So, last night Dave and I went out to dinner at Giordano’s, where we ordered their famous stuffed pizza. This pizza was absolutely amazing! About an inch and a half thick, layered with mozzarella cheese, pepperoni, jalapeno peppers, and chunky pizza sauce…it was right up there as the best pizza I’ve ever had. And the crust?! Delicious and flaky. After just 2 slices, I was stuffed to the brim. I probably could’ve just eaten the one slice and been good to go.

After dinner I was so tired that Dave dropped me back off at the hotel while he went to go finish running some calls he had for work. I was falling asleep in the car on the way back from dinner, so I was ready for a nap. (Note: it took us about a half hour to drive 10 miles back to the hotel thanks to evening traffic and the longest red lights in the entire world, lol.) I climbed into bed and was out as soon as my head hit the pillow. The bed here is the most. comfy. bed. that I have EVER slept in. Down mattress. Down comforter. Down pillows. It’s heaven. I slept for hours and woke up a little bit before Dave got home, shortly before 10pm. He got 5.5 hours of overtime yesterday.

I got up this morning with him around 7:30 and we went downstairs to have breakfast in the restaurant. I thought you could order off the same menu they have in the rooms for room service (but avoid the fees and high gratuity by going down there rather than having them bring our food to us), but all they had was a buffet. You could get the full buffet (with hot food) for $9.95 or the continental (fruits, cereal, oatmeal, baked goods) for $7.95. He got the full and I got the continental. Neither of us are big morning eaters, so it was a bit of a waste of money, but now we know not to do that again! Tomorrow we’re having a breakfast platter sent up to us (via room service) which will feed both of us for about $13 (even including the fees and 18% tip). Comes with cereal, fruit, juice, coffee, and an assortment of baked goods. We’ll see if that works better for us. Not that we’ll do it every day, but come on…it’s room service. We’ve never HAD room service.

So I’ve been up since then, catching up on my feed reader (all the blogs I read) and watching movies on Showtime. Just finished watching “The World’s Fastest Indian“, which was a great motivational movie! It’s based on a true story, too. Doesn’t sound like something I would’ve liked, but it really was good. Kind of shows how you can achieve your dreams when you really set your mind to it, despite your age.

Well, Dave and I made it to Chicago earlier this afternoon and checked in the hotel around 2pm.  They gave us warm chocolate chip cookies when we checked in at the front desk!  So delicious!

Anyway, Dave is headed back to pick me up and we’re going out to get some deep dish stuffed pizza, Chicago style!  Mmmm!

One thing I wanted to note that we both noticed as we were driving into the city was that the train runs on the median of the freeway between north/south or east/westbound traffic.  Very strange to be driving and look over to see a train alongside of you between the other lane of traffic!

[Here is a picture of the train station between the two lanes of freeway traffic.  Although you can't see the other lane, it's there, trust me lol.]

[A pretty nice view of the city as we were driving through.]

[Beautiful room with king sized bed!  This is the bedroom portion, obviously, and there's also a small living room with a desk, loveseat, tables and LCD television.]

My best friend, Andrea, had her baby on Friday (08-08-08, how cool!).  They welcomed a beautiful baby girl, Samantha Lee, into the world at 6:39pm.  She was born into a huge and loving family (5 other siblings!).  We got to go visit them at home today and Samantha is absolutely adorable.

1. I need to install Microsoft Money on the laptop so I can keep track of our money while we’re in Chicago next week.
2. Also?  It’s 4:30 in the afternoon and I haven’t eaten anything yet.  I need to eat something.  Soon.
3. Must go to Borders and pick up a few shipments of books I had shipped there for free.  Christmas presents for the kids (Dave’s little brother and sister).
4. I miss my family, like, whoa.
5. Super glad that Dave went through our cabinet in the office with me last night and we now have a pile of stuff to sell on Ebay, as well as a garbage bag full of stuff that is no longer any good to us and not really sell-able.
6. Must use my $10 register rewards at Walgreens this weekend before they expire.
7. Need to do laundry before Monday!  Was going to do it last night but someone was using all the washing machines so we just said forget it.
8. My best friend is having her baby tomorrow! They are inducing her at 7am!  Can’t wait to meet baby girl!
9. Need to finish cleaning the kitchen before we leave for Chicago, too.  Don’t want to come home to a messy apartment!
10. Also need to go to the Verizon store tomorrow to get all my stuff transferred from my phone over to the new one they just sent me.  (Same phone/model…my current one just has a glitched out QWERTY board.)
11. Oh!  I wanna go catch up on my TiVo.  There’s about 6 hours of Army Wives on there that I need to watch.
12. I think my meds are making me sluggish and lethargic again.  Could barely pull myself out of bed this morning.  Not cool, you guys.
13. I have a $25 Amazon gift card and have no idea how I want to spend it.  I’ve changed.  I’ve always known how to spend money.  Now there’s nothing that I need or want.  Weird, right?
14. I’ve been living on cheese rollups for the past week (melt cheese on a flour tortilla, add sour cream and hot sauce…PRESTO!).  So addicting and easy and did I mention cheese?  Mmmm…cheese.
15. Dave usually never likes to eat sweets.  So last night as I was finishing the last scoop or so of Edy’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, he asked me for a bite…right after I just swallowed the LAST bit.  Then he proceeded to make me feel guilty (jokingly, of course!) because I didn’t share with him.  Dork.

This article about the 6 principles for more passion and energy in marriage got me thinking today.  It got me thinking about what my ideals and thoughts were about marriage before actually tying the knot, and how things differ now, almost two years later.

