Move over Volvo.....Here comes the Tiguan!

My new obsession....

Isn't she sooooo pretty?

Christmas Pants

A Brown family tradition.....Christmas Pants!


Each original Brown has a pair, and now the in-laws do too! This past Christmas, Nate, Mitch, and I received our very own pairs of Christmas Pants. We're officially part of the family Christmas Pants club!

Time for an UPDATE!

It's about time we updated, huh? It's been so long since our last post that I'm just going to give an all out life update. Get ready to hear what we've been up to since January.....

I turned 24 in January. Not that big of a deal, but I did get the best birthday present ever! 

Tada! Isn't she pretty? I've taken up sewing again. The last time I really spent any time sewing was in elementary school with Liz and Erin - we made some pretty hilarious things. My favorite was a vest I made in second grade out of fabric that looked like the cover of a National Geographic magazine - very realistic lions. I have no idea why I picked it, but I was so proud to wear it to school and show everyone.... How embarrassing! Anyway, I LOVE my new machine. Sewing has quickly become my new favorite hobby. So far I've made....

a baby quilt for my friend Kirsten's little girl

a purse/tote for my sister's birthday

and curtains for our bedroom (I still have some improvements I want to make to them). All in all, I'm loving the new hobby!

We celebrated our one year anniversary in March! Hard to believe that we've been married for over a year now. Time sure flies when you're having fun! We celebrated by spending the weekend on the plaza and eating at lots of fun, fancy places. It was so wonderful to get away and spend an entire weekend enjoying being married. I'd do it all over again if we could!

Let's see....what's next? Zach turned the big 25! I tried to make it special for him by asking 25 of his closest friends and family to write honoring letters. I compiled all the letters into a book and gave them to him. It was sure fun to read through them all together! I hope he enjoyed this year's present as much as last year's (a remote control helicopter). Zach sure has wonderful people in his life!

Life since March has been fairly routine. We've been playing a lot of cribbage and watching Wheel of Fortune. I know it sounds pretty lame, but we have a lot of fun doing it! Sometimes I even drink hot tea.... Does that make me old? Since the weather's gotten nice, we've been going on what we call "run/walks" together after work. They generally tend to include more walking than running, but it's great to spend time outside together. 

I got new running shoes last week! This might not be exciting news to anyone else, but I'm pumped! They're pretty humongous. I went to one of those fancy stores where they analyze your foot shape and watch you walk. Apparently my toes need lots of room to wiggle, especially if I'm planning to run long distances, which I'm trying to do. Last week I ran a total of 15 miles! It's not that much, but it's a great start! I'm contemplating if I want to register for any races....Who knows! The road is my oyster, I guess.

That's about it for our life update. I know it included more about my life than Zach's, but if he refuses to blog, I can write more about myself, right? Maybe he'll get on here one of these days and grace us with some words!

Just for fun, I'll leave you all with a WONDERFUL picture sent to me last year by the beautiful Sally Jane....

I broke my husband's heart last night...

I was the one who had to break the bad news that ponies are, in fact, not baby horses.

He didn't believe me. 

We were laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, and he had to go get his phone to look it up on Wikipedia. After reading the Wikipedia entry for ponies, he was still skeptical. He googled "baby horses" just to be sure.

I'm not even joking, I think he lost sleep over the discovery. 

This is why I love the elderly.

I know it's been a LONG time since we updated....me in particular. I promise I will soon. I have lots of fun new projects to share, but for now, I leave you with this....

Cartoon Fridays! #2

First off, we need a different title for this if its going to be a wildly popular weekly item (though how "wildly popular" could it be with only 2ish people who read our blog). Aren't reoccuring things supposed to have catchy names that draw people in? And by catchy names, I mean alliteration? Here are some ideas for the new title going forward:


Friday Funnies
Humorous Humdingers
End-Of-The-Week Entertainment
Last-Of-The-Week Laughables

Before you say anything, the answers are: yes, I found a thesaraus; yes, the last two are incredible lame; and yes, I need help. Please help me.


Letme know if you have any ideas of what I could name this. Remember how important this is, we're saving the world.

And now: an oldie, but a goodie.

Slumdog Millionaire

Everyone else has a post about this movie.  They're all very insightful breaking down the movie.

I'm not that deep.  But it was good.  One of my favorites of all time.

Right behind Top Gun and the Blade trilogy.

Psych

Please, just watch this show when it comes back on air.

