First a little bit about the cost-conscience part. We admittedly do not have a set budget, but have found that we spend about $60 a week, and that includes a $4 bouquet of flowers, and drinks. We plan our menu on Sunday or Monday and Kyle does the shopping on his day off (Tuesday) and hits Aldis first and then Martins. I really don’t know if $60 is a low food budget, but we feel good about it. Here are two things that help us keep food costs down (not revolutionary, just sharing!):

1. keep waste down: we’re careful to not buy produce too far in advance, and the produce we do buy we clean and store appropriately to help it last longer (don’t just leave green onions in a bag, clean them, trim them and put them in a container with a dry paper towel). Also, we try not to buy things that we don’t foresee using frequently, like spices, we try to use fewer spices creatively rather than always buying every spice that a recipe calls for. We’re also digging into our pantry and building recipes around stuff we have, for example, I brought a lot of rice into the marriage (haha) so we’ve been enjoying rice, and not just at lunch or dinner, but even at breakfast!

2. figure out what you like and where/how you can get it cheaper: example 1 – we like high fiber, low calorie, english muffins and we can get them at the “Bakery Thrift Store” (where name brand, short-dated foods are sold for cheap!) for $1 (package of 6) vs. the $3-5 that they cost at the grocery store. example 2 – we love having bagel and lox for breakfast (except instead of a bagel we use the aforementioned english muffin) and instead of buying an expensive piece of smoked salmon, we can buy a tub of smoked salmon trimmings at Martins for $4 and that lasts us 2-3 breakfasts. example 3 – we LOVE the house dressing at The Down Under (a restaurant in Syracuse) and for a couple weeks we bought a to-go container of it once a week for $7. Well, Kyle has since created our own version of it that is delicious and it involves a $2 bottle of salad dressing from Aldis, a squirt of anchovy paste, and some fresh herbs (parsley or cilantro)!

Alright, now onto what we’re eating. Here’s a few of the meals we’ve made in the last few weeks. Our goal is healthy, quick and easy!

We have salad before every dinner.

Blackened Chicken w/ Brown Sugar Rice: chicken breasts fileted, sprinkle both sides with blackening seasoning, heat a cast-iron skillet on medium high (just use non-stick spray, no oil), cook each side till the chicken comes loose from the pan (about a minute a 1/2). cook white rice and add a pat of butter and Splenda brown sugar to taste. This was an awesome meal, we absolutely love blackening seasoning and have been putting it on everything! This recipe also works with fish (maybe even better!) and tonight we had it with sole filets that cost $1.50 total!

Grape Tomato and White Bean Pasta: got this recipe out of a Weight Watchers cookbook, it was tasty, easy, healthy and cheap! We substituted fresh basil in this recipe for prepared basil in a tube, that way we could get some longevity out of it.

Black Bean Burgers: another AMAZING recipe (and SUPER cheap!) from the Weight Watchers cookbook, first time we ate them on hamburger buns, but next time we’re going to skip the carbs and eat it on its own, it had a very mediterranean flare because it had cumin in it.

That’s all for now!

Here are some pictures!

Walk in the front door, look left and you see this: our publications rack, our coat rack, and the door to my office.

Look right and you see the reception desk.

In the reception area we have clocks for the different people that work for BrandPoet: Rebecca in Boulder, CO; Kerith in Valpo, IN; Dave in Seymour, IN; Caliber Media Group in Orange, CA; and Kevin in Atlanta, GA.

This is the interns work station, the words on the wall above are the BrandPoet cultural values/guidelines. Down at the far end is a small “kitchenette” with a fridge, microwave and Keurig machine.

This is my office!

That’s my lovely four-drawer lateral filing cabinet, I had to wait very patiently for it, it came two weeks after the rest of our furniture.

The top holds old issues of the Grace Magazine, the bottom is the first two issues of 2|8|9 and the Reimagine brochure.

Another picture of my desk.

The top of my hutch. Kyle helped me with it! The reeds are from home, I’d gotten them for free when a friend moved. The glass vases were $5 each and the picture frames were $3 each at Wal-Mart. Those silly rocks were the most expensive part, I think I spent $25 on rocks. I don’t love the way it looks (it’s a little too symmetrical and planned) but I do like it, and that’s good enough for now!

