Jason called earlier today for just a minute to tell me he was okay and still having a good time. It sounds like he had to walk a good while to find a payphone, so I’m grateful for the few minutes we got. He will be in Christchurch tomorrow night, which will probably be Tuesday morning here. Then he can relax a bit and maybe do a few more activities…at his own pace. I can’t wait for Saturday, I miss him a lot.

I keep checking Jason’s blog, as if he’s going to post before he has a chance to call me. He better not!

This is only really half of an update, because I have pictures I need to post from the weekend, but I wanted to post a little bit. I had an awesome time with my bridesmaids this weekend and I think they had fun too. But, man, was it cold! I can’t believe it snowed that much in one weekend. I haven’t seen snow like that in Tennessee since I moved here, I don’t think. Anyway, I rented a Nissan Pathfinder so we could all fit in one car comfortably and that turned out to be a good decision, since it was so snowy. The girls picked out their bridesmaids dresses and it is so beautiful. I hadn’t seen it before, but the cut is amazing and they all looked so wonderful in it. They also helped me make my Save-the-Date cards, which I need to send out very soon. We had a lot of downtime just to relax and have quality time. Its great that now when they come for the wedding, they’ll already know each other.

Now that they’re gone and Jason’s gone, I’m getting pretty lonely around the house. There’s only so much housework one can do! Jason did call me on Friday to let me know how the trip was going. He says its pretty fast paced and the schedule is very strict. It sounded like he only had a minute to talk or the group would leave him! Needless to say, I super miss him and am counting the days till he gets back. I think Dexter is depressed about it too. He just seems sad all the time.

More later…

Jason is in New Zealand!! He called me a few hours ago to let me know he’s in Queenstown after a very long trip. He is staying in a hostel that sounds more like a Gap commercial than a cheap place to stay. Jason says that everyone is “very hip” and so is the city. He’ll be there for another three days and then he heads out on his backpacking trip. I’ll post updates whenever I get to talk to him. Or maybe he’ll get to make a few more posts.

…maybe I’ll just be lazy.

Jason just called from LAX and he’s about to leave for NZ in about 45 mins. That makes me feel a little better. He’s 1/3 there.

So Happy V-day to all you out there with love in your hearts. My heart is quite overflowing right now as Jason flies across the Pacific to New Zealand. Today at noon I drove him to the airport and left him there. *sniff sniff* He’s going to be gone for a full 17 days. Wow….what am I going to do with myself.

Well, first off, my bridesmaids are coming in this weekend and I can’t wait!!! I haven’t seen one of them in over 2 years and I just know they are all going to love each other. And even if they don’t, they’ll all be nice, cause that’s how they are. They are really my best friends in the world and it means so much to me that they are flying to Nashville to spend the weekend with me. Sorry, I’m a little sentimental right now.

Anyway, another thing I can do after they leave is paint the laundry room this nice blue that we bought last weekend. We’ve already finished the front room painting and track lighting (well, Jason did the track lighting and I did the painting, fair trade, I think). Here are some pictures:

Another View:

The subtle painting job with some photos we’ve taken:

Fireplace lighting:

Plus, I finally purchased this cabinet that Jason has had his eye on for the past year or so. Its from this funky store on shady Charlotte Avenue and I bought it and brought it home while he was out with some friends. So he was quite surprised when he got home. It was great. We’ve put it in our dining room and are using it as our liquor cabinet:
And open:

Let me explain. So, okay, we decided we were going to paint our front room some shade of light brown to add some contrast to the room. My goal was to start it this weekend and take my time. Well….not only did I finish the front room this weekend, but I also did the entire hallway as well! I still don’t feel like I rushed and I think I actually liked doing it! Anyway, it looks pretty good, much better than when we did the bedroom, but then again the paint in the bedroom is a much darker color and you can see all the imperfections very easily. I might go over the edges with this new tool I got this time. It worked so well….it says you don’t even need to tape the edges, but that’s only true if you get just the right amount of paint on the edger. If you get too much, it overflows the edges and you get uneven again. Anyway, the combination of that tool and a new painter’s tape dispenser by Scotch really made the difference this time. So I’m all done painting. Now Jason is going to install the track lighting and we’re going to look into getting some drapes for the front windows.

After my successful painting job, though, I came down with a nasty flu-like cold on Sunday night and I’ve been pretty miserable ever since. I stayed home Monday and Tuesday, and probably could’ve stayed home today, but really felt like I needed to make an appearance at work today. I’m so stuffed up, its hard to think and the coughing is driving me crazy. Oooo…I just found some cough drops. Strawberry. Mm…not bad.