I Play Online at Work

FINALLY

2008-11-25T22:58:00.003-07:00

THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY.

I'm sure other states have it lower. But for Utah this is pretty dang good! I filled my car up today and it only costed me $21, and I was on empty. It was awesome. And the cool thing is the prices keep on dropping! I'm loving this! And it totally helping my bank account!

2008-11-04T16:56:00.001-07:00

For anyone looking for a new post. You will have to find me here. With a new(ish)born I just can't update two blogs. Plus I'm just not that interesting. I hope to see you over at my family blog.

Scary Day

2008-09-30T01:21:00.002-06:00

Sunday night was a very scary night for us. I'm still not sure I've completely processed all of the events.

Most afternoon/evenings we let our cat Abbie outside in the backyard. Our yard is completely fenced so we don't worry too much about him out there. He's normally really good about checking in with us; just to let us know that he is a good boy.

Well yesterday we kind of forgot to bring him back in when it got dark. So when I went to get him he was no where to be found. So I searched the house because sometimes when we think he's outside he's actually sleeping on our bed. Well he wasn't in our house. So we started looking in the front yard. Most people that have met our cat knows that he's more then likely not able to jump the fence. Well that is correct. Unfortunately one of the slats on our fence is warped and keeps coming up at the bottom. Which makes for a perfect kitty door. And lucky us we live next to a park so there is INFINITE places for a cat to hide.

Well Bob and I spent about an hour wandering the 5-6 house radius looking for him. Zack started fussing so I had to take him back in the house to feed him. Bob decided to take the car out to see if he could find him that way. Next thing I know Bob calls me yelling. Something about Abbie and the Park. I had no idea what he is saying because he was obviously running and Zack was crying. So I do nothing. A minute or so later Abbie walks in the back door. So I call Bob to tell him that Abbie is back. A minute or so after that Bob comes running in asking where Abbie is. I point in the general direction of where he is (not really concerned) and Bob rushes off looking for Abbie saying that we need to take him to the vet. Why? BECAUSE HE GOT HIT BY A CAR!

Yeah I had no idea it was that serious. Luckily a neighborhood friend had seen Bob and figured something was wrong and stopped by. I gave Zack to her and rushed after Bob to see how Abbie was doing.

The good news of the story is I think Abbie is okay. His paws were bleeding because a couple of his claws were ripped off. But he looked and acted just fine. I've pushed and pulled and prodded as much as a non-vet can do and he doesn't seem like he is in any pain. I still will probably take him to the vet tomorrow to get checked out. We just don't have the money for expensive vet tests.

Abbie is a part of our family, and we both aren't ready to let him go. I'm just glad that we didn't have to have a cat funeral on my birthday (which was Monday). I'm not sure I could have handled that.

Finally

2008-07-26T15:06:00.002-06:00

I know it's been a while since I've updated this blog, but a lot has happen in the past month.

I was put on bed rest the last two week of my pregnancy for high blood pressure and possible Toxemia
July 10, 2008 our beautiful son was born.

Please go to http://finallyababy.blogspot.com for the full story and more updates. Due to lack of sleep and time I'm not sure how much I'll be able to update both of my blogs.

And I'm sorry for not commenting on everyones blog this past month but really my excuse is good, just look at him.

Just playing the waiting game

2008-06-24T12:23:00.003-06:00

It's been a few weeks since my last update. I have an excuse!

THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON!

June 10th was my last day at work. I didn't quit; I'm just taking an extended maternity leave. We hired one of my best friends to work part time while I was off birthing and raising a baby. She started in March(? I think). At my job we have a full time person (me) and a part time person (cookie monster). We barely had enough work to do with just the two of us there (look at my blog name - I play online at work!) so with the three of us there, there wasn't much for me to do. I was training C.M. to take my over my job and be the full time person and my friend was taking over her job. So basically I wasn't doing much, other then supervising. It got really boring. They both caught on very quickly and after a while I wasn't sure what I was doing there anymore. I started leaving work early (with permission of course) then started planning my last day.

I've had a job (sometimes 2 or 3) since I graduated from High School. So for the past 13 years I've been working pretty much nonstop and now I'm home by myself ALL DAY LONG. It's a boring life. I've made list of things that need to be done around the house. Things that I normally don't get to because I'm exhausted by the time I get home from work. Only to find out being 8 1/2 months pregnant is exhausting too. Bending over is hard, after cleaning a little bit I have to sit and rest, plus I need my afternoon nap! I can't leave the house because if I do I spend money and with 1 less income that's not really a good thing. So I'm pretty much stuck at home for the time being. The only time I leave is when we need grocerys or when the husband is home.

So that is my excuse for my lack of posting. I wish I had exciting news like our baby is going to make his grand entrance anytime now. But who knows when that will happen. Our due date is July 7th but the doctor will let me go over a week at the most. He even said we should set up a appointment to have me induced on the 14th. I hope he's doing that as a precaution to reserve the space and not because he thinks I'll actually need it. I love being pregnant but I'm so ready for the baby to be here in my arms.

I hope others are having a more exciting summer then I am so far. What are you up to? Any trips, fun outings anything? Please my only outlet to the world is through blogs now (and my cell phone) so keep me updated on what you all are doing. I need to live vicarously through others now.

First for me

2008-06-06T09:46:00.005-06:00

**Updated with a new picture at the bottom**

Yesterday my sister and I had the opportunity to go to a book signing. Anyone that reads http://www.dooce.com/ probably knows that she just released a book. It's not a book she wrote but a compilation of Essays from people that she knows then edited and put into a book. She did write two of the essays and her husband John wrote one of the Essays. I'm excited to read my copy.

I'll be honest I was a little nervous to meet her. I've read her blog religiously since Little Miss introduced it to me two or three years ago. I've also seen her on our local news and read about her in the paper and magazines. But to actually meet Heather in person was crazy. You always want people to be the same as you picture them from their writing or what you see on TV. But what to say to this person that I never have met? "Hi, I'm your biggest fan."? or "Wow, I can't believe that I'm finally meeting you in person."? I didn't want to seem too excited or overanxious.

The book signing was at 7:00, but my sister and I didn't get there until after 8. Totally my fault. When we pulled up to the Kings English Bookstore, I was surprised at how small it was. Which made me only that much more nervous for some reason. It was in a part of Salt Lake that I don't frequent very often (okay never) but it was adorable. Right in the middle of a bunch of homes with a few shops across the street. (See how cute it is?)

My sister and I ended up being the end of the line. Which worked out just fine because there were really only 5 or 6 people in front of us. And from what the employees told us -- the line use to run around the building. So I was happy that I didn't have to stand in line forever. Of course my sister made me go first. So I handed the book to Heather and said Hi. That's it. Yeah I'm a nerd. But she was so nice, she asked where I was from and if I'd lived in Utah my whole life (sadly yes I have). After that it was pretty easy to talk to her. She was so nice and given to true form and warning she even broke out in song while my sister was talking to her. She is as funny in person as she is in her book. Her husband was so nice too! We got pictures taken with the both of them, but I'll have to wait to get those from my sister. So watch for an update.

So yesterday was a first for me, going to a book signing to get an autograph from a blogger. I love it!

Drivers drive me nuts

2008-05-19T15:27:00.000-06:00

Inconsiderate drivers drive me nuts!

People who wait until the very last minute to make a lane change so they can make their turn. It's just annoying. I sit in the same lane which ends up going much slower then the other lanes because of these people. Don't get me wrong I've been tempted to go to the faster lane and then make that last minute lane change, but I don't because I know how much it annoys me. If people would just plan ahead and not think that they are in more of a hurry then the rest of us then the turn lane that I currently sit in wouldn't be so slow because we wouldn't have to stomp on our brakes to let idiots like these in.

People who pull through parking spaces from other aisles. Yesterday this happened to me 3 times in one parking lot. I see the parking space I want and as I make my turn into the space some idiot from the other side pulls forward. Once they used that spot for their own parking which I hate because now I have to go around the parking lot to park behind them. And twice they were just pulling out of the spot they had already occupied to leave. It's so annoying!

Race for the Cure w/ pictures

2008-05-11T22:07:00.002-06:00

As I mentioned in my last blog post. The husband ran in this years Susan G. Komen Race for the cure 5K. I could not believe how many people were there. By the time some of the runners were finishing others still hadn't even begun yet. It was amazing to see so many people out to support a cause very close to their hearts.

We (meaning the husband not me) ran with friends and registered as a team. Our team name "Save the Man Boobs". The girls got together last week to make the t-shirts. I designed the front and back with my hand dandy Scrapbook program. Tell me how cool the font is!

This is my husband modeling the t-shirts we made right before the race. The guys were so proud to wear the shirts! I was worried that with the bright pink we'd get more complaints from them but they loved them! And we had a ton of people stop us on the street to take pictures of the t-shirts. We definitly were a hit. Throughout the race everyone had people run by them and tell them how much they liked the shirts. It was awesome.

This is just a picture I took while walking to the finish line of ALL the people waiting to get started in the race. It was amazing.

And finally a picture of our guys walking back to the cars. They all go pink headbands from the Ford dealership. They even had their picture taken by Ford because of how cool they looked in their pink Man Boob t-shirts. They said the picture would be on www.fordcares.com but we haven't found it yet.

It was a great weekend!

For a good cause

2008-05-08T08:42:00.003-06:00

This saturday the husband is running in a 5k with friends in our neighborhood. I'm really excited for him even though he hasn't trained at all since the diabetes 5k last month. I'm also glad that other people in our neighborhood are doing them giving him a reason to run. This weeks 5k is the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k.

We even decided to make a team and wear tshirts. Since most of the Ta-ta teams names were taken we decided that since men can get breast caner too we would be Save the Man Boobs. Tonight we are making our t-shirts.

Our slogan on the back of t-shirts will say "Big or small we save them all". Even though I'm not running in the race I still wanted a t-shirt so I'll be a spectator with a t-shirt. I'll try to post pictures this weekend of the race and our t-shirts. This is the biggest 5k in Utah so there will be TONS of people there.

That's it really. I hope that people people weren't thinking we were asking for donations, I'm just excited for my husband to get out run.

Make it stop!

2008-05-01T07:58:00.002-06:00

Today is May 1st. The flowers should be blooming, the trees getting thier first leaves of the season. Men should be out mowing their lawns, women planting their gardens.

But that's not the case! It's 37 degrees outside and SNOWING!

Please make it stop!

I'm being sucked in!

2008-04-29T10:05:00.007-06:00

I've come to the realization that I cannot escape sports. My husband has become a much bigger fan then when we first got married. I've accepted this. The only way to deal with it is to watch with him. Otherwise we wouldn't see much of each other. Usually during regular season I can get away with convincing the husband to do something else then watch sports. But during the playoffs it's a whole different ballgame. He has to watch IT ALL! And now with our new HD tv he loves it even more. Have I mentioned how much of a HD snob he is? He's actually inviting our friends over to watch tonight's game because last week he had to watch 1/2 of the Jazz game in non-HD. Oh the horror!

Anyways. The reason for this post is while watching the playoffs with the husband I've noticed a lot of ugly players. I hope this doesn't make me seem shallow. But this is my form of entertainment while watching the game -- yes I make fun of the players. I also make fun of the announcers. I'm always teasing the Husband about how the announcers talk dirty. Example: Yesterday during the L.A. Lakers -v- Denver Nugget game the announcer was talking about the coach and how if they lost he was going to pack up his nuggets. Okay it was late and I thought it was funny they said nuggets.

This is my list so far of the ugly players of the NBA. So far the list is only the teams that we've/I've watched during the playoffs. I'm sure there are others and I'm sure people will disagree with me.

Sam Cassell - Boston Celtics (tell me he doesn't look like an alien!)

Pau Gasol - L.A. Lakers (I'm sure with a hair cut he looks like a regular human being but to me he looks like a Sasquatch)

Dirk Nowitzki - Dallas Maverick (One ugly man!)
Tracy McGrady - Houston Rockets (this one I must admit I'm just bias against. The Jazz are currently playing the Rockets in the playoffs and he's just dumb. Did anyone see his interview when he couldn't pronounce Darron Williams! But I chose him not only for his lack of intelligence but also his droopy eyes. Get some sleep!)

DerMar Johnson - San Antonio Spurs (there is nothing wrong physically with this guy. He's actually a good looking guy. But the headband HAS GOT TO GO! It's way to big for his small head!)

And my most hated player of the NBA:

Tim Duncan! I can't stand this man. Every call on the court he has something to complain about. You fouled... move on! He's just the biggest baby. I started noticing this last year during the playoffs and it's definitely continued this year.

And my favorite both in looks and how he plays:

Steve Nash - My husband will disagree with both assessments but I like Steve Nash. I chose him as my favorite when he was a rookie and he ended up getting two MVP's in a row! That's my guy. And to make it even better he's Canadian! And I think he's cute!

post office fun

2008-04-15T08:50:00.005-06:00

Yesterday as I was leaving the post office I saw two people run into each other because they weren't paying attention to were they were walking. I laughed.

Today as I was leaving the post office I saw a guy pull up right behind someone that was in a parking stall because he wanted his stall (because it was 2 stalls closer to the door then the next open one) The guy in the truck that was in the stall just sat in his vehicle until the idiot behind him moved. I think people are stupid sometimes.

Woot Woot

2008-04-07T08:38:00.003-06:00

My husband loves to play the fantasy sports on Sportingnews.com. It's free and it's a fun competition for him with friends. He often asks me to make my own fantasy team and play along. I'll usually do the Fantasy Football but I'm not really into any of the other sports (baseball, hockey or baseball). I do however like to make my picks for NCAA basketball. It's fun because I don't have to go back every week to check on my players to see how they are doing. I just pick a team to either win or lose at the beginning of the playoffs and that's it. This year I did just that. I wouldn't let my husband know which teams I had picked to win or lose until after the first round. I didn't want him to criticize my choices or who I picked to win it all. Also in doing this I have NO IDEA how the teams played throughout the year. All I can go off of is their seed number. As with most NCAA playoffs I know that there are always upsets so you can't rely 100% on their numbers -- just ask Connecticut (#4 seed) when they lost to San Diego (#13 seed). But I also choose based on names or places I've been. I've always thought Gonzaga was a funny name for a University so I always pick them to go past the first round, as does my loyalty to BYU (both of which disappointed me).

The point of this story? Against the husband and one of his friends (both who are very much into college sports...) I WON! I may have not have chosen the winner of the NCAA finals (UCLA lost) but the husband and his friend were out after the final four. I still have one of my picks that made it to the Championship. Which is an automatic win for me.

And my NCAA brackets (the yellow are the ones that I picked that went on to the next round). This my not be very exciting to most people (most of my friends & family eyes glaze over when I talk about my NCAA bracket picks) but it's fun for me and this is my way of gloating. Not to mention the 5 text messages I've sent to the husband today!

My love of paint

2008-04-06T22:59:00.003-06:00

I've always loved remodeling projects. This one isn't so much a remodel as it is just making room for baby.

We still have just under 3 months left but we are getting really excited for our little guy to arrive. The major part of the room is done, all that is left is decorating. And I'm proud to announce that the husband and I didn't disagree on any part of this room. Maybe it's my "delicate" state and he doesn't want to rock the boat. But we painted together and even hung chair rails together and didn't argue about any of it. We also just bought the furniture (well I bought it at from a warehouse that was liquidating a lot of their merchandice) it was a great deal. The furniture is very high end and we got both the dresser and crib for just over $500.

Here is what the room looked like before (we have been using it as a guest room and also where we've been storing everything that we don't normally use). But I took this picture after we'd cleaned it all out to get ready for paint.

And this is what the room looks like after. I think it turned out better then I expected.

The mind....

2008-03-28T08:17:00.002-06:00

Dreams are weird.

Last night/this morning I dreamt that I was with some friends in Southern Utah. I wanted to show them Arches National Park. I gave them directions from mapquest then fell asleep in the backseat of the Jeep. When I woke up we were in a riverbed somewhere. Somehow they had gotton off the road and we ended up in the riverbed. When I looked at the directions they said they were following all the words were gone. So we started backing up to get back to the main road. Then we were all the sudden in a basement of a very large house. Somehow they remembered coming this way. But the basement was full of clutter and we had to clear a space for the Jeep to be backed up. Not to mention drive up a flight of stairs. When I went upstairs to check to see if anyone was home, it was decorated for a Baby Shower. When the owners of the house got home I explained to them what happend (they seemed to understand) and promised we'd be out of the basement before the baby shower started. After a ton of moving stuff around we finally got the jeep upstairs and out the front door (right through the baby shower stuff). Then we were on our way to Arches National Park. This time I stayed awake to give them the correct directions. I woke shortly after that.

