fairy dresses!!)

It was perfect because we were married by a man who I met on the first day I ever went to youth group, who has seen a huge chunk of my personal journey, who was even my boss at one point, and who I have nothing but lots of love and respect for!

It was perfect because there were paper lanterns and rose petals - Kirstin did the most amazing set-up job ever!

It was perfect because moments like a train blasting you out of audibility right before you start your vows, is what makes a wedding.

It was perfect because we definitely had the most adorable flower girl ever!!!

It was perfect because the only emotion I experienced all day was sheer, pure, unstoppable joy!

It was perfect because at the end of the day I drove off in a heavily 'decorated' Rav4 with the man who I am now going to spend the rest of my life with!!!

The couple of weeks after the wedding, I pretty much lived on Facebook, waiting for folks' albums to go up of the wedding, and what an amaing surprise - so many people took photos!! (The photo up the top was taken by Jared &/or Tenille).

So. Greatest day of my life. And they're not kidding when they warn you that it flies by and ends before you know it!!

People wonder whether it's weird to be married, to be living with a man, to go on holiday with a man, to be a wife. I'm floored by just how normal it all feels. I've been waiting for the moment where it actually hits, that life is suddenly 'different', and after 3 weeks of waiting, I've decided that if this moment hasn't hit yet, it's not going to. Everything feels normal. We may be living under the same roof now, but it's in a house that I've been painting and working on for the last two months, and is incredibly familiar. We may be living together now, but we haven't changed as people - he's still Chris, I'm still Klara. Bizarre, in a completely un-bizarre way. So there you go.

But anyway, enough rabbiting from me. I just felt as though my first post as a married woman should be significantly large. I will point out that now I'm uncertain what to do with my blog. See, I'm not Klara Jury any more, and therefore klarajury.blogspot.com is not all that fitting!! Will keep you posted on that issue...