Where I spend my days!! On the computer, on the phone, with my files, etc…

My phone, the lamp I want to replace, and pictures of Kyle and I and of my parents!

My little seating area and my view into the hallway.

The posters Kyle had framed for me (from The Oatmeal), my little Wal-Mart bookshelf ($15!), and one of our wedding pictures!

Lastly, my business card holder.

Thanks for going on a tour of my office!

Option 1

Option 2

Alright, let me know what you think!

We got married on December 17th, so that week after we stuck around and did lots of family stuff. The first event we had was Smagala Christmas!

As always, Dani and Aliza had lots of fun playing together!

And I had fun swinging in Don and Liz’s basement!

The Herschbergers!

We spent a fun afternoon at Pottery Bayou painting pottery.

We had lots of delicious and romantic dinners like this!

We had Hoyt Christmas at our house! We had fun decorating and getting ready.

It was so good to have mom and dad here to celebrate Christmas!

I’m a little worried about the presents Jon and Natalie got, those could be weapons!

The Hoyts!

Christmas Eve we had Herschberger Christmas!

Dani liked her present from us! A big soft Kangaroo from IKEA She’s so cute!

This photo cracks me up, Dani has her little hand shoved down her pants!

Brewster with his new “babies”, a Santa and a Hamburger.

Our last Christmas event was the big Herschberger Christmas at GiGi’s.

And that was our first week of marriage!

I’ll try to post pictures here soon, but let me just say that my dress is beautiful, my groom is handsome, my flowers look great, the room looks fabulous and dinner is going to be awesome!!!!

We had planned to get married next May, have the small family ceremony on a Friday night and the big reception the next day. Well…. neither Kyle or I were very excited about waiting 8 more months to get married, like my momma said “when you find the one you want to be with, you just want to be with them!”

Finally, after a miserable week of me being super emotional (like. crying. every. day.) we finally talked and decided we should ask my parents if they would be OK with us getting married in December, and still keep the reception and a family celebration next spring when they’re here.

So, we called my parents. We talked to mom first and after I blurted it out, she laughed, said she was expecting it and we talked through it. Talked about what it would look like if they weren’t here, that we would do a very small, casual ceremony, and have a very special family celebration when everyone was here. Then dad came in and we asked him, he was a little more reluctant, but by the next day they’d let us know it was OK, and that they understood.

So, the next week and a half went by with us planning for a tiny December wedding in our living room.

Then we got very, very good news!! My Uncle Alan and Aunt Sharon gave my parents frequent flyer miles and they are going to be here for the wedding!!! It is so exciting and awesome to me to see how God worked it all out! I’m so thankful that my parents will be here for the wedding, and once we changed plans around a little more I feel like it’s so great and suited to Kyle and I and our families!

We’re having a little bit fancier wedding on December 17th with just our immediate family. We’re having it at the Westminster Lobby that has a grand staircase I’ll get to walk down We’ll have a really special ceremony, and then follow it up with dinner at Cerulean!

Then, we changed up the plans for next summer and moved the reception to June so that we could do it at Kyle’s parents house and just have a super fun, chill, relaxed reception. We’ve got some pretty fun ideas for that, so stay tuned

That’s the update on wedding plans… I’m sitting in my apartment tonight, first evening in so long that I’ve just hung out at home alone. Kyle did came out for dinner after work and we went to Alpha Dining Hall for a yummy African dinner! This week is the Conference on Missions so every night they’re having food from a different continent. Dinner was awesome, but after dinner Kyle and I parted ways so that we’d each have some time to ready and get ready for pre-marital counseling. Tomorrow we have lunch with Pastor Sprankle and after dinner we’re going to our marriage mentors house. A full day of marriage prep!

With that said, I have more reading to do! G-night!

Monday was probably the most chill day this week. Just worked and had a relaxing evening at home cleaning my apartment top to bottom.