It was just very very weird!

Unexpected bills

2008-03-24T10:16:00.002-06:00

This week has been an interesting one for our little household.

The husband woke me up at 3 in the morning on Wednesday in severe pain. He needed to go to the hospital for possible kidney stones. We got 1/2 way there and the pain went away. So we went home (no point in going to the ER without any pain). At around 5 am he woke again with the pain this time they did not go away only got much worse. So off to the ER we went. 4 hours later we still didn't have an answer as to if it was or wasn't Kidney Stones. The husband has had K.S. before and all the pain and symptoms were the same so they just said it was probably kidney stones. They prescribed him some Percocet and Flomax and sent us on our way.

Today he still has mild pain and nauseau so we don't know if the stone has passed or not. He didn't recieve a strainer to try to catch the stone if it did pass and they didn't do a CT or Ultrasound to see if they could find the actual stone. So at this point we have no idea. So he now has an appointment with the Urologist and hopefully we can get some answers.

The worst part of this whole drama is the insurance company. Because we had to go to the hospial so early and I wasn't thinking clearly. We went to the closest hospital to our house. A friend/neighbor/and co-worker of the husband had gone to the same hospital mabye a year ago so we assumed we were covered. Assumed being the keyword. Today while making the Urologist appt the receptionist broke the news to us that the hosptial we went to WAS NOT IN OUR NETWORK! Fun for us! So upon calling our Insurance provided and verifing that we were in fact out of network for an 4 hour ER visit and would now have to pay $800 co-pay and 50% of the remaining bill. It sucks! I hate insurance companies. They aren't nice. I've never really dealt with insurance. Yes we've gone to the doctor numerous times. But we get a bill and we pay it. End of story. I've always found our doctors on their website so up until this point we've never had a problem. We've never had to go to the ER at 5 in the morning.

My mom is also freaking me out because she keeps asking questions about our insurance company and what they do and do not cover for materinity. So while finding out that we weren't covered at the ER we went to I also tried to get questions answered about what and how we are covered. This is my first pregnancy and I don't know what we need to do with insurance before we have the baby. I've heard horror stories about having to call the insurance company when I go into labor to make sure the contractions are far enough along for admittance and being told to wait only to have the child at home or in the car (okay this may have been in a movie or something but I have a very active imagination). I want our labor day to go perfect. My mom also asked how long the insurance will allow me to stay in the hospital. And what hospital is better covered in our plan.

All these questions could not be answered by our insurance company. All she told me was when I go into labor the hospital will have to verify all these things. I could not. It's very frustrating and when I told her that this was my first time she said "What having Insurance?" Which I thought very inconsiderate of her! I'm trying to be a responsible person and having things preapproved or prequalified or whatever before we actually have the baby and she's just being mean! I'm not a fan of the insurance companies. GRRR!

People like this should be locked up

2008-03-14T09:18:00.003-06:00

I haven't gotten many stupid comments or questions about my pregnancy. The normal ones "How are you feeling" "When are you due" "Are you excited" and before we knew what we were having "Do you want a boy or girl". These questions are just fine - they are normal.

But my stepmom is beyond normal. She asks the dumb questions that you don't know if you should laugh in her face or smack her.

Around December when my dad and stepmom came to our house to visit for Christmas I was just barely 12 weeks pregnant if that. I had barely announced to my family and friends that we were expecting.

The questions she asked AT 12 WEEKS!
"Have you decorated the nursery yet?" Umm... we barely accepted the fact that we were actually going to have a baby. Plus we didn't know what we were having and we still had 6 months to plan and decorate.
"Are you going to wear fat clothes?" First off what type of question is that! And how do you answer that. Yes, eventually I will wear MATERNITY clothes, but they shouldn't be called fat clothes. I was just astounded by her stupid questions.

Yesterday the husband I went to my half sisters Church basketball game. This is the first time I've seen them since Christmas. They don't live very far but from the stupid questions we were asked at Christmas can you see why we avoid them. My dad is great,I really like him... it's his choice in a wife that is questionable.

Before going into the game I stopped at the restroom and my husband went to find us seats. When I sat down the stepmom came over to me and asked: "Where is the baby." I know she knew that we hadn't had the baby yet. She's not that dense. And I knew exactly what she meant. She wanted to see the belly (which I conveniently hid behind my purse) . Playing dumb I looked around, asked the husband if he remembered to bring the Baby, then told her that we must have left him home. She of course moved my purse to see "the bump". I understand she's excited for us. But jeeze does she have to be that annoying! After she sat down in her own seat the husband told me that when he came into the Gym she also asked him 4 or 5 times where the baby was. I told him that he should have said "The dingo ate my baby." Okay lame joke, but we laughed.

I've seriously considered asking her not to come to the hospital when we have our baby.
1) I really don't want her to hold our child. She's not his grandma and never will be (lots of bad blood between us)
2) she says stupid things like this. I'm sure I won't be in the mood for stupid comments in the hospital after giving birth!
But then again she is my dad's wife and I need to respect him for it. I don't want to alienate my dad because I don't want his wife around but it's just SO HARD!

Did anyone else get stupid questions like this or is my stepmom just "special"?

I love...

2008-03-05T08:21:00.005-07:00

I Ikea.

I really do. It's such a fun store to go to. My husband can only take it in small doses. When I'm with him I can't just wonder around and dream about the spaces I could create with all the merchandise they have. Or the storage I should be having but don't. I've never gone to Ikea and left without buying anything.

Last night the husband and I went to Ikea with a purpose. He was tired of how cramped our computer room was. Currently we have all my scrapbook stuff (in the closet and overflowing), A tv, computer and computer desk, two bookcases and a day bed. That's a lot of furniture and stuff for such a small room.

We bought one bigger bookcase, a small couch and two footstools. The couch is replacing the daybed. And the bookcase will hopefully replace the two bookcases we already have. And the reason I love Ikea so much all that we bought only cost us just over $300! The couch is set up and looks so much better in that space. We actually have room to walk around without tripping over junk! I'm hoping to have the room cleaned up (that means getting my scrapbook stuff back in order and into the closet) by the end of the week.

Then our next big project is the nursery!

This is what we bought:

Dance Memories

2008-02-27T12:03:00.003-07:00

Loralee is calling for prom stories for a blog interview she'd like to do. While reading her post and the comments that people had left I started reminiscing about my own prom/dance memories.

Technically I didn't go to my prom. The only prom we had was Jr. Prom (but sophomores/Junior/Seniors were all allowed to go -- it was just called Jr. Prom because the Jr. Class put it on).

The dances we had in High School were:
Homecoming
Morp (prom spelled backwards - our Halloween dance - girls choice)
Sock Hop (Christmas dance not really a date dance)
Sadie Hawkins (girls choice)
Jr. Prom
Senior Ball

I didn't turn 16 until just before Homecoming my Junior Year of High School. In my family we weren't allowed to date until after we were 16 (of course my little sister got to break this rule but only because I fought and complained about it). I was also taught that is a boy asked you out on a date/dance you should go with the first person who asks you because it's the "nice" thing to do. So my Junior Year I got asked to Homecoming. But it was by a guy that I only knew from a class and his friend had a locker near mine and I really didn't have a thing for. But I said yes anyways. As the date got closer I really wasn't looking forward to going to the dance with this guy. He was shorter then me and honestly we didn't have anything in common. His friend that I had a locker near was a good friend of mine and he had gotten asked by a girl he didn't really want to go with either. But of course he said yes too. So here we were, both of us going on a date to Homecoming with someone that we didn't really connect with. We tried to switch our dates so my date went with his but they wouldn't go for it (yes, we were that mean). The only upside was we were doubling together so if we had to go with someone we didn't want to be with we'd do it together. I don't remember much about the dinner; the only part I really remember about the dance was while slow dancing with my date he only knew how to turn in circles really fast. So when the song was over and we left the dance floor I fell over because I was so dizzy from being spun around for 5 minutes! After that we pretty much didn't dance again. I'm sure we called it an early night and never talked again. Pathetic huh!

The next memorable dance experience I had wasn't as bad as my homecoming dance. It was the girls choice Morp (Halloween dance). We had a large group of friends and most of our dates all were friends. The dinner plans were left up to one of the girls and she came up with this brilliant idea to eat at a restaurant called The Roof. It's located downtown Salt Lake and has an amazing view of Temple Square from it. It was fairly new at the time so I didn't know much about it. She said it was buffet and casual dress. Since the dance was the Halloween dance naturally we all dressed up in our costumes. Our group was going for the Western look so the guys dressed up as cowboys and the girls dressed up as saloon girls. Classy right! When we arrived at The Roof we quickly found out that the price wasn't $30 per couple it was $30 per person. This should have been the first red flag of the night. I hadn't brought enough cash with me so my friend had to spot me some extra money. Which also meant that she'd have to pay for my dance pictures as well. When we were seated it we noticed that the dress wasn't as casual as we were lead to believe. Everyone was dressed really nice and there was a guy playing the piano wearing a tuxedo. Even the waiters were dressed nicer then us. And the buffet wasn't so much "chuck-o-rama buffet" it was gourmet foods. 1/2 of what we ate or put on our plates we weren't 100% sure what it was. I'm sure that even the guys left the restaurant hungry that night. I'm sure the dance was fun because we all got along so well in our group. The only hiccup was the dinner, which we were incredibly under-dressed and under-prepared.

The last "dance" story that I have doesn't really involve going to the dance. This one I truly regret. My Junior year of High School I was in a Art class. The entire year I sat next to a foreign exchange student from Spain and a Hockey Player. We had a lot of fun in that class. Javier and I were always joking with each other about different things. He was always making me laugh! Towards the end of the year as Junior Prom was getting close Javier brought up the dance during one of our Art Classes. Since we were always joking with each other about getting married or running away together or drawing what the others dream house would be; I honestly thought he was joking about going to the Prom with me. So I automatically laughed it off. And it was never brought up again. The dance came and went and I of course wasn't ask or didn't go. I did get together with a bunch of friends from the swim team for a anti-prom party which was a blast! Javier and I kept in contact after our Junior year and he went back to Spain. During that time our only means of communication was by snail-mail. In one letter he wrote about all the memories we had that Junior year and the only one that he regretted was being turned down BY ME for Jr. Prom. I felt horrible. As I mentioned I honestly didn't know he was serious. Of course I apologized and told him I would have gone with him but I didn't know he was serious -- I was so naive back then! We are still friends to this day; My husband and I even went to visit him when he was living in Rome. But I do regret not going to the dance with him that year.

So those are my most memorable dance stories. I did go to other dances but most of them were uneventful.

Coolest

2008-02-15T11:04:00.003-07:00

I have the coolest brother every! He's going to do our taxes for FREE! He's his final year for accounting and he's been doing taxes for businesses for about a year. So he definitly knows what he's doing.

No more please

2008-02-14T08:09:00.008-07:00

I know I've posted quite a few times out the weather in the past month or so. But it's so hard not to when SNOW and a lot of it, is what we are dealing with.

Yesterday the weatherman predicted a storm to come in around 11am and blow out by 3 pm. - WRONG!

The storm came in around 2pm and by 3:30 when I left work it had only gotten worse. It took me 1 1/2 hour to get home from work. The roads were just a mess! I was surprised with the prediction that there weren't more snowplows out working on the roads.

But my commute home was NOTHING compared to my little sisters. She gets off around 5ish I believe. She takes the train to her car. And drives home. Easy peasy right. Not so much. It ended up taking her probably 6 1/2 hours to get to her house. And that's if she left right at 5pm. The roads to her city were closed for a while and they were deverting everyone to a side road from what I understand from my mom's updates. The snowplows would clear a section of the road off -- let 10 cars drive through then have to go back and clear them again. At one point in her commute she drove 100 yards in an hour. Luckily she had a full take a gas, but was almost out of cell phone battery. I would have gone crazy without my phone and stuck in traffic for 6 hours! In the same area there were kids stuck in school buses and probably didn't get home until after 11pm. Also about 300 students were unable to leave school and had to sleep at the school. It was just a crazy storm with major winds. Not to mention the good weather (40-45 degrees) we've had a few days before that almost completely melted all the snow. So everything was nice and wet for the freezing tempurtures.

So for everyone who is praying for "moisture" (I hate that word) STOP! I'm done. Bring on the heat!

Oh yeah....

No good very bad day

2008-02-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

I should have stayed in bed today.

I Decided to get the grocery shopping done for the week. It's either now or never. So off I went to the local Walmart to pick up some supplies. Only to get my car stuck in the ice. The front wheel slid into a hole and my car would not come out. And of course I left my phone at home. Not that it would have helped, the husband is out shooting things somewhere in the snowy desert with my brother in law. Of course I got stuck right in front of a family loading their car with grocerys. Did they offer to help. NOPE! They packed the car up and left. I HATE PEOPLE SOMETIMES. So I walked in found the first male employee with a walkie and told him my car is stuck in his STUPID parking lot. He was able to round up a few other men and out they came to push me out. Once free I left. I was crying and there was no way I'd be able to go shopping in my state of mind. Maybe it's the hormones or I was just embarrassed but I cried all the way home. I'm so tired of the cold, the snow, the ice and everything else. So now we still have no grocerys.

I just want to crawl back into bed and sleep.

Crazy times

2008-02-05T08:29:00.001-07:00

The other day my twin sister and her husband made a comment to me that just floored me.

In five years their only son will be graduating high school and moving out. That means at the age of 35 she will have a empty nest! Where as I will be putting my first child into Kindergarten.

Is that insane or what!

Grrr

2008-02-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

I went to Pottery Barn for the first time EVER and they were closed for inventory. It was a sad sad day!

Brrr it's cold in here....

2008-02-01T08:59:00.000-07:00

Wow almost two weeks since my last post. The reason? Because NOTHING IS HAPPENING! I'm so over Winter. I hate the snow, I hate the cold and I hate my heater being blown out in the middle of the night so our house is a chilling 57 degrees when we wake up!

I haven't bought grocery's in over a week because I can't bring myself to leave the house once the sun goes down. It's too cold and too windy to leave the house to go buy frivilous things like food. We don't even have food storage to turn to, so we either eat what's leftover in the freezer or order pizza. Let someone else brave the cold to bring us food. I even thought about ordering grocery's online and having them delivered to our house. I'd pay an extra $50 to have it delivered.

I just want it to stop snowing, to stop blowing snow and for the sun to come out from hidding.

Don't forget to go to our pregnancy blog to see what's really going on in our life.

Ah... tis snowing again

2008-01-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

I wish work had snow days. Today would have been an excellent day for a snow day or to observe Martin Luther King Day. But nope, I'm not that lucky. I still had to come to work. It took me an hour to get to work, not that I'm complaining, I'd rather make it to work then be like some poor people I passed spun out on the side of the road.

- I still laugh at 4 wheel drive vehicles that drive slower then the cars do.
- Downtown pedestrians. I know there are crosswalks in the middle of the road but when the roads are slick and there is 2 inches of snow on the roads I think you should let the cars have the right away. It's so hard to stop and I saw a few people just crossing the road without a care in the world, cars can't stop like they normally do in the snow!
- I think I should be paid for drive time during the snow. It's not my fault the roads SUCKED! And how was I to know that we'd get so much snow during the night.

We've had a very snowy winter. Which for us is really good, I'm glad it's snowing because maybe we'll finally be out of this drought we've been in for so long. I just wish that I didn't have to be driving in it!

Pregnancy blog

2008-01-15T07:25:00.001-07:00

I've started a blog the will be dedicated just to my pregnancy and to our kids. I'll still be keeping this blog to do my regular blogging. I just wanted a place that my friends and family could go to to keep updated on what is going on so far.

So if you want to read about the pregnancy that is where you need to go. I probably won't talk about it too much on this blog.

http://finallyababy.blogspot.com/

The end is near

2008-01-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Can I just say how happy I am that College Football is over! Yesterday was the National Champion Football Game (yeah to LSU for beating Ohio State). I don't mind sports. I knew when I married my husband that he loved sports. We had an understanding, he'd watch sports and I'd scrapbook. It was a great deal. But since I haven't scrapbooked since oh who knows March '07 I have nothing to do but watch sports. Which is why I think this year has been nothing but sports in our house. It's my own fault, I don't know why I haven't scrapbooked for nearly a year. Probably because I have 8 trips that I need to get scrapbooked (2 major ones with a gazillion pictures) and I just got overwelmed and instead of taking it one day at a time I gave up. NFL Playoffs started last week so I have until Feb 10th to endure more football then it's over! I'm excited. The husband likes basketball but I usually win on not having to watch basketball.