It will make you happy.

a little taste of married life...

Most nights, Zach reads a book or magazine in bed before he falls asleep. I usually fall asleep right away (sometimes before Zach even gets into bed), but he needs more time to wind down than I do. The other night, his reading material of choice happened to be Cooking Light. I teased him a little (naturally), and told him that I liked how domestic he had become. He responded (in an overly exaggerated deep voice), "You mean manly domestic....(voice reverted to baby talk here) Come cuddle with me!" Isn't he so manly?

I just love being married!

Saturday Interview

Kristen and I are sitting outside Starbucks on this beautiful Saturday afternoon sipping on an iced soy latte, one pump chocolate, no ice (Kristen) and a sugar free non fat cinnamon dolce latte (me).  Apparently we had a contest to see who could order the item with the longest name...I am such a girl.

Anyway, in honor of this beautiful day in January and in an effort to get some insight into my beautiful wife, we’ll be interviewing Kristen today.

Zach:  "Kristen, what is the best thing going for you right now?"

Kristen:  "Hope.  I have a lot of things going for me, but I’m also tired right now.  So I just don’t want to lose hope."

Z:  "That’s a good perspective.  In three words, describe this last month for you."

K:  "Endurance.  Stress.  Hope."

Z:  "Explain 'endurance'."

K:  "Well, the first half of December seemed really long.  I was working a lot of hours, and my body was holding a lot of stress.  But I still feel like God was saying that He was with me and that He would ever give me more than I can handle.  So even though, there were times when I felt like I couldn’t handle things, I felt like God was faithful and really teaching me endurance."

Z:  "Would say that my hospital visit and diagnosis contributed to any of this?"

K:  "Probably.  But that didn’t add stress to me.  As much as I felt a lot of sadness for you,  I didn’t necessarily stress out about the diagnosis.  I was in one sense relieved to have an answer to why you were losing weight, to know that you’d be ok.  But I did feel sad for you and I felt like I wanted to be strong for you."

Z:  "Well you did a great job.  I feel like last month could have been a lot harder for me if you had a different reaction."

K:  "Thanks, babe."

Z:  "Ok, moving on from 2008, tell me how you feel going in to 2009?"

K:  "Excited to make the most of things."

Z:  "Going back, do you feel like you’ve learned a lot from last month?"

K:  "Mmhmm.  I do."

Z:  "Endurance being the biggest one?"

K:  "And more specifically, that God’s plans for my life are so much bigger than the things that I settle for.  And I know that while things feel stuck right now, I know I can trust that God won't let me get stuck.  And that gives me hope.  That what I’m going through right now is preparation for something bigger."

Z:  "How has this last months helped/hurt/changed our relationship?"

K:  "I think it’s definitely helped it.  I just feel like we’ve grown a lot.  We’ve faced harder things in the past month, than in the rest of our marriage.  I’ve just been amazed by your strength, I think it’s been good for us. And I like her sweater (looking at girl walking into starbucks)."

Z:  "Thanks.  That can be all for now."

K:  "Thanks, Zach.  I'd just like to say one more thing.  You are just the most awesomest guy ever.  You are totally the coolest guy I know.  I love your hair.  Everyone loves your hair".

Ok, fine.  I made up that last quote...but I'm sure she was thinking it.

The bottom line, and I think what Kristen is saying in my interview, is that while the end of 2008 was tough, we're looking ahead to 2009 with optimism.  We're excited to see what God has in mind for us this year and going forward.  We just want to make sure that we're open for whatever.

Cartoon Fridays!

As far as I can remember I've read the comics in the KC Star as often as possible. I subscribed to the Star throughout college and when I moved back solely for this purpose. I love to start my days with a little Dilbert, Blondie, and Get Fuzzy. While I rarely laugh out loud or even smile when reading them, there's still just something about them that makes me happy.

Sadly, when my subscription to the Star ran out last year, I decided not to renew it. Since then I've been living a boring, mundane life as a shell of a man.* I just realized why: no comics in my life. And guess what else I just realized? Hardly anyone reads the comics anymore!!! That would explain why you've been feeling a little melancholy (admit it, you have), why the economy is tanking, why consumer confidence is at an all time low, why there's conflict in the Gaza Strip, and that's probably why we're still in Iraq and looking for Bin Laden.

So without further ado, to save myself, you, and the world: I give you the first installment Cartoon Fridays!