Tuesday was hot and sweaty. Worked in the office all morning and then had lunch with Kyle at this little luncheonette at Zale Pharmacy in Warsaw, it was so good! Then the Brandpoet team spent the afternoon moving Dave (my boss) from one apartment on campus to another. Made it out of work in time to shower and be on the road at 5:30 for our first pre-marital counseling session! This first meeting was with Pastor Tilly from River Oaks church, we went over parts of the online assessment that Kyle and I did and Pastor Tilly explained what our future counseling sessions with our mentor couple will look like. The assessment wasn’t pass/fail, but if it was we got an A+ The points I found especially interesting were that I scored high on assertiveness (Kyle scored average) and I scored low on desire to please (and Kyle scored average). It’s not necessarily bad that I scored that way, but these are definitely areas I need to be aware of. The first session went really well and we’re so excited to continue with this process and meet our mentor couple! We’ve already picked out several books we want to read together.

Wednesday was a busy day at work, followed by a relaxing evening. Kyle came out for the evening and we finished up our resume’s, my contract with Brandpoet ends in December, and Kyle would like to work closer to Warsaw since we’re hoping to live in the Warsaw area. So we got those done and sent on to my former professor/advisor who know works at Biomet! We also looked at a house for rent, but it was sort of dumpy and pretty far out of Warsaw.

Thursday was yet another even crazier day at work. I booked it home after work to get ready for a girls night out! Last summer Becca, Toni and I went to Culver, IN and ate at 2 of Chef George Pesek’s restaurants, the Corn Dance Cafe and the Marmont Grille. The food was absolutely out of this world. So this year we decided to head to Goshen and eat at Kellie Jae’s Cafe, an adorable tapas restaurant. Unfortunately, when we got there it was closed for a private party So we ate at A Constant Spring… It was good bar food, but still bar food. Oh well, what mattered was spending time with my best girls!

Friday (today?! what?!) was NUTS at work! Just spent the day getting stuff done, keeping up with emails and keeping everyone else in the office tracking with their projects. Now I’m home, chilling out for awhile before I get ready to go have a late-night snack with Kyle after he gets done working at the Elkhart RV show.

Wedding planning hasn’t progressed much this week, but we are getting our engagement photos done next Sunday! I have no idea what I’m going to do for a wedding dress. I liked one at David’s Bridal last week but I don’t know if I really want to spend $500 on a dress. I’m not all that sentimental about things like that, I just want it to be cute, and sort of casual, and very “me” So we’ll see…..

The day after we got engaged was a Sunday and we were able to sit out on my porch for a few hours (I think 4 hours!) and brainstorm ideas. Right away we agreed on doing a Friday evening ceremony with just parents, siblings and grandparents. Including Pastor Tilly and his wife, Pastor Rob and Lindy, 2 musicians, and Michael and Karina (hopefully our photographers!) the total number will be 20 people. It will be on his parent’s porch (with tiki torches!) and we’ll have a meal together following the ceremony. We plan on having that meal catered by Antonio’s in Elkhart, IN.

The following day we’ll have a big reception to invite all of our family and friends to! We’d originally hoped to also have that at his parent’s house (they have a beautiful yard) but after talking about dates more it was clear that the date we wanted (May 7th) would be too early to have it outdoors at their house. We looked at tons of different venues and have now pretty much decided to have the reception at River Oaks Community Church in Goshen, IN. It’s the church his parents attend, and where we went the first 4 months we dated. It’s a beautiful facility, and we think that the Main Lobby would be perfect for what we’d like to do.

Our color ideas are to keep it simple with white and khaki, and then use whatever color flower we choose as the accent color. Our first pick was to use garden roses and garden spray roses in this color:

We both love these, but before we settle on them we need to do some research and see what kind of flowers will be the most available (and therefore more reasonably priced) at the beginning of May.

For food we’d like to do 4 “tapa stations” with simple but tasty food. Also, instead of cake, we’ve decided to do pie! Neither of us like cake very much, and we both love pie, in almost any flavor, so we think a variety of different pies will be really fun! For drinks we want to use containers like this:We’re thinking simple flavored waters (using different combinations of things like mint, lavender, lemon, lime, melon, cucumber, etc…) and we’ll have really good coffee.

Since it’s going to be more open house style with people coming and going, we’ve (well mostly Kyle) has been coming up with fun ideas of things for our guests to do as they mingle, mix and eat. If anyone has ideas, send them our way!