Another kink in the TV watching is we got a new TV. It's the first TV that we've ever bought. We have three other tv's in our house but all were given to us. The TV we bought is huge (50'') with HD. So naturally we had to sign up for all the HD channels. My husband is now an HD snob. He will only watch tv in HD (luckily for me the local NBA team doesn't get broadcasted on HD yet!!).

This post is random, I know. I'm just excited that Football is almost over.

And for my random post here are some random pictures of Abbie.

(this picture you can also see how big our tv is. It barely fits in the TV cubby)

(Aren't these the cutest eyes you've every seen!)

Not really a New Year Resolution

2008-01-03T09:18:00.000-07:00

I've never been big on New Years Resolutions. They just never seem to stick. I hate promising that I'll do or quite something only to not accomplish it by the end of the year. It's not fun.

So this year I haven't made any New Years Resolutions but I have thought about what I want for the coming year.

As everyones knows the husband and I are expecting our first child. So of course we would like a healthy pregnancy and in the end a healthy happy baby. We can't wait until July when we get to welcome this child into our family. It's going to be an exciting time for us. Our lives will surely change after that. Our priorities will change. Instead of buying stuff to fill our lives we will have this wonderful bundle of joy to do that for us. We still don't know if I'll be working, but if I do it will only be part time. So that will change our living/spending situation. We will be on a budget.

This coming year we will definitly be practicing saving. And hopefully only living off the one income. So if I was to make a New Years Resolution it would be that we would be better at saving our money and budgeting our money. We have to figure out what we don't aboslutely need.

So those would be my Resolutions - to have a healthy baby and to try to save.

New Product

2007-12-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend the husband and I drove to Las Vegas for the Pioneer Bowl Game with BYU -v- UCLA (BYU barely won). It's about a 7 hour drive to Las Vegas from our house and we had to work most of the day on Friday. So we didn't get out of the valley until after 5:00pm. Usually half way the husband stops at a gas station for an energy drink. He's not a night person so he needs that little extra pick me up when driving.

The husband has his favorite energy drinks he will normally buy. But he can't help himself when he sees a new drink. He likes to sample the newest flavor to make sure he has the best tasting energy drink. He saw this drink and just about bought it before he noticed it was Beer.

It's beer with something extra! We couldn't believe it. That's all we need now are drunks loaded up with caffeine. I realize that Red Bull has been a mixer for a while now and probably is pretty good. But caffeineted beer? And what if my husband didn't notice that it was beer and bought it. Hopefully they would have ID'd him but if they didn't he would have drank some it. Probably noticing the bitter beer taste right away and stopped drinking it. But still. It's just crazy. Maybe this isn't as weird as I think it is. We aren't beer or alcohol drinkers so we aren't up on what is new or what is good. So maybe this is normal and caffeine mixed with beer isn't as weird as we think it is. It just took us by surprise.

Finally some news

2007-12-18T18:14:00.000-07:00

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I think this one speaks millions.....

I've been waiting a long time to write this post and here I am and I'm speechless.

I'm eleven weeks pregnant so not quite past the first trimester but I just can't wait any longer to scream my news from the rooftops. Everyone close to me knows by now (family and close friends) and I've finally told my boss. I was going to wait until I was showing but thought better of it.

So far the pregnancy has been going fantastic. I haven't had much morning sickness. There are only a few foods that make my stomach turn. I haven't had any headaches or other "symptoms" so I guess I'm one of the lucky ones.

We've had our first doctors appointment a few weeks ago. I was only 9 weeks along so we weren't able to find/hear the heartbeat. But I made them do an ultrasound and we saw our little one move around and the doctor said he saw flickers of the heartbeat when it moved. So he says all is well. We have our next appointment at the beginning of Jan so we should hear the heart beat then.

Other than that I'm always hungry or tired so I'm guessing things are moving along great.

We are very excited and it's an answer to alot of prayers and medical testing. We were given a 5-6% chance of conceiving through insemination and our doctor wanted to go right to invetro but we held out. So instead of a $20,000 procedure we only ended up with a $350 procedure. Much more in my price range and easy on the checkbook.

Light Posting

2007-12-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

My posting on blogger have been sparce to say the least. There is a reason but I can't really talk about it right now. It's something we are still trying to figure out and I'm afraid if I post very much on here I'll spill it all. Hopefully I'll be able to post about it in the next few days (fingers are crossed). So until then, just know that I read everyones blogs and try to comment as much as possible.

Christmas still isn't set up in our house. The husband isn't a big fan of "stuff" so it's like pulling nails to get him to bring the decorations out of the basement. But since we are having a Christmas Party with our friends this Saturday the decorations must come out of hiding. I'm excited to have our Christmas Tree out. We've recieved our first snowfall of December (well it may have come at the end of November, but close enough) and it's finally beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.

On a different note... Yesterday I recieved an invitaion to a women in my neighboorhoods Baby Shower. The problem is this is her FIFTH child! Count them 1...2...3...4...5! And she gets another shower? I have a problem with this because her youngest is only 2. It's not like this was a complete surprise 10 years after their last child. NO her husband has been saying from the minute their last child (a boy) was born that he knows there's another little girl waiting for them (they are having a girl) so he was full on planning to have at least one more! The already have 2 girls and 2 boys so it's not like they are short on experience or supplies. It's just annoying because I dont' think it's right to be giving a shower to someone who is just popping out children every 2 years. Is this harsh of me to judge?

That's all I have right now. Back to work.... grrrr.

Vacation in review

2007-11-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

After my week vacation coming back to work is not the fun part. I enjoyed a vacation at home. I liked waking up in my bed every morning and having breakfast when I wanted to. I enjoyed coming and going and being with my friends. We had a busy week and I hope that they enjoyed their time with us.

Sunday we took our friends to the mountians. It was a beautiful day. After a short hike we found snow and they were able to throw some snowballs and play around in the snow till they got too cold. Our friends are from Australia so they haven't seen snow in a long time.

Monday and Tuesday I took them to Moab, UT. We visited Arches National Park and Canyonlands. They were amazed at how big the area was and how many natural wonders we have in such a small space. The nights got REALLY cold so I was glad that they agreed to getting a hotel instead of camping.

Wednesday we ran errands in the morning/afternoon and later that night we went to a Utah Jazz game where they barely won in the last few seconds of the game. It was alot of fun.

Thursday we toured downtown Salt Lake. We took Trax, then walked around. I tried to show them some of the sites that they would find interesting. It's hard to do that in a city your in every single day. We toured a couple of the buildings and overlooked the smog from the church office building (our tallest building in Salt Lake). It was fun being a tourist in my own city.

Friday I took them to Antelope Island. We saw the buffalo, did a few hikes, visited a working ranch and even saw a couple of Antelope on a hilltop. That night my mom took us all out to dinner. She wanted to thank our friends for the great time when we visited them in Australia.

Saturday they flew out to San Diego where they will begin their 5 month bike ride through Mexico and parts of South America.

Oops is already November

2007-11-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

This week is going to be very busy for me. We have friends from Australia visiting and we are on the move. Saturday was getting them situated and taking them to the Gateway Mall. Sunday was communing with Nature by visiting Big Cottonwood Canyon and Park City. The next couple days are Moab (sorry Little Miss), and the rest is still unplanned.

But since I haven't posted pictures from Halloween yet here goes.

We went to a few parties dressed up as White Trash or Trailer Trash or I guess Hill Billies. The good pictures I have of the husband and I are on a different camera and I can find the cords to download them FRICK! So these will have to do until I can figure out an alternative.

Then there was the annual Witches Night. This year I made my costume (the skirt and corset vest). I also decorated my hat. The picture I took myself on auto so it's not the best but again will have to do. I was so excited to make and have my own tutu!

So that's it for Halloween this year. It was pretty much uneventful.

Follow-up post

2007-11-01T12:53:00.000-06:00

Well to follow up Monday's stressfull post. I did some tests and the results were good. It's nothing that I'm ready to talk about yet. Just thought a follow-up was in order.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T13:06:00.000-06:00

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2007-10-29T14:34:00.000-06:00

This is pretty much how I feel today. It's just going to be one of those weeks where EVERYONE is going to be on my nerves. Luckily I'm taking all of next week off to hang out with my friends from Austrailia and just be a bumm. I'll either have good news or bad news at the end of the week so that puts me even more on the edge. Cross your fingers it's good.

Bathroom curse

2007-10-23T08:25:00.000-06:00

Why is it whenever you sit down in the bathroom the doorbell rings. Is there some light that goes on outside that says "I'm now too busy to get to the door without rushing so THIS is the best time to bother me"? Same thing when I'm in the shower, or in the middle of getting dressed.

I hate it. And 90% of the time it's just someone trying to sell me something, put a security sign in my yard, or help with a fundraiser.

The husband and I have come up with a system that we now sneak to the front door when we aren't expecting people and try to look through the side window next to the door to see who is there. If it's someone we don't recognize then we sneak away from the door and stay as quiet as possible. Hopefully they don't hear the TV when they knock then have it put on mute until they leave. Yeah we are sneaky!

Semi-Compulsive

2007-10-17T08:13:00.001-06:00

There are many things that I do that make me wonder if I'm 1/2 complusion disorder.

- Color Coordinate my clothes in the closet
- The front of my clothes have to be facing one direction
- Not leaving any cabinet doors open in a kitchen (I have to close them I hate cabinet doors being left open).

And these may be normal for most people. I know ALOT of people that have to have their clothes color coordinated.

Last night as I was trying to fall asleep, I grabbed my pillow and noticed that the pillowcase was coming off. I don't know why this boths me but it does. It had barely slipped away from the pillow and was driving me crazy. I didn't want to get up to fix it so I layed there "trying" not to think about it. But I knew it was there. I knew that there was a part of the pillow (a part I don't even lay on) that was not covered. It was late and I was comfortable but the pillow needed to be fixed. There have been times I've noticed the husband has taken his pillowcase off while he slept and I've had to take the pillow away from him to find a new cover. There is something about not having the bed perfect when I go to sleep that drives me nuts. I have to have all the covers straight and covering an equal portion of me. I've wrestled away sheets many nights from the husband just to get the bed to be perfect. I've even goneas far as taking all the sheets blankets and comforter off the bed and making the bed while the husband slept.

I know people have funny quirks about them. I think that's what makes us unique.

Pet Peeve Day

2007-10-11T08:29:00.000-06:00

Today will be Pet Peeve Day because I couldn't think of anything else to blog about. As my husband likes to say "I'm a judger".

#1 - I hate when employee's talk about their personal lives to other employee's when they are helping a customer. Yesterday I was getting coffee for my work and the two coffee girls were talking about their living arrangement. They were debating if it was better to move in with a boyfriend you hate or not move in with a boyfriend you love. It was very awckward standing there trying not to easedrop on their conversation but the fact that they were talking for the entire shop to hear made it hard not to. And I could tell the that the guy they were helping was just as uncomfortable as I was. Tip to employee - talk about your private life on your own time -- we don't care who your living with just get our damn coffee so we can leave.

#2 - Along the same line as #1; my sisters and I were at My Girlfriends Kitchen making some dinners and one of the employees was talking about a customer who had JUST left. She was not being nice at all. And the observation of this customer wasn't directed to another employee but to anyone in earshot. It was just so unprofessional. And on top of that she wasn't even an employee for that store location (she was there as a favor) and kept comparing her store to this store and saying how much better her store is. I couldn't believe that, we were there spending A LOT of money on what she was saying wasn't very good quality food and supplies. I just wanted to yell for her to shut up so we could finish making our dinners and she could talk about us when we left. Tip: Talk bad about your job or the customers IN THE BACK ROOM. We don't want to hear it.

#3 - This one happened this morning so my pet peeve is people who don't get the facts right before they make irate calls. I got a call early this morning wondering if we had a someone that was going to cover a job that was set up for 10:00. When I looked at my calendar we didn't have anything scheduled and I had NO paperwork for it. The women on the phone began to freak out and just got so irate with me because she had emailed me all the information and I had emailed her back. I just couldn't believe that I had made such a HUGE mistake. It was only 7:30 when she called and the job didn't start until 10:00 so I had time to find someone to work ASAP. I worked it all out and got the situtation under control. The women was still upset that I had "forgotten" but it was fixed. Then she re-sent me the information and on the paperwork the date was for Oct 12th. Today is only the 11th. So I called her back and reconfirmed that the date was the 12th and not the 11th. I have the job scheduled on our calendar for the 12th (which is right) she acted like oh yeah your right it is the wrong day. So everything is good then. We'll have a someone on the 12th. She didn't apologize for nearly giving me a heart attack so early in the morning she was just like yeah it's tomorrow... grrr. Tip: Get your facts right before you make the call!

#4 - People who can't commit or make a decision. There is a women in our neighborhood who is what we like to call a "yes lady". She says yes to everyone and everything. She can't commit to one thing so she commits to EVERYTHING. She signed her daughter up with 3 daycares just in our neighborhood (welcome to Utah were there are three daycares in one neighborhood) but then she didn't even put her in school at all. She also is in charge of a bunko group that we do monthly. There is an empty spot and she promised the spot to two different girls. So when it came down to bunko night she wouldn't tell one person yes your in and the other no your out. She made one of the other memebers be in the middle of it. It was a mess. And it makes it a hard spot for other people to be in because they have to be the middleman. It just sucks. So Tip: MAKE UP YOUR MIND. No one is going to be mad at you, and if they are it's their own fault. You need to stand up for what you want sometimes.

So that's it I think. What are your pet peeves?

September Catch-up

2007-10-04T08:45:00.000-06:00

I'm a procrastinator. I always have been. In college I'd wait until the night before a project was due then spend all night throwing something together and hope it passed. So it really shouldn't be any surprise that I've totally procrastinated posting about what's been going on in September. I had ever intention of posting after each thing we've done but it just never happened. So this post will be my make-up post for all the things I've done in September. And I totally understand if nobody wants to read this novel, it's long and it's more for myself to remember what I've done. I do try to use this blog as a journal of sorts so I can remember where and what I've done in the last few years.

Sept 7

My friends and I went to the Def Leppard, Styx and Foreigner concert. The concert was outside and we had bought lawn seats. We are lucky where we live because the venue is walking distance to our house. The traffic was horrible and people were at a dead sit coming from all directions. We cruised on past them. We decided to dress as 80's as we could. So the huband wore his mullet wig and I crimped my hair and wore my best 80's looking jewerely.

We got to the concert after Foreigner had already started to play. So we didn't see much of them. We still had daylight so the Foreigner pictures are the ones that turned out the best. I really like Foreigner. I knew most of their songs and thought they should have played just a little bit longer. But then again we were late so who knows how long they were onstage before we got there.

Styx was next and I was really excited to see them, because I remembered my Aunt loved Styx when we were younger. I figured I'd recognize a lot of their songs. But I didn't. I was sad they didn't even play Mr. Roboto but I guess there are band issues and some of the original band memeber aren't part of the band anymore and they aren't allowed to play alot of the older music. So we got the new music.

Finally it was Def Leppard. I've never been a huge "rocker" chick but Def Leppard is classic. I loved dancing to their music and hearing them play live. Even if we were pretty far back on the lawn and could barely see the band it was awesome. It's funny all the different generations that was at the concert. We saw people that could be my mom's age all the to elementary school kids there. It was a blast.

The concert was a blast. We saw a lot of weird people. Including the women standing next to us who was obviously dancing to her own beat because when she should have been rocking like the rest of the people around us she looked like she was leading the choir with her little fake stick. There was also the guy that during the breaks between the bands was trying to sell his girlfriend for beer "girl for beers... girl for beers." The funny thing is he actually was given a beer and tried to give away his girl. I think she was pretty embarrassed. But he didn't care he still had 2 bottles of Vodka safetly stuck in the front of his pants. My husband almost had to burn his eyes when he saw a larger girl on the next blanket over booty shake in his direction.

We both bough t-shirts to remember out day. The t-shirts cost just as much as our tickets did and my much smaller shirt cost $15 more then the husbands. But we love them.

Sept 16

The husband left to Dallas for an entire week which left me nothing to do. Luckily I planned with my family to go see Spamalot. We all got dressed up in our best business casual and went to the theater. It was a very funny production. This was the first musical I've ever been to so I really don't have anything to compare it to, but it was hilarious. The theather was packed and we were second row from the ceiling (seriously). But luckily in that theater there aren't too many bad seats. 2008/2009 Season is going to bring Wicked and I.AM.SO.EXCITED. I will definitly be spending more money and getting better seats. The musical was based off of the Monty Python movie and I think they did a very good job and it was fun to make comparisons to the movie and the musical.