Has it been all sunshine and happiness?  No.  Not in the least.  We’ve had some very emotional and deep arguments.  We’ve hit some terribly complicated rough patches.  We’ve been bored and felt like every day has turned into the same.  It definitely hasn’t been as easy as I thought it was going to be going into it all.  What people say is true, “Things are different when you’re married.  Things aren’t always easy, even though you’ve been together for a very long time and even lived together for years already.”

I didn’t believe those words then.  I thought, “How different can things be?  How can a piece of paper change everything?” But somehow, things are different and that piece of paper changed everything.

Things are somehow more real.  More concrete.  I can’t be selfish and focused soley on myself, even if I want to.  I have to think as part of a couple now moreso than I ever did in the past.  When things get monotonous it feels more personal now than before.

But what I’ve realized is that no matter what, I have a man who will stand behind me, always.  Through thick and thin.  In good times and in bad.  And he really does.  I lost my job and he was the first person to console me and tell me how much bullshit the whole situation was.  He didn’t question my morals and workplace ethics like most everyone else was doing.  He didn’t succumb to the nasty rumors flying around.  He took my word and knew that I was telling the truth.

When I was diagnosed with Behcet’s, he was there to wait on me hand and foot when I couldn’t get out of bed.  He took care of me and didn’t question it.

We have fun.  We have common interests, but still are different enough to keep things lively.  We both want the same things out of life and strive to reach those goals together.

So when things are feeling like they could be better, I just remind myself that I have the most caring and loving husband a woman could ask for right by my side.  Nobody could love me like he loves me.

And that’s priceless.

Just a heads up that some of the posts on this blog will be sponsored posts.  I tried to move this over to my other blog, but it’s still too new and got denied.  So in the meantime, you will find some posts that are not necessarily on topic to what I normaly write about.  I won’t write about anything that I wouldn’t want to read myself, or a product I wouldn’t personally condone.  You can either skip these entries, or check out some of the things that interest you.

Once I’m able to get my other finance blog approved, I will be doing my sponsored paid posts over there.  Frankly, it’s an income stream that I’m not willing to give up right now (having no job making any extra cash pretty darn valuable!).

So I’m sorry if this frustrates you, but I’m trying my best to keep it to a minimum!

I spent a majority of the day watching season 1 of “Californication” on Showtime On Demand with Will while Dave was at work. I drug myself away from the TV long enough to go up to the Verizon store to have them order me a new phone because my QWERTY keyboard has been glitching out on me lately and it’s annoying. They’re sending me a new on via FedEx and then I just have to take it in to have them transfer all my stuff to the new one and then ship the old one back. This is the second time I’ve had to replace my phone in the past 3 months. I love my phone but can’t wait until we can get our 2 year upgrade for cheap next July. Was looking at some new phones today at the store and I wouldn’t mind the LG Dare. Very similar to the Voyager (which I also love).

Anyway. Came back and we finished watching the rest of “Californication” and then Dave got home and I made dinner for all of us. I love being around Dave and our friends just relaxing and watching TV. Probably one of my favorite things to do.

We ended up watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” on TV. Ok, so I fell asleep and woke up as it was ending. But then I stayed up to watch the rest of “Bridge to Terabithia” which we caught around halfway in. That movie is sad! I had tears in my eyes! God damn kids movies making me semi-cry. Once that was over we watched “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. Talk about a night of movie flashbacks, huh? (Aside from Terabithia.)

I’ve had such a sweet tooth lately. I keep craving ice cream. I bought some Ben & Jerry’s Cake Batter ice cream the other night and that was pretty good. Very sweet, but good. I had been craving Coldstone Creamery’s cake batter ice cream for a while, so that satisfied my cravings.

We leave for Chicago next Monday for a week. I’m kind of excited about it, even though it’s not like a real vacation because Dave will be working the whole time. I’ll have the laptop and the Xbox with me though, so even though I can’t leave the hotel (he’ll have the car) I’ll have stuff to keep me occupied. Hopefully we’ll get some time to go explore the city a little bit, though.

Going to cuddle up on the couch while Dave plays “Assassin’s Creed” on Xbox and probably try to read some more of “Fight Club” while I’m at it.

I got an email this morning from ExpoTV stating that I was one of five winner of a $25 Amazon gift card! I never win anything, so I am really excited! The only problem is, I’m not sure how to spend it. Well, I know I’m going to pre-order JK Rowling’s book that comes out in December (The Tales of Beedle the Bard), but that’s under $8. (I’m a huge fan of the Harry Potter series.)

So here’s a question for you. How would YOU spend the rest? I know it’s not a lot, but I’m sure you all have some great ideas for useful items that are relatively low priced, right?

Sometimes I have to take a step back and reflect on the things I have in my life that make each day worth waking up.  It’s easy to get lost in the frustration, stress, and curve balls that life throws your way, but there are things that make it worth while.

I spent my evening with my husband and a good friend playing “Rock Band” on the XBox 360.  I made dinner for us.  We had ice cream.  We got to be silly and have fun and play as a band together for hours.

It’s the nights like these…sitting around laughing with some of the people who mean the most to me…that I remember why I put up with those curve balls and moments of frustration.  They make the better moments stick out even more.

It’s not as bad as it seems.

*This is a sponsored post.

I’ve never had the need for a Payday Loan yet (and I guess it would be kind of pointless considering I don’t have a job), but I know some people who have had to fall back on this method in order to be able to pay their bills before their paycheck comes. I can see where this would be a great option if you had nowhere else to fall back on. A friend of mine started abusing the payday loan service he got comfortable with and he wasn’t paying the money back on time and it got him into an even bigger mess in the long run.

If you are responsible and really need the money so that you can pay rent or whatnot, then this wouldn’t be a bad option. Don’t get careless and think it’s free money, though. That will only hurt you in the long run.