-Zach


*Not Really

A Little Experiment to Ring in the New Year

Happy 2009 everyone! Zach and I had a great time last night celebrating the New Year with good friends. It was so much fun to spend time with the girls I love so much, however, I was slightly disappointed that NONE of them had heard of the Diet Coke and Mentos phenomenon! I'm hoping that some of you (possibly the 2 people who read this blog) have heard of it....

Yesterday, in preparation for a late night, I took a nap that went on for a little too long. I woke up so groggy, that I needed some diet coke to get me going. I normally don't drink pop, so it was kind of a big deal. Anyway, I was getting ready to go to dinner, drinking my diet coke, and thinking about how I really wanted some mentos (I had some in my purse from my Christmas stocking). Then, I remembered the dangerous combination! I honestly contemplated conducting my own little experiment - popping a mentos in my mouth and taking a little sip of diet coke - to see what would happen, but I chickened out. 

This is the part in the blog where I ask for participation....Should I have tried it? Would I have died? Has anyone tried it before? What happened? What do you think would have happened? Oh I'm so curious and so nervous all at the same time!

I'm eager to hear your thoughts!

Kristen

Goals

I’m going to change my way of thinking for 2009.  I’m going to become a person of routine.

I’d be an idiot not to contribute my new way of thinking to my brief stay in the hospital and my new diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes.  The thing is, instead of getting me down, it has only inspired me to become a more disciplined and effective person.  I think Diabetes has given me this mindset because 1) I have no choice, routine will be very important to me and my eating habits/future health and 2) I’m too shallow to contemplate my mortality or how this will effect my life forever.  So since I’m not focusing on the downside, the only choice I have is to be focused on the only thing I can control in my life: routine.

I realize that routine is not for everyone.  Some people are great at being productive in general without planning out a single thing, discipline is built into their personalities.  I’m not one of those people.  So I’ll need to set goals that will stretch me, and then set routines to help me achieve those goals.  See below for my new set of goals, including explanations and how I’ll reach them.  I’ll try to be as specific as possible.  You’ll notice the underlying theme of “just be freaking disciplined” to all of them.  I figure that, while no one actually reads our blog, having these out on the internet for anyone to see will help motivate me to keep my goals.

1)     Diabetes

What:  When I was diagnosed I had a blood glucose level of 542. A healthy diabetic should average between 100-140 or so.  I was a little off.

Goal:  My obvious goal is to get to that range and stay there with as little deviation as possible.

How:  Test my blood sugar before and after meals and before bed.  Keep a chart of those so I can see trends.  Stay disciplined when it comes to eating (eat right)

2)    Organization

What:  Now that Kristen and I have completed our first calendar year together, I realized that living jointly is a little different than living as a bachelor.  Now we have to keep track of joint bills, joint expenses, joint schedules and joint messes.  There’s also the new barrage of prescriptions, doctors appointments, daily vitamins, and sugar vs. sugar free snacks, oh and throw in work, and there’s the potential to go crazy keeping track of our lives

Goal:  Get and stay organized

How:  Go through mail, follow up on and file bills, immediately. Keep track of all medical expenses, appointments, and prescriptions in an excel spreadsheet so there are no surprises. Continue to keep track of bills and budget in Excel. Do something to clean the apartment everyday to avoid overwhelming messes

3)    Fitness

What:  Exercise is so important for so many reasons.  It helps my confidence level, gives me energy, keeps me healthy, and with diabetes it is even more important.  Also, one side effect to the months of me living with Diabetes and not knowing it was that I lost some weight, and while not a healthy or preferred way of doing so, this is proof that every cloud has a silver lining.  While I’m ok with gaining some of it back, I kind of like being a little slimmer and (I’m superficial ok!) I’d like to keep my weight down

Goal:  Get and Stay fit

How:  Go to the gym 4-5 times a week before work (we’ll see if the “before work” part lasts). Do cardio for at least 30 minutes. Develop a weight lifting plan.

4)    Spiritual Life

What:  This encompasses a lot, but in general I want to be more disciplined when it comes to this part of my life

Goals:  Spend more time reading the bible Spend more time listening Spend more time praying for others Spend more time preparing for Epic and things I’m involved in

How:  Set aside time every day to pray, listen, read, etc

5)     Marriage

What:  Obviously, I already kick butt as a husband to Kristen (no need to ask her directly, just take my word for it…).  Though I am humble enough to realize that I’m not perfect and 9 months isn’t enough time to perfect our relationship

Goal:  Be a better husband

How:  Ask Kristen about her day and then set aside time to list to her. Talk more about my “feelings” and “emotions”. Pray together every day. Try to figure out how she likes to be served best and do that.