Week of the Sept 16-21st

As I mentioned before the husband was out of town this week. I HATE being home alone. If I'm not trying to stay busy I'll just lay on the couch and watch hours of TV. Sunday after I dropped him off at the airport I went back home and watched 4 episodes of Beauty and the Geek before I realized that I was already lost to the dark side. So I got up and rearranged our guest room. Lately it has been somewhat of a junk room. So I got things cleaned up and set up our Queen bed (we finally got a King for our room) and moved the twin bed. So now in the one room we have a Queen and a Twin bed (kind of crowded) but it works for now. I have guilt getting rid of things. I was very proud of my accomplishments. Over the next week I shopped ALOT (maybe too much) and I also painted our hallway. I chose a light tan color. Most people don't even notice that I painted. But I do and that's what counts. I think it looks really nice and it's a color I wouldn't mind painting other rooms like the kitchen or the living room the same color. So I made my week more productive just so I wouldn't be a sloth and it worked! I would have taken pictures but since it's such a subtle change it's not noticable in the picture.

Sept 28&29th

September 29th was my 30th birthday! The days before my birthday were actually quite depressing. I never really thought that I would be depressed for a birthday. I layed on the couch and watch my husband clean and fix dinner for us. I felt like crap but I all I could do was mope. And I know that 30 really isn't that old but I just feel like I haven't accomplished what I wanted before my 30th birthday. 30 has always been a goal for things that I wanted to get done. I always said by 30 if I'm not pregnent we are going to adopt. Well I'm 30 and we still haven't even gone to the doctor so insemination or to start invetro. I worry that now that I'm 30 our odds of having children are slipping FAST! I think the whole baby was the root of my depression. My husband didn't really take me serious until we were laying in bed one night and all I could do was cry. It was a really sad moment for me. But I got out of my funk and onto the celebration. The 28th my husband took me to the Melting Pot. Which is a restaurant I've always wanted to go to because I.LOVE.FONDUE! It was fantastic, I loved the cheese and the Entree was really yummy with lots of different meats to choose from. I wished we would have gone with the Flaming Turtle for dessert but we opted for the special of chocolate and raspberries. They were okay I'm just not a huge fan of chocolate and there was a lot of chocolate. My husband promised to take me to the movie but we had to stop home to get the showtimes. When we walked in our house all our friends were in the living room for a surprise party for ME! I was a lot more surprised then I thought I would be. I started to cry! It was such a wonderful thing for them all to do for me! It really made me feel a whole lot better about turning 30. I have the best friends ever! And they are so much like me and love to party! I took a picture of the cake (check back tonight, it was a speedo cake (if that's what you wanted to call it) It was really funny!

Then on my actual birthday my sister (I'm a twin) and I went shopping. We never know what to get each other for birthdays so we go shopping together and just buy what the other picks out. Boring I know but it works for us -- especially since we have such different tastes in a lot of things. But when I was getting ready I looked outside AND IT WAS SNOWING! In September! I was pissed! I hate the cold, I hate the snow and I hate bad weather on my birthday. When I called my sister she was so excited. GRRRR. So shopping sucked because it was so cold and wet and SNOWING! We didn't even find anything that we wanted to buy. So shopping was a bust. My nephew picked a restarant that he wanted to take my sister to. It was so cute because he went on http://www.citysearch.com/ and chose a restaruant that was cheap (his words) and had good reviews. The food was cheap but I don't know who would give it good reviews. The service was horrible they didn't even take our drink orders we had to have water. The food was subpar but it was my nephews choice so we had to be nice. I just loved that he went to the effort of finding something new online. Afterwards we went to the movie. We saw Mr. Woodcock and it was funny. I don't think it's a buy the day it comes to DVD but it would be an okay movie to buy when Walmart is selling them for $5.

My birthday was good though. 30 wasn't as bad as I was anticipating it to be. I no longer feel like I missed "my deadline" We are just taking our time. I think I'd be even more stressed out if we actually had a deadline to be following. We just need to take baby steps. That's the way we roll.

If you made it to the end of this post I commend you. You rock and thanks for reading my monthly update.

Shock me shock me

2007-10-02T08:30:00.000-06:00

Last night something surprising happened to the husband and I.

It's no secret that we are having a hard time having kids. I'm past the point of being coy about it. If someone asks if we have children or when we are going to have kids I'm very blunt with the fact that we can't and that we most likely will have to do invetro. It's just easier then tiptoeing around the subject. We've talked to the husbands parents about this as well. We've told them how much the procedure is going to cost and the fact that there is no guarantees.

Their suggestion for us: Maybe you should start a website to get donations from people online. Umm not really the road we were wanting to go. And they tell us this AFTER they get a large inheratance from her mother. And they have bought a brand new truck and a camper. Not once did they offer to help us with the procedure. It's been a sour spot with my husband for a long time. He feels that his family doesn't want to be an active part in our life. They only visit when we ask them over. We have scheduled days that we have dinner once a month. And when he sees my family and how close we are it's hurtful for him. But I try to remind him it's a two way street and if he wants his family to be more open and inviting he needs to be as well.

Back to our surprise. My mother in law had called on Sunday wishing me a Happy Birthday but I didn't get to the phone in time. So all I got was a message. I called her back last night to plan a day to get together for Cake and Ice Cream. We stopped having dinner with them once a month due to our overwhelming schedule. So it's been a few months since we've seen them last. At the end of the conversation she mentioned that she had a question for me. She wanted to help with our invetro. I was beyond shocked. I know my husband was too proud to ask his parents and I didn't think it was my place to ask them. So to have her offer money was shocking to say the least. So we talked for a while about what we were trying right now. I told her that we had some money saved up and an estimated time to when we will begin. I couldn't give her an exact amount because we will do everything we can to pay as much as we can. But the fact that she will set aside money for us is wonderful. It also makes me feel guilty that we haven't visited them in a long time. And I think that we will need to start seeing them on more of a regular basis. The monthly dinners will be hard for us, but I think if we stop by every now an then it should do. And maybe if we start setting the example that visits are nice then they will visit us without a formal invitation.

Pictures are addictions

2007-09-24T22:46:00.000-06:00

I have an addiction.

Mainly taking pictures of my cat. I think it's because he'll sit in one postion long enough for me to take 10 or 15 pictures of him. I really think he's just trying to ignore the crazy women with the camera.

I have a whole folder in my picture files set aside for pictures of Abbie.

Abbie in the backyard
Abbie on the toilet
Abbie sleeping (lots of abbie sleeping)
Abbie in the dryer
Abbie.... Abbie.... Abbie

Yes my kitty is my obsession. But why not. He is my baby. I'm sure if I had a kid to take pictures of my cat would be left in the wayside. Okay that's probably not true. I love taking pictures of Abbie. He has so many personalitys and it's fun to try to capture all of them. Most people just look at my pictures and think "Fat Cat". But not me, I see him smile, I see him snarl, or his boredom; he loves me for all my quirkyness.

This picture below is funny to me because I've filled the bathroom sink with water because I'm tried of cleaning out his bowl. We rearranged the mudroom and now his food is next to his water again. And he keeps putting food in the water then refuses to drink it because it's dirty. The smart thing would be to move his food or water but really it's the only place for both. So this is the alternitive. He's happy and I'm happy; we are able to live in harmony once again. I also love how he's just staring at the water, it's so soothing.

Th is is my cue to go to bed. At 11:00 Abbie comes to the computer room and meows at me. Letting me know it's bedtime and if he has to go to sleep then I need to as well. I love my alarm clock... if only it worked in the mornings (but not at 3 am when he normally wakes me up)

Prank

2007-09-13T08:53:00.000-06:00

Last night one of my friends showed me this video they found on the internet. I haven't watched the videos that lead up to this prank but I feel really bad for the girl and guy involved... ouch. It's a little bit long (like 5 minutes) but you totally have to check it out.

Yankee Proposal Prank

If you can't see the video try THIS link

Helping a Friend

2007-09-09T23:11:00.000-06:00

9 years ago I was introduced to a girl from Australia.

Who knew that we'd end up being such good friends.

Little Miss and Carlie met at a girls camp in Idaho. I was off selling magazines door to door that Summer. I can't remember if it was when I came home for a few weeks in the middle or after the summer had ended, but Little Miss and Carlie were in Ogden the same time as I was. We went to concerts, drive-ins and probably a few camping trips before Carlie had to go home. A few years later after Little Miss was married Carlie contacted me and said she was coming to the U.S. for a tour of the National Parks but before she headed there she wanted to visit Little Miss. We planned a road trip to drive to Iowa and surprise her. Thanks to Little Miss I met a wonderful person who has helped me full fill a dream to travel and visit many places I never dreamed I'd make it to (ie. England, Paris, Rome and Australia). 2 years ago Carlie married her soul mate. I know without a doubt that Mark and Carlie were made for each other. They both have love for traveling for an extensive amount of time and also their love for the outdoors. Currently they are tour guides in the Australian wilderness.

Last year they had the wonderful opportunity to visit many Asian countries. But the one that affected them the most was Cambodia. Before they went to Cambodia they collected items for orphanages. They brought them toothbrushes, soap, clothing and toys to name a few things. They spent a lot of time with different orphanages even taking them to the zoo which was something many of the children have never done before. Even before this Carlie has signed up to sponsor children in third world countries. She has given money to help a child have a better future, at one point in her travels she met the child she was sponsoring, I know it was an amazing experience to finally meet the child she had sponsored for many years.

The reason I'm telling everyone about these amazing friends is because this fall/winter they are heading to South America for a 5 month bike tour to raise money for the orphanage in Cambodia. Check out their web page. They are trying to raise $10,000 to donate directly to the orphanage. The money is directly linked with the orphanage, none of it will go to Mark or Carlie. They are doing this out of the kindness of their hearts because this is a cause they truly care about. I know that Mark and Carlie love these children and would give the clothes off their back to help them. Please check out their website I know they would greatly appreciate your donation even if it's 5 dollars.

They didn't ask me to do this, but It's one way I can help them with their cause. This isn't something I normally do and I don't really get that many visitors to my site, but I'd love anyone that feels like it to pass this along to friends and family. Thank you for reading this.

http://marlie.pledgepage.org/

Friday Funny

2007-09-07T09:50:00.000-06:00

I'm not a bad person I promise.

I love horses, but this Far Side Cartoon just made me laugh this morning.

What's your phrase?

2007-09-05T08:03:00.000-06:00

I've been noticing that everyone has a catch phrase or a word that they say a lot. It's one that you can pretty much count on them saying in every conversation.

Mine is "Really". As in Really, are you that stupid (usually when I'm describing dumb things that happen at work or people driving on the road). I know this is my phrase because my friend laughs every time I say it.

I use to say "like" alot when I was in High School. I'd like to think that I grew out of that.

My little sister says hers is "Seriously" used pretty much in the same context. Any Grey's Anatomy fan would know of the regular use of Seriously on their show.

A friends of mine always says "That's special or that's so sweet" but usually if they do a dumb thing or she doesn't approve. It's a phrase we've teased her about because we've caught her using it in reference to us.

So what's your commonly used phrase?

30 more years

2007-08-28T08:23:00.000-06:00

Last night the husband and I refinance our house.

I feel good about it.
It was the right time for it.
And I didn't cry once.

I'm a cryer when it comes to money issues. I cried when we were talking to loan officer about getting into our house, I cried when we talked to a salesman about our Jetta. But I didn't cry when taking to the refinance people. They made it so easy for us. I understood what they were talking about. I felt they cared enough to make us understand instead of throw numbers at us and tell us what we needed. With the debt that we consolidated, the $11,000 cash out that we needed and all the closing costs; we are saving over $500 a month. That totally rocks.

The $11,000 is to begin the invetro process. Before it was always something that we just talked about. But come Friday we'll actually have the money! It's really exciting and it's really scary! The husband still isn't 100% sure that we are going to do this. He's still hoping that the insemination works. But since this was suppose to be the month we tried insemination and I DIDN'T ovulate our chances aren't looking too good. Next month we'll try it with Chlomid and I really do hope it works. I'd much rather pay $500 for insemination then $20,000 for invetro. But with the doctors odds it's hard to feel hopeful.

The future is looking better for us and hopefully we'll have a kid (or two) in the next year.

Sleep?

2007-08-27T10:03:00.000-06:00

Last night as I was trying to go to bed, a million thoughts were running through my head (he he... that rhymes).

I try not to take naps during the day because it usually messes up my sleep schedule. Normally I go to bed around 11pm. But Sundays are so hard not to nap. Isn't that what Sunday's are for? A day of rest. But my day of rest becomes 5 hours sleeping on the sofa. Which is fine for the sleep deprived but when it comes to going to bed, I'm.not.tired!

So I lay there pretending to be asleep. Maybe I can trick myself into sleeping. I try to clear my head and not think about ANYTHING... which ends up making my brain run even faster. I'd lay there for 5 minutes then get an idea or a thought. I'd jump out of bed and look up something on the internet or change the laundry or start a new batch of laundry. Finally around 1:30 I went to our spare room to sleep (it's really hard trying to sleep when the husband is changing sleep postions just as much as I am, plus the cat takes up WAY to much room on the bed). Plus by sleeping in the spare room I don't have to worry about waking up the husband (or the cat). So I lay there, trying to sleep again. This time around 2am I decided to get my Ipod so I can listen to music. Usually music helps me sleep because I can focus on the music and not on what's in my brain. This so worked! I hung the earphones on the bedframe so I could barely hear it and chose an album to listen to. Last nights choice -- Chicago: Best of. Sadley I only recieved 4 hours of sleep before I had to get up. But I made it, I got to work on time and I'm doing fairly well.

We'll see how the rest of the day turns out.

70's Rock

2007-08-21T10:27:00.000-06:00

Guess where I'll be September 7th?

Def Lepard

And

Foreigner

And

Styx

I'm so excited!!!

Why not a happy ending?

2007-08-17T08:03:00.000-06:00

I know this has been all over the major news stories but I just wanted to post something about it here.

In Huntington, UT a mine collapsed 12 days ago. 6 workers are missing. The mining community has been working non stop to try to locate where the miners are inside the mountain. 3 holes (and a 4th has been started) have been drilled from the top of the mine to see if they can find the missing miners.

Last night there was breaking news and all the reporters could do was speculate what was happening. 5-6 ambulances were rushed to the top of the mountain and life flight could be seen landing in the area. There wasn't much chance that the miners were found because they would have to be reached through a main tunnel not the 9inch holes being drilled. So the only possibility was there was another collapse. As a few of the ambulances left the reporters could see chest compressions being done on someone.

Later it was released that three rescue workers had died and 6 others were injured. You can see the actual story here or here or here.

I try not to dwell too much on this kind of stuff because I just feel so helpless. There isn't much I can do other then wait with the rest of the world to find out what exactly is going on. I can't even imagine what the families are going through. They don't know if their family members are alive or dead and at this point if they will even be able to find them. The work just is too dangerous. But when all three of the major networks are covering it and there isn't' much on TV and I'm all caught up on DVR all I can do is watch and wait. Last night as I was trying to fall asleep my mind was definitely on the miners. I just wanted a happy ending for them. I wanted them to be found after 12 days in a mine; to miraculously come walking out blinking at the bright lights and hugging their family. But now with this new tragedy I'm not sure that is ever going to be possible. It's sad and it just sucks. Those men risked their lives to make money for their family. I'm sure they know the danger of being a miner just as a soldier, a policeman or a fireman knows the danger of their job. It just sucks.

So say a prayer for the miners, the resuce workers and all of their families today.

Favorite things

2007-08-15T12:37:00.000-06:00

Since I can't really think of anything of importance to blog about I'll list a few of my favorite things (in no specific order)

Raindrops on roses -- just kidding

Favorite Color(s): Purple, Yellow and Pink
Favorite Fast Food: Carl's Jr. Charbroiled BBQ Chicken Sandwich on Sourdough bread
Favorite TV show(s): Grey's Anatomy, Psych, The Nine, CSI
Favorite Movie(s): Empire Records, School Ties
Favorite Animal: (bird)Flamingo (animal) Monkey
Favorite Music Group/Singer: Plain White T's, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Favorite Song(s): Pretty much everything in My favorites on my Ipod
Favorite Magazine(s): Creating Keepsakes (I'm a scrapbook nerd)
Favorite Website(s): not sure if they actually my favorites but these are ones I check every single day:
www.scrapbook.com
www.fbofw.com - it's a comic strip
www.dearabby.com
www.blogger.com - of course
www.myfamily.com
www.tbs.com and www.abc.com (any site that I can catch up on TV I love)
Favorite Store(s): Aeropostale, Roberts, any scrapbook store, Target
Favorite Radio Station: X96
Favorite Car: VW Jetta
Favorite Sport(s): Basketball, Football and Hockey (but only in person, I hate watching sports on TV)
Favorite Hobbies/Fun Activities: Scrapbooking, Skiing/Snowboarding
Favorite Amusement Park: DisneyWorld
Favorite Season: Summer
Favorite Holiday: Halloween
Favorite Vacation: It's a toss up between England and Australia I loved them both
Favorite Flower: Cali Lilies

Okay that was dumb and I'm sure I've posted basically the exact same thing before. Oh well.

