so who is this stephanie person anyhoo?

so i may have gotten cold blog-writing feet. i was realy excited about starting this and then i realized that it may not be all that interesting. i'm stickin with it though! baby blog steps. so i thought a good post would be a little "gettin to know ya" thing. i'll assume that anybody reading this knows me allready... or do you? either way, here is 55 totally random facts about the person who's blog you have decided read right now. buckle up.

1. i am 26 years old. which is over half way to 50. which is half of 100. i may as well fit my coffin now.


2. i don't handle aging too well.


3. i'm married to the most wonderful, amazing, kind, loving, caring, talented, funny, strong, athletic, driven, HOT, Godly man in the whole wide world!


4. i really love adjectives.


5. hi i'm stephanie and i'm a coffee addict. the taste. the smell. the starbucks.


6. i feel the need to purchase at least one thing a day.


7. i don't balance my checkbook. ever. unless my best friend corina does it for me.


8. i over use ...'s and ( )'s. (they really give extra emphasis....don't they?) :)


9. elementary special education is my passion and has been since i was in the 2nd grade.


10. i'm a pastor's wife. which probably anybody i went to high school with would find hard to believe.


11. my husband's passion is for church planting. so that's what we do.


12. i'm the children's ministry director for our church. not something i ever thought would describe me.


13. i scrapbook. or in other words, i buy alot of scrapbooking accessories with every intention of doing it more than twice a year.


14. i love making things crafty. and i hate it when they don't turn out like i had in my head.


15. i adore being in the kitchen. i'm pretty sure i get it from my grandma and aunt chris. def not my mother ;)


16. i love watching people cook, especially if it's something i'd never eat. like on iron chef when the secret ingredient is mushrooms (eww!) but they make it looks so delish that i start drooling.


17. i love to read. in spurts. i am in one right now. i'll read about 3-4 books in a row and then take a break.


18. if you were to ask what is the one thing my husband and i enjoy doing, i'd have to say watching movies. renting movies. buying movies. watching movie previews. we love movies!


19. i kind of live in the country right now and i desperately miss the city!


20. chicago is my favorite city ever. followed by colorado springs. then ishpeming, mi.


21. i amour all things paris. it's my dream to go there and take pictures under the eiffel tower at night.


22. i am extremely self-conscious.


23. i over compensate for my self-consciousness by trying to act really confident. i'm faking.


24. i'm an only child. i'm spoiled. and i own it.


25. i love getting gifts but i really love to give/wrap them. especially when it's something i KNOW they'll love.


26. hates it when things don't turn out as i'd planned.


27. regret: i have taken violin/piano/drums/voice lessons and don't do any of them.


28. kristin wiig (f/ snl) is one of my role models.


29. i have a new favorite color every week. right now it's yellow.


30. regret: i didn't go to college. i went to rock valley community college but i didn't GO to college. i think that's an experience i really missed out on.


31. i could go to target &/or hobby lobby every day. and i really try to find excuses to do so.


32. really want to get married again. not to a different guy or anything, just to get to do another wedding. cause there's so many new ideas out there that make mine look lame.


33. i would love to be a wedding planner. jennifer lopez style.


34. i love most every movie jennifer lopez and mandy moore have ever done.


35. i want ALOT of kids. i'm an only and my husband is 6 out of 7. we'll compromise.


36. puppies!!!!! thats it. just puppies.


37. my hubs makes fun of me for my love of animals. even the animated kind.


38. i'm addicted to burts bees chap stick.


39. i gave up buying magazines a few years ago.


40. i love party planning.


41. i love pedicures. except when they push on that pressure point by my toes that makes me nauseus.


42. i'm addicted to cranberry-grape juice.


43. i'm a complete and total momma's girl.


44. i have never missed my dad so much as i have in the last 5 months.


45. i am homesick every other day.


46. i would be covered in tattos if i could.


47. i have one tattoo. a 4leaf clover. it's lame.


48. my secret dream job would be a photographer.


49. i really dislike shopping with other people unless your name is kristin or melisa.