This past year has had a lot of highs and lows (apparently more highs than lows when it comes to blood sugars), but I have a feeling that 2009 is going to kick ass!

 

 

 

To Goal or Not to Goal

“The great and glorious masterpiece of man is to know how to live on purpose.”

-Michel de Montaigne

“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.”
-Fitzhugh Dodson

“If you're bored with life -- you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things -- you don't have enough goals.”
-Lou Holtz

 

As the new year approaches, I’ve been thinking a lot about goals, and more specifically, whether or not I should set New Years Resolutions. 

 

On one hand, every professor I had in the Business School or any sales trainer that I’ve ever listened to, has emphasized the importance of goal setting.  Supposedly, when you write down your goals, you will automatically become a more successful and fulfilled person.  This is widely accepted as fact.  We’ve all heard about the Yale study where in 1953, researchers surveyed Yale's graduating seniors to determine how many of them had specific, written goals for their future. Of those they surveyed, only 3% had specific written goals. Twenty years later, researchers polled the members of the Class of 1953 again, and found that the 3% with goals had accumulated more personal financial wealth than the other 97% of the class combined! Then there is Edwin Locke, who is famous for his studies on Goal Setting Theory.  He found that 90% of the time having challenging goals led to higher performance than easy or no goals.  Obviously, there’s a lot of evidence supporting the “yea” side of whether or not I should set goals.

 

One the other hand, I am lazy.  Lazy enough that I don’t want to even spend the time or energy to come up with the goals, much less strive to achieve them.  I could always just try to ‘do my best’.  Unfortunately, in my life, I’ve found that if I just resolve to ‘do my best’, that won’t happen and at most I just do my 40% or 50% best.  It’s called “coasting” and it’s easy and I’ve done it my entire life...and I like it.

 

I know that a lot of people (formerly myself included) think that goals are a waste of time, but I think I'm going to go make some this time around.  For me, 2008 was a long year (more in later posts) and I think that I'm going to try to go into 2009 with a clean slate.  I mean, its not like it can hurt anything, right?

I'll update with my goals tomorrow.  

 

-Z

p.s.  Maybe I can get Kristen to let you know what her goals will be, too!  Yay!  Goal Setting Fun!

We're entering the blogging world!

After some encouragement from friends, Zach and I have decided to become bloggers! Although I never saw either of us as the blogging type before, I'm kind of excited to give it a try. Just as a disclaimer, our blog probably won't ever be the wittiest, deepest, most poetic or spiritual, but we do hope to keep family and friends updated on the things going on in our lives.

For our first entry, we thought it would be fun to share a little bit about life since the wedding day.

We tied the knot on March 8, 2008. A little over nine months ago...

We honeymooned in St. Lucia, possibly the friendliest place on earth! It was an incredible vacation in so many ways. I'd do it again in a heartbeat if it wasn't for the high price tag.

After the honeymoon we returned home to normal life - working, cooking, cleaning, hanging out, etc. Things felt pretty normal most of the time, but we traveled a lot for weddings, birthdays, and family vacations.

Ali and Mitch got married in April.

Elise and John got married over Memorial Day weekend.

Zach's Aunt and Grandma both celebrated birthdays in Iowa the very next weekend.

Sam and Kassie got married in June.

Mark and Shannon also got married in June.

We traveled to Door County with my family in July.

We visited Liz and Joel in Chicago with a few of my good friends from college. It was a great trip! I just love spending time with those girls and the way they encourage me.

My brother got married to a wonderful woman named Jessi in September. The ceremony was perfect, the bride was beautiful, and the reception was incredibly fun! I never thought I'd be jumping into a swimming pool in my dress at a wedding reception!

We celebrated Halloween with some friends from church. Because of our newlywed budget, we had to get creative with our costumes...

We spent Thanksgiving with both families, helped decorate Zach's parent's house for Christmas, and found some time to decorate our apartment too.

All in all, it's been a busy year! We've enjoyed the adventure of our new life together. There have been fun times, funny times, hard times, mad times, busy times, lazy times, cuddly times.... all filled with love. I couldn't have asked for a better way to begin our marriage. These past nine months have been wonderful!

So now that you're all caught up... Merry Christmas! I'm sure there's more blogging to come.

Kristen