Blogger is stupid!

2007-08-08T10:42:00.000-06:00

I wrote a post yesterday and it's not showing up. Can anyone see a post about my Canada trip? Maybe it's just this computer I'm on -- who knows.

Update..
I just posted this and miraculously my post from yesterday shows up. I still stand by my first thought "blogger sucks"

Canada is an adventure

2007-08-07T09:31:00.000-06:00

This weekend my sisters and I drove to Canada for a family reunion. We've driven to Canada before without the husbands but this is my first time driving and taking my own car. I was so excited to be the one that could drive into Canada (usually I'm the passenger).The drive up was pretty normal. We left home around 3:00 pm and made it to the border at exactly 1:00 am.

We had a good time at the reunion with just few hiccups.

* I locked my keys in my car. It would have been alright if my spare key wasn't 10 hours away in Utah with my husband.

- what happened was I unlocked my car with the clicker. Then my sister asked if I would pop the trunk; so I pressed the trunk button on the clicker as well. Then I threw my keys onto the seat and went to our tent. My sister then asked why I had locked the car. WTF? I guess my car automatically locks when the trunk is popped open. Why? I have no idea. Therefore my car was locked with the keys inside and the trunk open. We couldn't find any way to push the seats down from inside the trunk but my cousin did figure out he could fit his arm in between the seat and if he had a stick (or arrow in our case) he may be able to press the unlock button. That actually didn't work but the idea was great. We did however figure out that if we had a wire hook on the end of a stick we could pull the handle on the door and open it from the inside. So thanks to a hot dog roaster we were able to finally open my door.

* My stepmom was able to alienate yet another child from the family. Already her three kids don't want anything to do with her. My brother moved into their house for a while so he could find an apartment that he could afford and she basically kicked him out (he lived in his car for a month -- even though we all said he could stay at our house). So he won't have anything to do with her or my dad. I won't really go into details because my stepmom could probably be an entire blog all by herself. But to sum it up, she said some things to one of my cousins about me that pretty much pissed me off. My dad was sitting with her and do you think he'd stand up for me... nope. So basically I will have nothing to do with my stepmom or my dad.

* We went tubing on a river and my arms hurt so bad. I figured tubing would be getting into the tube and letting the river take us down. Not so much. We had to dodge rocks, make it over the white water parts and basically paddle to keep up with the group. The inside of my arms are rubbed raw.The drive home was what became the interesting part of our trip. My youngest sister and nephew stayed in Canada with my dad so it was just me and my twin sister driving home. We were pretty low on gas but figured we could make it to the next town to fill up.

* Normally we go this way to get to Cardston (see the orange line at the bottom). By taking this way we drive through at least 3 towns before we get to Cardston (all of which have gas stations). But my uncles/dad/and grandpa said it would be faster to go this way (see the pink line at the bottom).

We weren't suppose to take the Port of Del Bonita border crossing; we were actually aiming for Milk River and crossing the border at Sweetgrass (like we always do). But we were completely out of gas when we got to Port of Del Bonita and it was another 65 km (just over 40 miles) to get to Milk River. (we had already driven 25 miles with the gas light on before we got to Port of Del Bonita) So we stopped at the border hoping they would have gas; lucky for us one of the security guards had a large gas can in his garage for his BMW and he gave us enough to get us to Cut Bank, MT .

* After barely making it to Cut Bank, MT we filled up and headed back to I-15 to get on our normal route. Only to be pulled over for speeding. The women cop was very pissy with us and wanted to know why we didn't pull over immediately when we saw the flashing lights.
a) we had just barely seen the flashing lights
b) the lights looked to be very far behind us and we weren't even sure it was for us in the first place
and c) we had to slow down in order to pull over which at 85 mph takes a few seconds.

So my sister (who was driving) got the ticket we had to pay $40 right there and I couldn't find my registration for my car.

Grr our trip home had not started well. Luckily we made it home at 12:30 am without any further incident.

And that my friends is our trip to Canada.

Harry Potter - finished

2007-07-29T23:21:00.000-06:00

There isn't going to be any spoilers in this post.

I finally finished the book. I'm pretty sure my husband is excited about that, if only to have my attention again. I read this book the slowest not because it was over 700 pages but because I wanted to fully understand it. There are so many things that I have forgotten from the last six books that I really wanted to comprehend what was happening. I am going to be reading the series again, it will be fun to read them all back to back.

It was a good book and I was satified by it. In a way I'm glad that it's finished. I'm glad that the books are done and most of our questions were anwered. It will be interesting to start talking to people who have finished the book to see how they felt about it and the way that it ended.

Now the only thing left is to wait for the final two movies to come out.

It's that big

2007-07-23T07:55:00.000-06:00

In Utah the biggest firework holiday isn't the 4th of July it's the 24th of July; also known as Pioneer day or Days of '47.

The 24th of July is when we have our BIG parade. This year looks to be no different. As kids we loved to go to the parade (I still do). We'd get up real early to get downtown to stake out a spot. I loved it. We'd be there hours before the parade actually started. We'd sit in the street and eat bagels. There were the few die hards that would sleep on the streets the night before to stake out the perfect spot in the shade.

This morning as I was driving to work I noticed some people sitting in lawn chairs on the side of the road. Could it be? People are actually getting set up a whole 24 hours BEFORE the Parade starts? Is it really that important to have THAT spot that you have to stake out 24 hours before hand? Not to mention that Utah has been in the 100's for the past 2 - 3 weeks. So not only are they getting "the perfect" spot for the parade they now have to sit out and babysit their spot the ENTIRE day in 100 degree weather. Talk about dedicated or crazy...

So on July 24th, the rest of the world has to get up and go to work! I'll try not to let that spoil my fun while we party!

Tuesdays are for the girls

2007-07-19T22:58:00.000-06:00

What a whirlwind weekend this has been. But I loved it! I went to Boys Scout Camp, I got together with old friends that were in town visiting and got to meet a new friend and fellow blogger/Neil Diamond lover.

First I need to give a shout out to Perl. I am so glad that I got to see her on Sunday for a BBQ. She made the most amazing chicken and I've already copied her idea. We had BBQ'd chicken with a cheese and an avocado slice on top... it was YUMMY! I heart Avocados. Then on Monday we had a quick visit so she could see my house. I miss her already. It's been almost 4 years since I've seen her in Utah so it was good to visit with her. But I have been sucking at taking pictures and didn't get ANY pictures with her! I think subconsciously I don't take pictures because I know I'll just have to scrapbook them eventually and since my scrapbook motivation has gone down the toilet... yeah you get the picture.

Tuesday I went to scout camp with the boys in my neighborhood as a supervisor. By the end of the day I was WORN OUT. Little boys are exhausting, and they get REAL dirty. There were boys that were rubbing their faces into the dirt just to get even dirtier.

That same night I met up with Little Miss and Loralee for a girls weekend that happened to be on a Tuesday. I so wish I didn't have to work the next morning, but with the day I already took off and the stuff that hit the fan while I was gone FOR ONE DAY I really didn't think it would go over well if I called in sick (sorry girls). You can shoot over to Loralee's blog for a lot of the details and some more pictures. I missed out on the Cooking Show and their three seconds of fame and also shopping with them Wednesday night. Yeah I suck -- and we had the in-laws(grrrooan) over for dinner. I'm glad that I got to meet Loralee; she is so sweet and totally rocks. We had so much fun with midnight (virgin) Margareta's and painting our toenails. And check out the ringtone she has on her sidebar... it's so funny and I'm glad they got a kick out of it as much as I did. I giggle everytime I listen to it.

So go check out Loralee's blog for an update on our girls night. It was so much fun!

I should have called in

2007-07-18T08:54:00.000-06:00

Going to bed after 3:30 in the morning, only to have to wake up for work at 7 am sucks... real bad.

But it was totally worth it!

This is how I feel today....

One could only hope.

Good ole days

2007-07-15T02:26:00.001-06:00

It's funny that something as simple as a wedding shower reminds you of the good ole times.

This weekend my younger sisters' friend had a wedding shower. We were all invited. It wasn't just a shower for her; it was a chance for everyone to get together again and catch up. The shower guests were all people that we had grown up with. People from the neighborhood that I lived in, the churchmembers that we knew.

It's crazy how much people have changed, yet how much they are all the same. Britney still looks the same but now she has a 6 month old baby. I remember her and my brother playing when they were 5 or 6. Or Megan who I use to babysit when she was only a few months old and now she's in high school. Or Stephanie who was stuck in a tomboy stage and now she's in the Army. Or Autumn who gave up a baby for adoption 2 years ago. Everyone has moved out of the area yet we still find excuses to get together to catch up.

I hope when we have children, our kids will have the same relationship with our neighbors and friends. That one day when they are grown and have children of their own they will remember where they grew up and see the people that helped raise just like I did.

I know that everyone isn't as lucky as I was to live in the same house for 18+ years. To have a place that they could always go back to no matter how bad it got. I was that lucky and I'm glad that I have the memories that I have growing up. I use to wish that we could move and start over, that I didn't have to only go to one Elementary School, one Jr. High or one High School. I wanted to move to a new state and make new friends. But looking back I'm glad that we didn't. I'm glad that some of the friends that I had when I was 10 I can still call to see what's going on in their lives.

10 is the new 7

2007-07-13T08:58:00.000-06:00

For a REALLY long time Utah only had 1 area code (801). A few years back we were introduced to the (435) area code. Now we are getting another one (385). Details are still a little sketchy. I'm not sure if new numbers in the Salt Lake County will be getting the new area code or if it's only for other counties. I've found quite a few stories about the new area code and each one is different.

** On KSL. com they say that only Utah, Davis, Morgan and Millard Counties will get the new area code, Salt Lake County will stay the same and the rest of Utah will still have the (435).

** But then I read in the Salt Lake Tribune that five counties along the Wasatch Front will recieve the new area code for new numbers. The 385 area code will still be a local number we will just have to dial 10 numbers instead of 7. And it looks like the 801 area code will be done by June of 2008.

** Last night I read another story that said the 385 area code would be statewide. And we wouldn't be able to know where the person was calling from based on the area code.

Don't you just love how each story has a little bit of the fact but just different enough to confuse the hell out of the readers? And I'm sure there are a lot of states with multiple area codes in one city. But this is Utah and it's crazy to see it growing so quickly that within 10 years we've had to have two new area codes. It's going to be hard to remember to dial all 10 numbers soon instead of just the 7. Good thing I don't remember any numbers I just have them programmed into my phone.

Oh and Happy Friday the 13th. Hopefully your day is uneventful.
Tonight I'm going to see Harry Potter with my family! I'm so excited. I heart Harry Potter!

hmmmm

2007-07-12T10:27:00.001-06:00

Okay I was tired of looking at my black and blue legs. So I need a new post.

But what to talk about?

I could talk about the fact that THE ENTIRE STATE IS ON FIRE! Last night I flipped past the news to catch a map with all the places that were burning. There were at least eight fires currently burning. The largest being the Milford Flat fire which has already burned over 300,000 acres. It's just crazy! I'll need to upload a picture of the mountains or the lack there of... maybe later tonight. But the haze that has enveloped the Salt Lake Valley isn't even from most of the fires that are burning inside the state, nope we get the smoke from other states. And since the Salt Lake Valley is surrounded by mountains it sits. Today we have a little bit of off and on rain which is great and it's finally cooled down from the 100+ degrees we've been having. But I can't complain about the heat too much, I go from an air conditioned office to my air conditioned car to my air conditioned house. Barely setting foot outside. But I do feel for my husband that has to work in it for 8+ hours a day.

I could also talk about the fact that we FINALLY have a room finished in the basement. There are still minor things I'd like to get done in it like blinds and mirrors and a cornershelf and pictures but that's all just decorations. The room is finished in my eyes. But that will be another post with pictures.

So not much to really talk about just needed to get those ugly pictures of my legs off the top of my page.

The good and the bad

2007-07-08T21:58:00.000-06:00

Good idea playing with your friends
Bad idea playing paintball with your friend

* First off I can't add a title, why? Stupid blogger! *

Okay really playing paintball with friends is fun. I'd rather play with friends then with the twelve year old kids at the paintball warehouse that play every single day and are vicious. I never thought I'd actually enjoy running around shooting each other with paint but I really like it. I especially like playing in the forest where there are trees to hide behind and logs to bunker down behind.

These are the bruises that I have from the paintballs.

This one isn't from paintball it's a bruise I got a week or two ago. But it just adds to all the bruises on my legs.

I also have a bruise on my arm as well but couldn't get a good picture of it. I was also hit in the neck on skin that hurt like a mother _____ but that one surprisingly didn't bruise at all. There is barely a red mark and I'm surprised it didn't break skin when it hit because it hurt bad enough to.

The funny part of playing paintball with friends, especially the girls, is there are a lot of apologies, we get to see the aftermath of the game.

Some of us aren't made for mornings.

2007-07-05T08:47:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a nice relaxing day for the husband and I.

We had breakfast in the park with our ward at 8:00 in the morning. I hate waking up early, I am not a early morning riser if I don't have to be. But I made it.
Then we went home and napped all afternoon.
Woke up early enough to get some grocery's and fireworks for the BBQ we were invited to.
Ate some good food.
Set off fireworks.

It was a good day.

The funniest part though happened as the husband and I were getting ready for bed. I took off my shirt as I normally do. Went to unstrap my bra and realized I was wearing TWO BRAS. I think I wasn't quite awake when I went to the the breakfast. I'm just happy I made it with pants on.

Good times

2007-07-03T09:16:00.000-06:00

It's fun going places you've been to a million time as a kid and remembering "the good ole day".

This weekend we went to Lagoon. It's Utah's attempt of Six Flags. It's not the happiest place like Disneyland, but it's local and it's fun for a few hours.

We went with some friends in the neighborhood and their friends. It was a hot day, so the first ride we hit was a water ride. We got soaked! Then we had to ride the newest ride in the park (every year they add a new ride or attraction). The new ride was fun and totally fit it's name "Wicked". The rest of the day was filled with eating, waiting in line, riding rides and sweating ALOT.

But the fun part was remembering the things we've done there with our families or our friends.

In the middle of the the park is the Pioneer Village. It's made up to look like the Pioneer days with houses and stores. Kind of set up like a museum. One year my sister and our friends were there and the rides were boring because we've been on them so many times. So we bought water guns and ran around the pioneer village shooting each other. We would hide in the houses, sneak through trees and jump out at each other. It was so much fun and entertained us for easily 2 or 3 hours.

Another time my brother and I went on Colossus: Fire Dragon. It was probably my first time on that ride. This roller coaster had two loops and I was scared to death. But we made it through and I loved it! That day there was no one in line so we ran back to the front and got on the next train. I think that day we rode Colossus 20 or more times, it was the best.

My uncle lost part of his leg in a construction accident when I was younger. He received a prosthetic but at the time it still hurt for him to walk on it all the time. When they came to visit we took him and his family to Lagoon with us. He had a wheelchair at that the time. We didn't know it but people in wheelchairs got to go to the front of any line. We loved it. We all called dibs on my Uncle that day, who wouldn't want to cut to the front of the line on every ride!

And who could forget the Tidal Wave. When one side of the boat would go up everyone on that side would yell "Tastes Great" and when the other side would go up everyone on that side would yell "Less Filling".

There is a ride called the Sky Ride. It's just a ride to take you from one side of the park to the other. One year my sister and I rode that over and over again. Not because it was fun but because we made it fun. Instead of just sitting on the ride watching the people below us, we started talking to the other passengers that were passing us. Over and over we rode the ride, until other people started talking to us.

And last; The skyscraper. This one scared the crap out of me. It's a ride that isn't included in the cost of the park. Little Miss and I went on this one together. You get strapped in together in a big harness and a line drags you to the top of the tower. When they tell you too you pull the rip cord and off you sail. It's a good thing that Little Miss was in charge of pulling the cord because I'm pretty sure we would have sat there suspended in air for a very long time. The initial fall was so scary but soaring over the people walking beneath us was amazing, it was like we were flying. Not sure if I'd do it again but it was totally worth it the one time I did.

Yup good time, good times.

HAVE A HAPPY AND SAFE 4TH OF JULY!