We’d like to have a photo slideshow continuously looping throughout the reception (we’re thinking we can set up an area with the couches/comfy chairs that the church has in the lobby so people can sit and relax while they watch) and I want to try to have it all ready to go, and then be able to stick in a little clip of the ceremony into it the morning of the reception before burning it to DVD and using it.

We were waiting on my parents to officially set a date since we weren’t sure exactly when they’d be able to come back to the states, but they have figured out they should be good to go for coming back in April in time for a May 6th wedding and May 7th reception!

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Kyle and I have also been doing some wedding band and wedding dress shopping! Both have been pretty amusing. Kyle has a little more extravagant taste with wedding bands than I do, which cracks the sales-people up. The more bling the better for him, and I shy away when it gets to blingy We saw one today that we both absolutely love! It’s a guard (bands on both sides) with lots and lots of baguette diamonds. I did some wedding dress shopping on my own yesterday, and then took Kyle with me today. I’d been debating whether I want to buy a real wedding dress, buy a bridesmaid dress in white, or have a dress made. Kyle has a friend who is a talented seamstress/fashion designer, so having it made is still an option, but we did find a dress today that we both love! Not sure which route I’ll go yet…

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In other news, I bought a car! I don’t have it yet, but it’s a 1999 Honda Accord 2-Door Coupe. I’m very excited it about, it’s super well maintained, it has 105,000 miles, and I got it for a great price!

Kyle and I are church-hunting. Trying to find one close to Warsaw that we can get involved in.

We’re also house/apartment hunting! Kyle would like to move closer to the Warsaw area by January so we can get the place ready before we get married and I move in. So far, no luck, but it’s been interesting! Seen a lot of dumpy places, and a lot of tiny places. Kyle seems to think the super tiny places would work, but there’s no way all my clothes would fit in some of the places!

It’s late, definitely time for bed…

Kyle and I started dating 5 months ago. It’s been absolutely awesome to see how God brought us together. These past months have been pretty nuts for me and Kyle has constantly encouraged me and supported me! I graduated from college (with Kyle and his parents attending my graduation!), a friend of mine passed away and Kyle was there for me in such a huge way, I started a new job that involves supervising 5 interns and Kyle has been a great resource for me with all of his management experience, I found myself getting very overwhelmed between working full-time and trying to continue with several side-projects and Kyle encouraged me (in such a positive, not pushy way) to evaluate my time/priorities and understand that it’s OK to say no…. I hope that I’ve been able to be a help and a blessing to him the way he has been to me!

So, how did Kyle propose? Here’s the story!

Kyle took 2 of my girlfriends and I out to Fort Wayne to have a belated birthday celebration for my friend Toni. We didn’t get back to Warsaw until really late, and I was exhausted! After we dropped them both off I was being horrible and whiny saying how tired I was and that I just wanted to go home, and I got annoyed when he didn’t make the turn onto Kings Highway and instead drove into the Village. When he parked by the lake and I said once again that I just wanted to go home he said he just needed 10 minutes! Then he said he wanted me to read the e-mail he had written my parents and he handed me an 8-page printout. I knew that he had begun corresponding with my parents 2 weeks ago, but he had downplayed it and I thought they had only emailed back and forth a few times and were just beginning to get to know each other. Well, the email he handed me, which was the first email he had ever sent them, was asking for their blessing to ask for my hand in marriage! So, I read it, was so touched and honored, but still didn’t know that he was asking me, after all, I never guessed that my parents would have given their blessing already! So I said, “It might take them awhile to say yes!” and he said, “Well, they already did say yes, so I would like to know if you would take my hand in marriage?” and I said, “YES!” Then he gave me the ring, which is so pretty and exactly what I wanted! Then I quizzed him for a few minutes because I didn’t believe my parents has said yes, so he showed me the email on his phone where they had J Right after getting their permission he had ordered the ring, and he had just picked it up that night, and was going to ask me Saturday evening, but was worried that with his family knowing and several of his condo neighbors knowing that someone would let the cat out of the bag.

That was it, sweet and quiet and perfect!

Here’s a few pictures of the ring, and then it’s time for me to sign off for the night.