Some internet favorites

I just wanted to really quickly share two sites which have kind of captured my attention lately--

One is dafont.com, a site with hundreds of unique, free fonts. I was briefly infatuated with this site during the wedding planning, but kind of forgot about it after the invites were sent out. Now, I'm itching for projects to use some of my newest font acquisitions. If you look long enough, you'll find everything from old school typwriter, rubber stamp and chalkboard to graffiti and comic-book based fonts. It is awesome!

The other is wordle.net, a fun little site that allows you to make cool little word clouds like this one from one of my previous posts:

All you have to do is enter your words and it'll generate one of these--then you can change the font, color scheme and word orientation until it looks the way you want. The only bad thing about this site is that you can't easily do anything with the word cloud once you've made it--I had to take a screen shot of mine in order to use it in this blog. But it's still cute! I assume the site's makers will eventually make it more user-friendly too.

Baking and biking and growing

In the past weeks, our weekends have retreated into a pattern. Saturday mornings involve waking up late, cozying up on the couch watching DIY Network transform cringe-worthy bathrooms (albiet usually nicer than our own) into little private oases of tile and excess, and dreaming about a house of our own someday. I laze the morning away wrapped in blankets while Jared cooks pancake masterpieces in the kitchen. 

And in the afternoons, we bake. This week Jared cooked up a recipe combining two of his all-time favorite foods--bread and peanut butter. He found this recipe for peanut butter bread here, and though it didn't turn out exactly as hoped, he was pretty happy with the results.

For anyone out there who enjoys photos of food (*ahem Katie*) here's a picture of the bread:

And then we had a special treat on Sunday--homemade strawberry shortcake. 

The strawberries were early and not quite perfect, and the biscuits were a bit too healthy, but all in all it made me miss summer :)

Fortunately, this Sunday was a beautiful sunny day in Vancouver. I took this picture as proof:

On Sunday, Jared and I headed downtown Vancouver with our friends Jared and Elise to bike around and see the beautiful cherry trees in blossom. It was beautiful, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that more than just trees were blooming--there were daffodils and tulips and some little blue forget-me-nots that made me smile and wish I had a garden plot. 

It was a pretty beautiful day. I'm not that much of a big city girl, but something about Vancouver really is spectacular--in one glance you get city skyline, ocean and mountains. And, of course, odd statues:

We biked for a while, weaving through tourists and locals and dogs. And for a couple minutes we stopped to just put our faces in the sun. 

It was a lovely little spring getaway. And this morning, as I drove to work in rain and slush and even a little sloppy snow, I was glad to have soaked in that sun. 

Rumor has it, folks back in Michigan are experiencing some similar spring let-downs :)

Oh, and one more point of pride from this weekend:

I have created life. Ok, not so much :) But I have planted a tiny little window-sill herb garden, and this weekend I was overjoyed to see the first little sprinkles of basil shoot up. Since Saturday, they've grown a little bit taller every day, and have grown into a special itty-bitty place in my heart. Traditionally, I'm not so gifted with keeping plants alive...but these will be different. They will thrive. 

Hopefully :)

Happiness is this right here

Well it looks like, somehow, the news got out. I was waiting until it was 100% sure to share, but like most good news, people have found out anyway. Over the next couple months, Jared and I will be slowly adjusting to a new way of life--one that involves little sleep, busy days, and a house that might have crumbs left on the counters, dirty dishes in the sink and piles of clothes on the floor. It will be a trying time, full of many changes, but it will be worth it. We are excited. We are overjoyed.

 ...

BECAUSE I GOT A JOB!!!

...

Hahaha, that was fun :) I love the power of words to be deceptive. So for those of you who haven't heard, I am the new Copy Editor of Publications at Logos Bible Software! Having completed my first "week" at work (I'm working 30 hours over the course of three days) I can safely and surely say that I love my job! Logos is a wonderful company, and as my department has grown from one person to a staff of five over the past year, there are tons of opportunities for advancement and new projects to undertake....which is really exciting. The only minor inconvenience is that the company is located in Bellingham, Washington, so in addition to a bit of a commute I get to chat with border crossing guards twice a day. But the job is so worth it. Thank you all for your support, encouragement and prayers! This job is exactly what I've been dreaming of!

This weekend, Jared and I are looking forward to some to some nicer weather and a chance to get out and explore! Last weekend, we went to an area called Buntzen Lake. It was a slightly rainy day, but we decided to morph into true north-westerners --which means we donned our raincoats and hiked through the rain. We ended up missing our intended trail (we have a habit of doing that), but when we back tracked and saw what we had missed, we decided to come back another day. So this Saturday we're returning there with a group of YL leaders. We're looking forward to some mossy trees, stunning views and waterfalls.

A lesser known fact about the city of Vancouver is that it is supposed to be magnificent in the spring when its numerous cherry trees are in blossom. We're looking forward to traveling into the city with Jared and Elise to check out the trees, and possibly wander around Stanley Park.

Happy April everyone!