Flamingos

2007-06-25T08:51:00.000-06:00

A few years ago I was in a photo "treasure" hunt where each month we were given a list of things to photograph and post it back on the website. One of the things to photograph was a flamingo. The goal was to be as creative as possible. We could get a real flamingo or a fake flamingo the only rule was a picture of a flamingo. That's about the time I became obsessed with everything flamingo. I think they are so funny! Utah use to have a flamingo at the Great Salt Lake that escaped from the local aviary. Instead of re-capturing the flamingo they let him live there. Every winter Floyd the Flamingo could be seen at the Great Salt Lake among the seagulls and other birds. I'm not sure if Floyd has been sited recently but I've been out to the Great Salt Lake many times to see if I could see him (no luck).

My mom is great at "helping" us with our addictions/collections. When I was younger I thought the Russ Trolls were so cute. Every chance I had to buy one I did. I acquired quite a collection of Trolls and my mom facilitated my collection by keeping a list of all my top Troll wants and buying them for me whenever possible.

With my flamingo obsession she's back to her old tricks. One day I was having a really bad day when there was a knock at my door. This was standing there:

I called my mom to find out if she left it and she denied everything, even though later I did find out she left it to cheer me up.

My aunt bought me this one from Build-A-Bear.

And this one my mom bought for me just because it was funny.

I also found this scrapbook paper at the store and immediately bought it even thought I'm not sure how I'll scrapbook with such a crazy background, it's just fun to have around.

So there you go that's my most recent obsession/addiction.

Internet is fun

2007-06-21T10:01:00.001-06:00

As most people know I have a lot of time on my hands at work, so I'm always trying to find new things on the Internet to keep me entertained.

I found this: http://www.inthemotherhood.com/ Anyone heard of it?

They are webisodes featuring Leah Remini (from King of Queens). The idea is women write stories about mommyhood based on that weeks topic, submit it to a panel of judges and if they pick your experience it will be polished and made part of a future webisode and you get a prize. The few that are on the website so far are pretty funny.

I know there are a lot of mommy bloggers out there that have some hilarious stories about their kids and the things they do and say. Wouldn't it be fun to see them acted out on a webisode. I know I sound like I work for the company or something (I don't, I promise), I just need things to keep me entertained. If I had kids I'd submit something... maybe I'll convert my cat stories to a kid story and see if I can win a prize.

Let me know if anyone submits to the website, I'd love to see it on a webisode.

Me -v- the morning

2007-06-20T08:16:00.001-06:00

It's no secret: I don't like mornings. Better yet, I hate mornings.

I am 100% a night person. I can be tired all day long but the moment it starts getting dark I start to wake up. Which sucks because I have to be at work by 7:30. So going to bed at a decent hour is REALLY hard for me. Not to mention it doesn't even get dark now until after 9 or later.

Needless to say getting up in the morning has become very hard for me lately. It use to be that my husband would get up before me and I could hear him in the kitchen or the mud room getting ready for the day. But lately he hasn't had to go to work until 8:00 which means he's still sound asleep when I should be getting up. No fair! I also have 2 alarms that I use to try to wake me up. Neither of which works.

I've also started to notice that I've been having early morning dreams. Weird little dreams that I really don't remember much of but I want to stay alseep to finish. So every 10 minutes my dream is interupted so I can shut off my alarm. All of which results in waking up late, because I think I'll sleep for 3 more minutes then get up. And when I look at the clock it's past 7. Shhhhhiiiiiittttt! And that's my morning. Me fighting myself to have ten more minutes then realizing 45 minutes later that I'm late to leave for work.

I hate mornings

Oh I wonder

2007-06-19T08:37:00.001-06:00

Recently two of my cousins have gotten married. It's been 2 years since we've had a wedding in our family (on my mom's side of the family), 4 years since a wedding in my immediate family. Every time someone gets married I start getting paranoid. I just know that they are going to get pregnent right away and start popping out little ones.

* When my younger sister got married every time she was sick or tired; in my mind I wondered if she was pregnent. Was there something she wasn't telling me? As time went by and I realized that she had no intention of getting pregnent I started to worry less.

But now it's back. With my cousins newly married status I am back to wondering. Everytime his wife mentions that she's been sick or she's really tired I wonder.

It's not that I wouldn't be happy for them. I just want them to enjoy being married for a while before they get pregnent. I want neices and nephews, I think it would be fun to have kids at our family parties again. But not this soon. I'm sure they are all on birth control, it's not my place to ask though. It's not my decision when they should start a family. And I can't be selfish and want them not to have children just because we can't. Personally I wouldn't wish what we are going through on anyone. It's horrible to know that there is only a 60% chance of every having a baby through medical means.

So the reason for this post: nothing really just getting my thoughts out there. I hope that one day my cousins will have children... just not right now.

Another Monday

2007-06-18T12:29:00.000-06:00

Today is one of those day where I'm not really sure why I'm here.

The phone has barely rang since this morning.

I'm Bored

I'm Tired

Has it been five years?

2007-06-15T08:05:00.000-06:00

Today is the husband and my 5 year anniversary. A small milestone.

How we met: On June 15th Perl and I went to Pine View Reservoir because we wanted to camp, the next day we went to the lake to find some guys with a boat. It worked, while we were laying out on the beach the husband walked up and asked us if we'd seen his friends. He sat down with us for a while and hung out. His friends did have a boat and we hung out with them for a few hours. We had to leave to feed the goat that Perl was tending for her mom. That evening we went back to where the husband and his friends were camping and it's pretty much history from there.

How he proposed: We dated for about six months. In that time I had moved from my apartment to my mom's house to be closer to him. On December 7th he proposed. That evening we had gone to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra Christmas Concert. As we left the concert the husband wanted to see the lights at Temple Square. I was in a dress and very cold and hungry. I just wanted to leave. He dragged me to a place were there weren't a lot of people and proposed. Of course I said Yes.

The Wedding: Six months after we got engaged we were married. It was nearly a year to the day that we met. We were married in the Salt Lake City Temple. The reception was in my mom's backyard.

My husband doesn't read this blog so I'm not going to write a drawn out sappy love letter to him. I just wanted to document this milestone in our life and mention that it has been wonderful. We've had our ups and our downs. But as a whole we work really well with each other. I've probably complained to my close friends and family about our marriage and our relationship, but everyone needs an outlet every once in a while. We have similar goals and ideas so most of the time when we want to do something the other is okay with it. We've never been clingy to each other so we have our space to do our own things. I scrapbook and have girls nights. He watches sports and goes 4-wheeling with the guys. He's been an awesome husband and I couldn't have asked for a better one.

In the five years that we've been married we have:

6. Travelled to 6 different countries.

Mexico

England

Paris

Rome

Australia

Canada (no picture because it's usually family stuff we are there for)

5. Flown to five different states together

Iowa (this picture was actually taken in Nauvoo, but it was the same trip

New Mexico

Florida

Texas

Colorado (no picture of just us since we were at a wedding most of the time)

4. Car accidents in my Prism

- Rear ended

- a guy backed into me

- Scrapped down the side of my car

- Dog ran into my car!

3. Lived in three different places:

an apartment

my moms house

and finally our own house.

2. I've had two different cars

1. The husband has switched jobs once.

And we still have our cat Abbie

We've accomplished a lot in the short time that we've been married. The only disappointment that we've had; is not having children. I had planned to be married for a year then start trying to get pregnant. The plan was simple, it was easy to follow. My body had other ideas.

We've had a great 5 years and I know that we will have many more. I truly think we were meant to meet 6 years ago at Pine View Reservoir.

I love you babe!

We aren't all crazy

2007-06-08T08:35:00.000-06:00

I've been debating if I want to blog about what happened in our office yesterday. It's good stuff but... Well anyways Little Miss told me I should definitely blog about it so here goes...

My boss called me yesterday morning and said she got a strange cryptic message from our answering service from an employee that works part time in the afternoons.

The message: "Employee is canceling the deposition tomorrow because it's too far to drive". Which didn't make any sense. Did I mention that my boss got the call from our answering service at 1:30 in the morning! I pretty much figured what she meant was that she was quitting because she moved to a city North of where we worked and it was too long of a commute and she's been having a lot of car problems. When my boss finally talked to her she confirmed what I already knew. But also threw in this fun tidbit.

Backstory... As most people know I'm Mormon. The employee that we have working part time is also Mormon. My boss is Jewish. She's very understanding of our religion especially living in Utah and there are a lot of Mormons. Every once in a while she'll ask me questions about our beliefs or what we do in certain circumstances. Mainly she'll ask me about baby blessings, or about funerals and why we have the casket in the front of the chapel where we worship, or what to give to a child as a baptism gift or what is appropriate to give a missionary when they leave on a mission. But every once in a while she'll ask me doctrinal questions that I'm not sure how to answer her without sounding like I don't know anything about my religion or I'm crazy.

So back to my story. The employee also mentioned to my boss that she received a blessing from her bishop telling her that she needed to quit her job and find a job closer to home. Okay I accept that. I've never heard of a blessing being so straight forward and blunt but to each his own I guess. In the blessing she was also told that she needs to find a job that will allow her to work only 1 to 2 day a week. WTF? How is she suppose to support herself? She's divorced and living with a roommate. Oh yeah and she's been divorced twice and has 7 kids that she can't have any contact with. And she has to pay child support for at least 5 of these kids. So now I'm getting questions from my boss about blessings, where they come from and who can administer the blessings. There are two things that I don't like to talk about at work, politics and religion.

I honestly think she's crazy. She's said things to me in the past where I've walked away and thought to myself... Holy Crap this lady is crazy! I wish I could take a picture of her and post it on this blog but that wouldn't be very nice of me and I'm not good at being that discreet. I also think this women is the type that wants others to run her life. She's made a lot of poor decisions in her life and I think she's pretty messed up in the head. So she needs the approval of others (in this case her bishop) to make decisions. It's one thing to say I need to quit because my car sucks and the commute sucks and it's a whole different story to say God told me I need to quit my job. Crazy Crazy!

And I promise not all Mormons are crazy. If you ever met me you'd realize I'm pretty chill about my religion.

Should private really be private?

2007-06-05T08:10:00.000-06:00

Lately I've had about one doctor appointment each week. I'm a very private person at work and I don't feel like I need to broadcast what the doctor appointments are for (unless it's something serious and will keep me out of work for multiple days).

*I've had an eye appt.
*The annual women's appt.
*A dermatologist appt to have my moles measured (i have a lot of moles on my back)
The doctor then decided one concerns him so I had to make another appointment to have that one removed and while I was there I had a lump removed from the top of my head. All pretty easy procedures and appointments.
*I also had a dentist appt.

This morning I got a call from my boss. First question asked Are You Pregnant? Sure, I have had a lot of appointments but it's really no ones business but my own what they are for. If I was pregnant (which I'm not) it's really up to me to let people know. I know in the next year I will probably have even more appointments possibly weekly appointments. I don't want to have to tell my office what each appointment is for. I try to have my doctor appointments scheduled as late in the day as possible so I don't have to alarm anyone.

What do you think should I tell everyone what my doctor appointments are for? Is it their right to know? Another reason that I don't talk about it at work is I don't feel I need to tell them the results and if they know that I went for a certain thing I get questioned about it later. It's my private medical history I don't feel I need to share, especially the unimportant details that don't affect my job.

Meme

2007-05-30T08:03:00.001-06:00

I wasn't tagged by anyone but I saw this on a few blogs that I frequent and thought it would be fun to try. It's a lot harder then I thought it would be.

3 Things I am scared of:
1. Trees falling
2. Spider - ugh!
3. Car Accidents

3 People that Make me Laugh:
1. Can one be me, because I laugh at myself a lot
2. Little kids
3. My cat

3 Things I Love:
1. My husband
2. Traveling
3. My cat

3 Things I Hate:
1. Gossip
2. My grass being dead
3. Stupid drivers

3 Things I Don’t Understand:
1. Why people can't use their blinkers
2. Weeds I hate and never will understand the purpose of weeds
3. Why people abuse their children

3 Things On My Desk:
1. Pictures of my friend and her kids
2. Junk, lots and lots of junk
3. Soda Can

3 Things I am Doing Right Now:
1. This blog post
2. Not working
3. Not answering the phone

3 Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. Go to Egypt
2. Have a baby
3. Sky dive (yikes!)

3 Things I Can Do:
1. backflip on the trampoline
2. bellydance
3. Scrapbook

3 Things I Can’t Do:
1. Pee standing up
2. roll my tongue to make that cool sound like the Spanish "R"
3. play a music instrument

3 Things You Should Listen To:
1. Plain White T's - I love them
2. Your mom (mothers know best)
3. Kids - they are hilarious

3 Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. Rap music
2. The news it's just depressing
3. Stupid people

3 Things I’d Like To Learn:
1. a foreign language
2. how to plant a flower garden (and keep it alive)
3. Origami

3 Favorite Foods:
1. 7 layer bean dip
2. Plain Potato's dipped in Ranch
3. Sweet Pickles

3 Shows I Watched As A Kid:
1. Thundercat
2. Tiny Toons
3. Saved by the Bell

Best of intentions, but not the nicest

2007-05-29T10:26:00.001-06:00

I've come to realize that I'm not a very nice person, especially to the person I love the most.

My husband.

Lately I've been pointing out his flaws. I think I do it with the best of intentions but not the nicest way. We've both gotten pretty lazy in our daily "to dos". We are tired when we get home and not really motivated to do much. I get home and watch TV, eat some chips and salsa or any other snack food we have around the house. My husband does the same. But I still point out to him that he should do some work around the house (ie. finish framing the basement, hang some shelves I bought, get the yard ready for cement). What I think I'm really saying to him is that I need to get work done too, that I need to get off my lazy butt and do laundry, scrapbook, finish painting our exercise room or anything else that is productive. But I don't I only point out to him what he's not doing. We've also gotten a bit lazy in our exercise. When we first got married I would go to the gym, he would ride his bike to work. Since moving into our house we haven't done much of anything. I did start going to the gym for the past month. But I only go when my friend goes, so if she doesn't go then I don't and I get into a rut. I want to lose weight and get back into shape. I want to feel better about myself and the way I look in just about anything. But instead of doing that I point out my husbands flaws to him. Again I think I do it with the best of intentions, diabetes runs in his family, I don't want him to end up like his family -- but I don't think I do it in the proper way.

We've been saying for the past year once the exercise room is finished we'll start working out. Well I'm not too sure that's going to fix the problem. I think we need to start eating more healthy and working out on a regular basis. I definitely need to cut out soda from my diet (which is going to be really hard for me). I'm signing up for some classes at the gym so hopefully that will keep me active and on a schedule (today is kickboxing -- more like kicking my ass). I also need to encourage my husband to workout with me instead of point out his midsection by poking it and laughing like the Pillsbury dough boy (see I told you I'm mean).

We are very active people but I think we let life slow us down. We both make excuses not to work out, to eat out, watch too much TV and to basically live a unhealthy lifestyle. We eventually want children and I think to do that we need to be healthy and I want our children to be healthy and not have two parents that watch too much TV and eat a lot of junk food.

This month I'm trying to be a better person.
- I'm going to be nicer to my husband
- We are trying to live on a budget
- Going to follow my workout schedule
- Follow a healthy meal plan.

Happy Day

2007-05-23T23:04:00.000-06:00

The day has finally arrived.

The opening of Utah's very first IKEA.

Honestly I'm not sure why I've been so excited. But ever since I found out we were getting one I have been estatic. May 23 has been circled on my calendar for months. I've never been to an IKEA before, I've actually never even heard of one until I was looking in the paper and noticed that there was ALOT of job openings with IKEA and found out that it was a furniture store.

I love furniture stores. I usually trick my husband to visit R.C. Willeys at least once a month so I can caress the furniture. I need to love them. Now I have a new store to love and covet. My husband also hates to go with me to Lowes because I beeline for the paint section, I love to collect paint samples. Come to my house and each room has paint samples taped to the walls.

I can already tell that IKEA is going to be my new favorite store. The prices are so cheap, the stuff is so fun. I love the style and the design. I may just have to get a job there to support my new buying habit. Before I was all Target now I will be all IKEA.

Yesterday was the grand opening. I really wanted to skip work and be there in the morning. But I was good. My friends and I went yesterday evening. I was a little worried because I was so excited about this store and I didn't want to be let down. But it was everything I hoped it would be. Is that sad? I'm officially an IKEA junkie. I told my husband that I planned to spend about $100. I was so proud when I checked out and I had only spent $60. When I got home my husband was suprised I bought so much (especially the huge ass shelf). He didn't really think I was going to buy stuff. I was just proud with the restraint I did have.

So if I'm ever reported missing just check the local IKEA, I will probably be giving my love to something there. (Seriously I tell furniture that I love them -- I am that weird)

Houston Pictures

2007-05-22T23:42:00.001-06:00

These are pictures to go with my previous post about my weekend vacation. See this post for the update.