50. i'm considering a job in esthetics.


51. i would like to learn how to sew.


52. i love making lists and calendars.


53. would eat totally organic if it wasn't so darn expensive.


54. is starting a girl's ministry and is super stoked about it.


55. i'm addicted to my iphone. absolutely can not live with out it. i'm serious.

well there ya go. maybe that's let you a little bit more in on the awesomeness that is me. cause i'm awesome. not really. but i pretend to be.

10 minutes into day 2

So I feel like I should only post one time a day, max. I'm 10 minutes into day 2 and am already at it again. So let's not write any rules into stone.

I had really wanted to start blogging for quite some time now. Like I said earlier, I'm completely addicted. It started about the time we moved...(que flashback squiggles and "Do-do-le-do's") I was putting together a bunch of themed activities for my classroom before I left. A school years worth of weekly themes that had games, crafts, worksheets, snacks to go along with it. So I'd Google the different themes and started finding tons of great ideas on these things called "blogs". One blog led to another, and then another, and well, I think we know where it goes from here. Absolutely no turning back. I not only found stuff for school, but ideas that I just wanted to log for myself. There were so many other fab girls out there who seemed to have all the same interests as me: cooking, crafting, teaching, shopping, clothes, decorating... You name it, I've found a blog about it. I have files and files of saved pictures and recipes and ideas saved on my computer. So I'd like to be able to share all this great stuff too, along with the occasional life update.

Feel free to share anything you find too! I love being able to bookmark a new site full of cute ideas.

Happy Tuesday!

the first post...

So here it is... the first post. How exciting! Or completely mundane, I guess depending on who is doing the reading :) I have recently become quite the blog-reading creep, so I feel it's only fair to put myself out there too. I started this, ooohh, about November of last year with every intention of my first post being January 1st. Well, hello March 22nd! I feel pretty ridiculous writing this considering I have my doubts about who exactly would want to read it, so let's just say I'm doing it for my own cathartic reasons.

I titled this blog "A Beautiful New Chapter" because that is exactly what I feel I've started. I got married on June 27th, 2009 to seriously the bestest guy in the whole wide world! (And I know every other taken girl out there will whole-heartedly disagree with me, but what they don't know is that I'm telling the absolute truth. It's a fact! My hubs is literally THE best. So there.)

So after we got married, I told my most excellent hubby that we would go wherever HIS job carried us. Little did I know that we'd be carried so soon. Up until October 2010, we were living in Burleson, TX (a.k.a. South Ft. Worth and the hometown of Kelly Clarkson, fyi.) I was teaching Special Ed at the best elementary school ever (shout out Bransom Bobcats!!) and the hubs was on staff at church as the associate pastor. Have I failed to mention that my other half is a pastor? Oh were did my head go. Thats the most important part of this puzzle. A little history- my dad is also a pastor for the Assemblies of God and statistically, I am the quintessential pastor's kid, or PK. Bratty, bossy, rebbelious... the works. I had spoken out quite loudly, from an early age, against never, EVER marrying a pastor. Well you know how they say God has a sense of humor? Jokes on me. After 23 years of holding my ground, I caved. What can I say- he's a total hottie.

So back to Texas... My Mr. started feeling the itch about March of 2010. We had close friends who were planting a church in northeast Tennessee and had asked if we'd like to come along. Remember when I unwittingly made the comment about going where his job took us? Long story short- we packed up and headed to the hills of northeast Tennessee in October. I am the children's ministry director and my hubby is the Youth pastor. I'll probably post the longer version at a later date.
Honesty is the best policy right? So we've been here for about 5 months now and it still doesn't feel like home. Not that I don't like it, cause I do! I just don't feel settled yet. But that could have something to do with the fact that we don't have our own place yet, don't have steady income, don't have a building for our church... All the little party favors you get when planting a church. Again, more on all that later.

This new chapter of our lives is shaping up to be pretty interesting. I guess that's why I'd like to document it in this way. We'll see how that goes...

Oh by the way, I forgot to introduce myself to any non-family/friends. My name is Stephanie :)