Bridals

Saturday I finally got bridals taken. My friend, Kara, took me out to her parent's farm and we snapped pictures for about 4 hours. So many of them turned out great. I'd love to post them all, but James has a habit of checking my blog and we all know that the groom can't see the dress before the wedding. So, one pic will have to suffice until after the wedding.

Kara and I had a great time just trying every pose we could think of and using a variety of jewelry and backgrounds. We shot at the farm, at an abandoned theater, and downtown Fremont, Nebraska. Kara has a great eye and took some amazing pictures. I am so glad that she sacrificed her whole Saturday to help me out. The weather was perfect and even the wind cooperated. Things couldn't have turned out better!

We did have one adventure. When we were done with pictures in Fremont, I needed to get out of the dress. The only halfway safe and clean place we could find was a Runza. So we pulled up and I hiked across the parking lot and into Runza wearing a wedding dress. We did get some funny looks when we went into the restaurant, but didn't really care much. We beelined it to the restrooms and proceeded to strip layer by layer out of the wedding dress. After changing into more normal and acceptable Saturday attire, we headed out of the restaurant, taking care not to look anyone in the eyes.

All in all we took almost 200 pictures, 65 of which look great. I can't wait to get copies of all of them and post more photos of my fantastic dress. In the mean time--James, eat your heart out.

Higher Ground

This month's CES fireside was given by Elder Hales and I encourage everyone to listen to it at least once. He spoke about staying on the higher ground and I was very impressed by the talk and recomend listening to it even if you're not a "young single adult." It's well worth the time.

http://lds.org/broadcast/ces/0,7341,538-1-61-1621,00.html

In the Jail house now

General came to us kennel trained. It has been a huge blessing. Every night around ten, we take him out to potty and then he willingly goes in his kennel. He usually goes in, turns around once, and falls asleep (as is evident by his incessant snoring). Sometimes he does just lay there and watch us, but he never whines once he's put down for the night.

Saturday night, General fell asleep on the floor while James and I watched a movie. We woke him up and took him outside. I think he was a still a little groggy when we put him down for the night. Instead of just passing out again, he sat in his kennel looking like the little jailbird you see above. He typically moves when we come toward his kennel, but that night, he just laid there, resting his head on the bars. We couldn't help but take pictures. After quite a while, General stood up, turned around, and fell fast asleep. But I just had to show off my cute little groggy jailbird.

I heart Troy!

Don't worry, I haven't become some creepy 28 year old fanatic for the High School Musical juggernaut. Rather I'm the number one fan of Troy the (self proclaimed) hair god and owner of Fringes in the Old Market.

I've been solely dedicated to having him as my hairstylist for going on three years now and have never been disappointed with his work. I've even had occasions where I walk in and say "Troy I'm sick of my hair. I want it this long--the rest is up to you." And then his pulls out his scissors and combs and in an Edward Scissorhandsesque motion, a beautiful masterpiece is created out of my once lifeless hair.

I've even begun to trust Troy with coloring my hair a little. Give it something different. In September 2007 he put in strawberry blond highlights that looked amazing. They were so natural looking that when they grew out, nobody was the wiser. I decided for the wedding we needed to duplicate those highlights but with a little more red. Troy, the magical genius that he is, pulled it off.

This time the highlights are a little more red than I had anticipated. Now I've got more of a coppery tone in my hair, but I love it. Once again, Troy has turned my dull hair into something worthy of more than just a ponytail. I so heart Troy.

Young Love

Last night James drove to Lincoln to see me after we both got off work. I thought it was so sweet of him to drive an hour each way just to sit and watch Heroes and Medium with me. After he left (and I got over being sad that I couldn't go home with him) I realized how sweet it was for him to come and what a great point in life we are at. I love that he wanted to be with me enough that he drove to Lincoln even though he was tired and had to work the next morning. I love that all we needed was to be together. We didn't have to go out to dinner or spend money on each other to show that we care. We just had to sit on the couch and talk about our day while watching television. Just spend our precious time together. Who can ask for more?

Water, cool, clear, Water. . .

I moved to Lincoln, Nebraska about a week ago (a friend, Nicole, was sweet enough to offer me an extra bedroom so I wouldn't be homeless for most of March) and things have been going really well. Okay, so there's one teensy tiny issue. The water went out on Friday which left us all weekend with very limited water use and absolutely no showers. It turns out that the epoxy that was used in the 50's to cement pipes together has a tendency to crumble after almost 60 years thus causing the household pipes to move away from the main line. This causes severe backups into the basement. This is a costly problem, but fixable and my new roommate feels terrible it happened as soon as I moved in. I think it's just part of life and figure I should just make the best of it. The water problem should be fixed in the next day or two, but in the mean time, I've been scrounging showers. Taking them where I can and taking advantage of every shower I come across (on an up note--there are showers at the gym which absolutely gets my hind end into the gym now).

Messy Hair

These days it seems that messy hair is all the rage. You'd think that I'd be absolutely into the messy hair craze. I mean, I am Messy Jessie, right. It should go with the territory. I have to admit that I've tried my hand at the tussled look. I've spent endless hours curling, teasing, and hairspraying to get that "I rolled out of bed looking amazing" look, but to no avail. I try to look like a celebrity, but rather than getting the trusses of Hedi Klum, I end up looking like Phyliss Diller.