Welcome to Houston

Pictures from the Astros -v- Rangers Baseball game we went to on Friday, May 20th

Pictures of Sami Sousa

I take a lot of these type of pictures. The husband is a good sport for me.

Friday we did wedding stuff. These are just a few pictures that I took.

This is the Houston Temple where my cousin got married. It's different then the temples in Utah so I like this one. Plus the area that it's in -- holy cow those houses were HUGE!

The Groom's Cake. I'm not a fan of chocolate but the chocolate covered strawberries were yummy. I didn't try the cake though (chocolate - yuck)

The Wedding Cake. The top layer is Yellow Cake, next two is Carrot Cake, next one is Yellow and the bottom is Chocolate. This cake was yummy.

This is just a picture of the Husband and I outside the temple watching the bride and groom get pictures taken. Plus it's a cute picture of us so how could I resist.

Sunday and Monday we spent in Galveston.

I'm usually the one taking pictures so I have a lot of self taken pictures of myself.

This is my cousin swinging from a lamp post. I see a new future here.
We saw dolphins. It was getting dark so the flash wouldn't work so this is the best I could do.

These are a collage of some of my beach pictures. That's it I'm out.

Way too quick

2007-05-22T09:19:00.000-06:00

Awww back from Vacation. I could have stayed longer, I wasn't homesick like I normally am. I didn't even start missing my kitty. I knew that he was being taken care of by my mom and she's a great kitty-grandma.

So what did I do?

We went to Houston for my cousins wedding. So we made a whole weekend of it.

Friday - Flew to Houston
- Found our hotel and got checked in
- drove around Houston trying to figure out the freeways and find our way into downtown Houston. My brother is great at reading maps... me not so much.
- Went to Burger King where they had the SLOWEST service every. It took 25 minutes to get our food and we were the only ones in the restaurant.
- went to an Astros game. Our first MLB game! It was so much fun and they had fireworks afterwards that kick any fireworks asses that we've seen in Utah.

Saturday was designated Wedding Day. We went to the wedding then drove 2 hours to Vidor for the reception. It was nice -- long day but really nice.

Sunday we checked out of our hotel and drove to Galveston.
- Hung out at the beach
- Ate at the Saltgrass (my husband's favorite Texas restaurant)
- Walked around Historic Downtown
- Walked along the pier
- Saw Dolphins playing in the water
- Ate Icecream on the seawall

Monday we checked out of our hotel in Glaveston
- Went to the beach again
- Ate seafood--- mmmmm.
- Pulled over for not wearing seatbelts (we got off with a warning)
- Tried to get on the Ferrie but realized that is went to an island and we didn't have enough time.
- Flew home.

It was a fast weekend but I so needed it. I didn't even miss work/home. I didn't call to check in or to see if everything was okay. I didn't care - I was on VACATION! Now it's back to real life... ugh.

Please let it be Friday

2007-05-15T12:46:00.000-06:00

It's Tuesday and I'm already wishing it was Friday.

Friday is going to be a good day for me.
1) I won't be at work
2) We are flying to Houston
3) I get to go to a Baseball game

Monday will also be a great day because I won't be at work again! I love vacations. We take a lot of weekend vacations but vacations that we actually get to miss a day or two of work is extra sweet. The next Monday is Memorial day so that will be 3 straight weeks of 4 day workdays. I love it. It's just too bad the next day off won't be until July.

Mothers Day was pretty uneventful for me. First I'm not a mother and Second my mom was in Hawaii. We did go visit the husbands parents but only stayed for a short time. And to spare blog world I'll just leave it at that.

Life is pretty boring in the Just Me household. We have been watching the NBA playoffs for the past few weeks. I normally don't do well with sports but we have been rotating to different peoples houses to watch the games. Today is our turn to host the viewing party. The Jazz are doing really well, let's just cross our fingers they can win tonight's game and go on to the next round. The series is 3 -1 so we have a really good shot and the Jazz do awesome when they are on their home turf.

So that's it, I'm out.

Weekend wrap up

2007-05-10T08:27:00.000-06:00

I'm always glad when it's the weekend. It's not that my job is especially taxing, I just LOVE to sleep in... love, love, love it!

This entire week I felt like I have a million things to do when I'm at home. I haven't been to bed before midnight this entire week. Monday only because I have 5 screaming men in our living room watching the Jazz game (GO JAZZ!). The rest is my fault and my restless mind.

Things I NEED to do this weekend:
Clean my house - top to bottom. - We are having a Cinco de Mayo party on Saturday and I want my house clean. And I realize that Cinco de Mayo was last weekend but we couldn't get together with our friends that weekend so we postponed it to this weekend. Plus I have a ton of Fiesta type decorations that I want to use and this was a great excuse for it.

Weed the yard - I really need to start working in our yard more. The last few days I've put fertilizer on our lawn as well as a lawn feed that I made in our garage. I want our lawn to be pretty and I'm so tired of the stupid dandilions in our yard. The husband should have the sprinklers fixed today (crossing my fingers) so we can finally start watering. Good thing too, it's going to be a hot weekend and our grass already is looking pretty sad.

Finish painting the damn room we are building in the basement - we finally fixed the hole in the ceiling where the leak was so now we need to finish the room. The husband gave me a deadline of Wednesday to have it completed but I just had no energy to get it done. Plus we've either had people at the house since Monday or I've been busy doing other things to get it done.

Need to go grocery shopping: do you know how long it's been since I've actually gone grocery shopping with a list of what to buy for the week. Neither do I. I use to be so good at making a weekly menu and sticking to it. Lately I buy based on what I want to cook that day -- If I even cook.

Things I want to do this weekend:
Go shopping. - I am so tired of my wardrobe. I just want to throw it all out and start over. I'm pretty sure there are some clothes in my closet from High School. Yeah I need to do some deep Spring cleaning.

Scrapbook - This is a want as well as a need to do. I need to get back into the swing of scrapbooking because I have A TON to catch up on.

And because it's been a while since I've posted pictures of my baby:

Fun times

2007-05-08T12:01:00.000-06:00

Really not much has been going on. Work has been unbelievably slow lately, which would make for great time to blog except I don't have much to blog about.

We made it to Vegas and back in one piece. Of course I didn't realize until 1/2 way there that I had forgotten my camera (and trying to get pictures emailed is like pulling teeth). A bit tired from late nights and long drives but I still made it to work on time Monday morning so no harm. I did have to leave early because I had no voice and was feeling pretty worthless at work but it helped me get some much needed sleep in. The house that we finally ended up with was perfect. It was beautiful and the pool was so much fun. We could have gone to Vegas and not stepped a foot on the strip and I would have been happy. But of course what's Vegas without a little fun on the strip? We had dinner at the Tournament of the Kings at the Excaliber. It was a blast. Dropped a few coins in the slot machines, the husband won some money on the Jazz game, we shopped, I got a new Coach purse -- thanks to my boss! I got a great sunburn (which hurt at first but for me sunburning is the only way for me to tan). And I know that I should wear sunscreen I'm going to pay later on in life, but it's so hard for me, and I only think about it later when I'm suffering. Could've, Would've, Should've -- as I like to say.

After we got back from our wonderful weekend vacation, we had some wonderful surprises. Found out a major valve in our sprinklers is busted. That's what we get for not draining our sprinkler systems early enough. Our lawn is now overgrown with dandelions and dying from lack of water. So #1 priority is to get that fixed. Isn't being a homeowner fun? Also driving home from work last Monday afternoon a piece of wood was flipped up from a passing car and smashed into my windshield. I now have huge, pretty circular crack in the middle of my windshield. Needless to say that needs to get fixed -- ASAP. Also this is the final week that my husband has to go to traffic school. I just know he's going to forget or get tied up with work and the $50 that we had to pay is going to go down the drain. Time to kick on my nagging wife switch I guess.

And last. We found out that the group that we hang out with in our neighborhood is now considered a clique. So we went from group to clique... I wonder when we will be considered a gang. It's actually pretty funny, it's like we are the cool kids in the neighborhood and everyone wants to be our friends. Even the high school kids that go to our church are accusing us of having a clique. Are they jealous because they aren't in our group? Do they really want to hang out with a bunch of married people with kids? Yea I didn't think so either. It doesn't matter what they say, we are allowed to hang out with any groups that we want -- clique or not, they are our friends. We enjoy doing things with them, we all have common interests, we help each other in hard times, and a lot of us have been through the same situations so we always have someone to turn to. It's not easy to find that type of group and when you do, you hold onto it. My only suggestion to people upset about our group (or "cliques") is that if they are so concerned about something maybe it needs to be about gossip and not who's hanging out with who, we aren't in High School anymore.

Yes fun times in the life of Just Me.

Interview Questions

2007-04-27T07:51:00.000-06:00

I've voluneteered to be asked 5 questions by Sweet yet Sassy. A few of these questions were alot harder then I anticipated (#1 expecially), but I'm glad that I did this it was fun.

So here they are:

1. What do you like most/least about being a Mormon?
This one is probably the hardest question of all of them, because it's about my beliefs. I don't want to offend anyone or misrepresent myself or the church that I belong to.

Lets see the thing I like most of being a Mormon, is the fact that we have a living prophet to head our church. We believe that he receives revelation from God and is guiding our church by the teachings of old as well as modern day revelation. I also love the Temples that we have and the opportunity that we have to go to them (even though I don't go as often as I should).

And probably the thing I like least is the how self righteous some members can be. I'm sure every religion has these type of people though, so I'm not sure I can base this just on Mormons. But since I've been raised in the Mormon church my entire life and this religion is the only one that I know this is my least favorite part. I feel that some people think they are put on earth to judge, they learn the teachings and the principles of our gospel and they hold everyone to this perfection standard. I've had many experiences with people judging me, talking about me and not agreeing with the things I've done and choices that I've made (and this was all while I was still in my teenage years). But it's never made me not want to be a part of this church because I know that not all members are like that, no one is perfect, most embrace our fault and love us unconditionally.

2. Since you ‘play online at work’ J --What ideal job would you have if you could have it to keep you more entertained?
My ideal job would be what I got my degree in; Interior Design. I love to help decorate. I also think it would be fun and probably have more freedom to decorate theme rooms, hotels or restaurants.

3. If you could be a superhero with super powers, what would you be, what powers would you have, and why?
I'd be a superhero that could fly; like Superman. I don't need all the other powers that he has just the ability to fly. I love to travel but I hate how expensive it is sometimes. But if I could fly, I'd pack my bags every weekend and would be in some fabulous place and still make it home in time for work on Monday.

4. If you could invent something to make your life a little easier what would it be?
I'd like a teleporter. I hate the 30 minute commute to work. I hate waking up in the morning, so the later I got to sleep in would be better. A 5 second teleport to work would be much easier for me and I actually would get to work on time for once.

5. If you had a million dollars how would you spend it?
There are so many things I would/could do with a million dollars! First off I would definitely use the money to pay for invetro, if I had a million dollars and got a kid out of it; I'd be the happiest person in the world. I'd pay off my house and maybe buy a summer house somewhere by the beach. I'd definitely use the money to travel. I'd also use the money to decorate my houses till my heart is content. But also on the non-selfish side of me, I'd use the money to help my family and take them traveling too.

Okay there you go.
Now to keetp the good times rollin' and do the following:

1. Leave me a comment saying "interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Planning is stressful!

2007-04-24T08:21:00.000-06:00

This weekend a group of friends and I (including husbands) are going to Vegas. We decided to rent a house instead of getting hotel rooms. This way we would all be in one location, we'd have our own pool/hot tube , we'd have a pool table, and we wouldn't have to choose who's room to hang out in when we weren't on the strip shopping or gambling.

Since I have a lot of time at work in the mornings I volunteered to make the house arrangement and pay for it (everyone paid me back). Yesterday I got a call from the vacation rental company that we used. They said that the house that we rented was taken back by the owner and was no longer available. This is less then 4 days before we were planning on leaving for Vegas. I've already used all the money that my friends gave me to pay back the credit card that I charged the house to. They want to "upgrade" us to two townhouses. That means we wouldn't have our own pool or hot tub, we wouldn't have a pool table, we wouldn't be all together in one house and I'm pretty sure the pool has hours which is NOT what we wanted. So now I get the fun job of trying to find a last minute rental that is still available in our price range so we can still have the Vegas weekend that we all wanted! The women at the rental company did say she was trying to move people around and would get back to me, so we will see what happens. I'm not happy at all about this. I signed a lease agreement, you'd think that the owner of the rental would have had to sign the same type of lease to insure this wouldn't happen. I could understand if a few weeks ago they wanted to pull the plug on the deal but 4 days before? I'm pretty upset and I feel responsible because I'm the one that booked the house. GRRRR! I'll have an update later I'm sure... let's just hope it's a good update.

Our justice system at it's best

2007-04-18T08:02:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago my husband got a speeding ticket. Yeah it sucks. We've managed to clear both of our driving records in the past 3 years. So this ding on his record sucks big time. My husbands job requires him to drive ALOT. He was given a company van and they check his driving record periodically. I think he can only have 3 driving violations in a 5 year period or they take his van away and he has to work in the shop. Yeah that would suck.

We decided that he'd go to traffic school then the violation won't show up on his record. For two weeks after he got his speeding ticket he tried to get ahold of the courts to find out how much his fine is and if he is eligable for traffic school. They never had his ticket on file when he called and he didn't want to waste our minutes being on hold trying to figure out what was the problem. So I took over the phone calling duties while at work. I was finally able to get ahold of live person, after 2 1/2 weeks the ticket still was not entered into their system. So she found the paper copy of his ticket and entered it. The fine for going 5 miles over is $90. Ouch. Traffic School is an additional $50... double Ouch. But in the long run it's worth it so we'll bite the bullet and pay the money. The women I talked to said that the ticket was due that Friday. I called on a Wednesday... WTF? Then she was like would you like an extension. Well duh, it takes you 2 1/2 WEEKS to input his ticket but you expect me to pay at the drop of a hat. Right. We got the extension for another week.

The instructions on the ticket is to either pay by mail or to pay in person at the courthouse. Now here is the kicker: The court is just down the street from where I work, so I figured I'd just pay in person and make sure it was taken care of in a timely manner. Yesterday I decided I was in a good enough mood to deal with the court and their workers. I made my way to the cashier and happily told the women behind the counter I would like to pay for my husband's speeding ticket and traffic school. She told me that I couldn't. WTF! She said either my husband would have to come in and pay for it or we could mail the check to them. So what she's telling me is "I" can't pay his ticket in person but "I" can pay the ticket by mail. Seriously WTF? My head about exploded. This is the #1 reason I had to be in a good mood when I went, I knew they would be asses somehow.

So why can't I pay the ticket? It's not like I found the ticket on the ground and decided to be a good Samaritan and pay the ticket for a stranger. This is MY husband, it's OUR checking account, He's still paying for it just NOT IN PERSON! Yeah I just don't get it.

Welcoming a new blogger

2007-04-14T10:39:00.000-06:00

I'd l ike to welcome my friend Perl to the blogging world. She finally got a home computer and is able to start her addiction to blogging. Her page is still a work in progress and we are both still trying to make it more her style. But I'd like everyone to jump on over there and say hi to my friend and welcome her to the blogging community!

Perl and I met while living in Utah. We both worked at the same telemarketing job and had mutual friends. We eventually moved in together, because she needed a place to stay and I had an extra room. She has become one of my bestest friends. She recently got married and is also the mother of two adorable children.

Welcome to the blogging world!

Eating with the in-laws

2007-04-10T08:27:00.000-06:00

The second Monday of each month has been desigated dinner with the husband's family day. We swap off who's house it's going to be at each month. Whoever's house it's going to be at is in charge of "the meat and potatoes". My mother in law went as far as writing up a schedule of who is to bring what each month and where the dinner will be held at.

Lately the husband and my schedule has been really hectic. We haven't been eating until 7:30 - 8 many nights. Most nights my husband doesn't even get home until after 7 then he has to shower. Spring is here and work has just picked up especially in the fork lift mechanic area I guess. I'm guessing because we got "a schedule" we no longer recieve reminder calls to let us know that we are in charge of dinner that week or if it's at their house what we need to bring. Anyone that knows me knows that I NEED A REMINDER CALL. I am the most forgetful person and more times then not I double (sometimes triple) book my days.

Well Yesterday was our dinner with the in-laws. And of course I had forgotten. Even though the husband and I talked about it the night before I still forgot. I planned to go to the gym with my friend at 5:00. Dinner is always at 6:00 because my mother in law is a diabetic. I understand her condition and I know she needs to eat at a certain time, but ugh! I still forgot. I got stuck working over nine hours because I was training a new hire and my boss hadn't returned from her appointment. So when my husband called to see if I was cooking dinner and I was still at work we both got a little freaked.

Now for a little history lesson:
The husband isn't really a fan of his family. He never has been. He couldn't wait to move out of their house when we got married. I think he moved into our apartment a month before we got married just to get out of the house. My husband doesn't look anything like his family. He's athletic, he works out, he's a whole lot thinner and he's healthy. Having dinner with his family is painful, they talk about all the health problems that they have. And that's just his parents. His brother... oh wow where to start? His brother is 26 years old and hasn't had a job in the past 7 years (he did serve a 1 1/2 year mission during that time). As of late he can't even leave the basement where the big screen tv, 3 recliners, his bedroom and the bathroom are. He has so many health problems I dont even really want to go into it. He is easily over 400 pounds. We haven't seen him in 3-4 months. When we visited his parents house last month, my husband's brother was already in bed -- at 6:00 at night. The in-laws told us that they had taken him to dinner for his birthday and that was the first time he's been out of the house in 4 months. Did I mention that we don't like to go to their house because it smells. Yup it does. The last dinner that his brother attended (at his parents house) he had to sit in a recliner because he no longer can sit on the kitchen table chairs.

So back to Monday night dinner. Instead of cooking dinner I stopped to buy Papa Murphy pizzas. When I got home after 6:00 everyone was already there. No one was talking and I was already in a bad mood from traffic and having to rush home. We popped one of the pizzas in the oven and sat in the living room. In complete silence. Yeah fun times. The silence was eventually broken by the fire alarms in our house. Yes whenever we cook the fire alarms go off. And they are the fun ones that are all connected to each other so the entire house was beeping. There was no smoke, nothing was buring, our fire alarms just like to go off when we cook, especially since the genious that installed them put it RIGHT over the stove. So we enjoyed the ringing of every fire alarm going off in our house for a good 5 minutes. The husband and I are so use to it we just turn up the tv louder and wait till they turn off. But since we had guests over we had to be a little more proactive and try to get them to shut off.

The actual Dinner was pretty uneventful. Eventually they left and we went back to our regular scheduled lives. Until next month when we have to go to the next family dinner... ugh! At least it will be at their house we are usually in and out of there in an hour. Don't you just love the in-laws?!

Where.....

2007-04-04T14:39:00.000-06:00

Wow blogworld is dead right now. Everyone must be sick or really busy or is it just me?

I know I have been real busy here at work. Hopefully it will start to slow down. And hopefully we hire someone quickly.

Watched the Premier of Distirbia Yesterday. It was good. I like it. It wasn't a REAL scary movie, just more intense and suspenseful. Those are the kind I like.

Well hope blogworld comes back to life soon, I miss hearing from everyone.

Just another blah Monday

2007-04-02T11:26:00.000-06:00

Monday's are hard days for me to get back to work. Waking up is a chore (as are most days). But Monday just happens to be the worst because I've stayed up past 1am the Friday and Saturday. Than I sleep in past 11:00am Saturday and Sunday. So having to wake up by 6:30 just doesn't work for me.

Today I woke up early, got dressed then remembered I didn't have to be to work until 1/2 after my normal time. So I went back to bed, only to wake up late. Traffic sucked and I ended up being 20 minutes late.

Then actually working is so hard. I'm tired so consintrating is impossible. Motivation is completly gone especially since my boss isn't here. Usually I'm really productive when she's gone but Monday's not so much.

Also today I'm obsessed/distracted with finding a rental house in Vegas. My group of friends and I are going to Vegas at the end of the month and instead of each of us getting hotel room we are going to rent a house. We are looking at roughly $175 - $250 per couple for the weekend. It's actually a great deal, because we'll have our own pool and hot tub. So we can swim anytime of the day that we want! There will be a living room so we don't have to pick who's room to hang out in. We'll be able to eat breakfast there at the house so we will save some money. I'm hoping to have the house rented today.

We had some people staying at our house over the weekend. So leaving work will even suck because I know I'll have to go home and clean. Having two guys sleeping in our living room was pretty interesting. We were constantly stumbling over stuff. But it wa fun to have my cousin stay with us, I felt bad we didn't hang out with him too much, but he had a lot of things he wanted to do and people to see.

This weekend we went and saw Blades of Glory. I liked it. Both the husband and I thought it was really funny. My cousin said he thought it was cheesy, but what else do you expect with a Male Pair Figure Skating movie.

Lessons learned:

* If you wake up early don't go back to bed. Even if you set an alarm you still wont get up.

* Traffic sucks at 8 in the morning, especially when your running late.

* Having a work plan helps when your not feeling motivated. That way it's like a game because you have to finish. Who am I kidding a list isn't going to help me today. Tomorrow maybe, but not Today.

Catching up

2007-03-27T20:33:00.000-06:00

I'm still living. After two days of sneezing and my head about exploding, I finally bought Benydryl. All I can say is just because the medicine is expensive doesn't mean that it's going to work, learned that the hard way. I spent $16.00 on something that didn't work only to buy the benydryl for $5.00 and have it work miracles.

But work has been kicking my butt. Not only did I work 8 hours overtime last payperiod but I've been doing all the work myself. 1/2 the time I'm not sure if I'm coming or going.

When I'm home I don't want to do anything. I finally figured out how to use the steamer I borrowed from a friend and cleaned all the spots out of the carpet. Finally we don't have to be embarrased everytime someone comes to visit.

So nothing exciting going on, same old same old. We did interview a few people today, but I'm not sure they are what we are looking for at work.

One good thing though -- the past two weeks I've gone to the gym 2 times a week. It's very exciting, finally getting into a routine and I have a workout buddy to keep me on track. Also starting another bellydancing class this week.

just another blah day.

2007-03-19T10:03:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty sure my head is going to explode today.

I have allergies or Sinuse or hayfever -- take your pick.

Of course it happens on the day I had to be at work this morning at 6:30am and my boss is out of the office until Friday so I get to work until 5 tonight. That makes for a really long day by itself but coupled with allergies = Hell.

Concert Review

2007-03-16T09:59:00.000-06:00

Holy crap! I had this awsome post about the concert, pictures and all. But when I went to publish there was an error, not it's all gone... GRRRR I hate blogger sometimes.

So here is my attempt at recreating what's taken me the past hour to construct.

The Concert was awesome. For some reason I didn't think it would be as long as it was. Maybe because our tickets and the sign out front said Plain White T's - 6:00. To me this means the band will play at 6:00 -- not so much.

We got to In The Venue about quarter to six. Just after six the line started to move and we were in. We quickly took our spot about third from the gate that was infront of the stage. The first band Mayday Parade started around 7ish. They were okay, hard to hear and understand the words to the song. I'm sure the fact that we never have even heard of them was the main reason. One of their four guitarist were pretty cool, he was the typical rocker. He had long curly CURLY red hair and the entire set he just rocked. Throwing his head forward and rocking on his guitar. He was pretty awesome. Their set lasted for about 1/2 hour.

Next was Lovedrug. I've heard the name before I think; bit still not sure if I know any of their songs. They were good. Hot guitarist. They got everyone really going. The lead singer played a different guitar each song and even sat down at a piano for a song. Their set also lasted for about 1/2 hour.

After them was Boys Night Out. They are a band from Canada (how could I not like them). They really got everyone going. Their music was a lot faster and more rock then the band before them. One of their guitarist was so tiny and skinny I was sure the guitar he was holding would break him in 1/2. Their set lasted for another 1/2 hour.

Finally around 9:30is it was the Plain White T's. They were awesome. We could hear all their songs and actually understand the words. They sound just like they do on thier albums (which the other bands were all really hard to hear over the guitars, drums and bass). They have mellow songs and fast songs and the mix was awesome. They put on a really good concert. We jumped around with everyone, went crazy and had a great time. And their guitarist was pretty hot. He was nice eye candy for us throught the set. It's been a long time since I've been to a concert where I was standing the entire time. Most of the concerts I go to nowadays we just sit in our seats or stand up, but not moshing when your in the stands/seats.

Now for the bad part:

To the girls just in front of us. If you don't like crowds, people jumping around you, people bumping into you, people knocking and pushing into you... GET OUT OF THE FRONT! This is a concert there is bound to be all of the above. Kicking people, throwing your elbows and at one point just going crazy makes only you look like a spoiled brat and an idot. We are all there for the same reason and we are all excited to see the band and be as close to them as possible, deal with it. Oh yeah and when I tried to get away from you and you punched me repeatedly in the back only made you look that much stupider. Grow up!

To the large(er) women behind me. I realize that you are there just like me, to enjoy the band. But really did your rolls need to rape me from behind. I wasn't sure if I should introduce myself and maybe buy you dinner. It was nice to have a soft pillow to fall back on but.. gross!

And finally to the large guys that were around us, you guys all rock. Thanks for making us laugh, for singing along with the band and trying to protect us from the crazy girls who obviously thought they were more important then EVERYONE at the concert.

The concert was awesome and even with the weird people around us we had a great time.

Not a good picture, but I was having a blast!

Our attempt at being young again

2007-03-13T08:27:00.000-06:00

I'm pretty excited, tonight my sisters and I are going to a concert.

GIRLS NIGHT!!!

We are going to see The Plain White T's. I haven't been to a concert for a while now. The last one I've been to was Creed and that was shortly after the husband and I got married so we are looking at easily 4-5 years. Yeah I suck!

I've added a playlist with a few of their songs for your listening enjoyment.

Did I mention I'm excited?

Work STILL in progress

2007-03-11T21:23:00.000-06:00

I wanted to write this post when our exercise room was completed but after a year of working on it I got impatient.

This is basically how our room looked before we started it.

Unfortunelty I didn't take pictures as the husband was working on the room so I missed the framing pictures

This is the room sheetrocked and mudded. Fianlly starting to prime.

and finished priming

The next step was to tape the walls for stripes.

Only to have this happen when we took off the tape. The blue painters tape that was in the PAINT SECTION. It took off the paint, the primer and in some spots the first layer of dry wall. That was a fun process to fix. Finally after much screaming and nashing of teeth we finally got the lines all painted.

Finally we felt were were at a finishing point. The light at the end of the tunnel was in sight. Only to have it all come crashing down on us when the sheetrock covering ALL the pipes and air ducts in our house cracked and looked like it was wet along a seam. We stewed and hummed about what the problem was and where it was coming from. Condensation? Leaky Pipes? We couldn't figure it out. We could see the pipes and duct work from the other side of the wall and we never could see water or leaks. So we tried once more to tape and mud the crack. We really were optimistic about having the problem fixed. Only to have it come crashing down this morning when we checked our work and again it was cracked and wet. This time we found the problem. There did look to be a leak. But where was it coming from?

So after Church my husband cut a huge hole in the just finished ceiling. A plumber friend in our neighborhood came over (yes on Sunday we were determined to get this figured out) and we figured out the problem. come to find out the person who installed all the plumbing in our house (the previous owner) didn't put silicone around the faucet in the master bathroom tub. So every time we took a shower water was going into the walls and following the pipes to the basement. Since the pipes were surrounded by insulation it never leaked. Once we took the insulation out from around the pipe, it was gushing water.

Now this is what the room currently looks like. Seriously is ther an end in sight?

You can learn anything

2007-03-05T07:59:00.000-07:00

Last night I was searching the community education website to take some classes, when I came upon this class that is listed below. THERE IS AN ACTUAL CLASS FOR BLOGGING! Now this makes me laugh.

Class Number
509281
Class Name
Computer: Blogging Basics
Class Description
What's all the buzz about blogs? Join our class and take a ride into the blogosphere! Learn how to choose a host and create a blog. Design your own mini-magazine or online journal. Expound on your thoughts and options and receive reader comments. Study blogging etiquette. Set up RSS feeds. Discuss edublogs, kids and blogs, and survey the best celebrity blogs. Stay current on any topic of interest and enjoy blogging benefits.
Class Times
6:30-8 pm
Start Date
06/13/2007
End Date
07/25/2007
Days of the week
--W---
Number of Sessions
4
School
Kearns
Room Number
207
Cost of Class
$ 30.00

True life blonde moments

2007-02-27T09:04:00.000-07:00

Blonde Jokes.

I've always liked them. I don't get offended by blonde jokes because they are just that JOKES. I think they are funny.

But lately the blonde jokes have been taking on a new meaning. I've been having blonde moments that remind me of blonde jokes I've heard.

How do you recognize a blonde at a car wash? She's the one on her bike.
Now I didn't go to the car wash on my bike, I'm not that dumb. But I did forget to roll up the window when I drove into the car wash. And trying to roll up the window while water is spraying you in the face is not fun at all.

A policeman recently saw a distraught blonde weeping beside her car.
"Do you need some help?" he asked.
The blonde replied, "I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door un-locker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenient store) would have a battery to fit this?"
“Hmmm, I dunno. Do you have an alarm too?" the cop asked.
"No, just this remote thingy," she answered, handing it and the car keys to him.
As he took the key and manually unlocked the door, he replied, "Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk."
This basically happened to me this morning at the post office. Except I didn't know that my remote door un-locker had a problem. I went to the post office pressed the lock button on my remote, it beeped at me indicating that it had locked. I did my thing in the post office and when I walked to my car and pressed the unlock button nothing happened. So I pressed it again. Still nothing. So I stood there pressing the button. Then I remembered I have a key. But I guess I turned it the wrong way because all it did was beep and me and the door was still locked. So back to pressing the button. Finally I decided to try again but turned the key the opposite direction and it worked! Blonde moment gone!

I'm sure everyone has their blonde moments regardless of hair color. These are just two of mine.

Today is a good day

2007-02-23T11:34:00.000-07:00

Not just because it's Friday because I still have to come into work tomorrow morning - blah!

But because it's just been a good day for me. It's weird the less sleep I get the happier I am. Well at least until noon when I crash. But my good friend Mt. Dew is keeping me company this morning.

Traffic was horrible - what a way to start and end the weekend - with a early morning snow storm. And even though Traffic was bad, I didn't mind.

The husband found out today that within the next year he will get a substantial raise. Even though we haven't gotten all the specifics just knowing about it is exciting.

New Girl in the office will be fired next weekend! She doesn't know about it and that makes me even happier. I haven't blogged about her because I'm still afraid to blog about work. But I will say I hate her. We have a huge personality conflict, she's immature, and her communication skills suck. I've been working on getting her fired since we hired her, so it makes me happy that it will finally happen! I know I'm a bitch... I'm okay with that.

Even though I have to work tomorrow morning I'm glad it's the weekend. I'm going shopping with my little sis at the Outlet stores tomorrow afternoon. I just hope the roads are clear by then. I will not be driving to Park City if the canyon is a mess, nope, now way.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

End of Winter Snowstorm

2007-02-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It was in the high 50's and life was good.

Today not so much.

We woke up to snow.

Lucky for me it's Presidents Day, which means traffic was only a 1/4 of what it normally is. My biggest pet peeve though while driving: Is SUV's and other 4-wheeled vehicles. They drive like it's the first time they have ever seen snow.
- Driving down the middle of the line because they can't decide which lane to drive in.
- Driving super slow. I know it's snow, but it's the wet kind and the roads are plowed GOOD, and you have 4 - WHEEL DRIVE!
- Because these dumb driver are driving in the middle of the lines they are splashing up all the slush that is accumulating on the road. Which makes driving next or right behind them fun.

Sorry to anyone who owns these type of vehicles, I'm sure you don't fit in the dumb SUV/4 Wheeled vehicle category. I mean we own a 4-wheel drive vehicle and someday I hope to have a SUV. I just know I'm not going to be like these dumb people. I mean me in my little car passing these slow drivers in their big ole SUV's, WTH?

Just another holiday

2007-02-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

I don't consider today a holiday. A holiday is a day I DON'T HAVE TO WORK. And today I'm at work.

Also I'm not a fan of Valentines day. Never have been. I hate that restraunts are too busy -- which makes the wait time horrible, and I hate that flower prices are jacked up just because they know Valentines IS a flower holiday. I'm not a fan of chocolate so the husband can't just get me a box of chocolates and call it good. I do however like the candies. I love that valentines is a red, pink and white holiday which makes all the candy flavors - strawberry, watermelon, and cherry.

So we aren't doing anything special. Not because the husband doesn't want to. He called me this morning to wish me a Happy Valentines Day, and to see if I wanted to do something. But I don't. My idea of doing "something" is doing nothing. Maybe we'll go buy a box of candy hearts and watch a movie at home. Now that's a Valentines day I can handle.

Anyways this is my attempt at wishing everyone a Happy Valentines Day.

When it happens so close to home

2007-02-12T23:02:00.000-07:00

Life is scary. Everywhere you turn (on TV, Internet, Radio) you hear about the bad things that are happening around the world. Bombing in other countries, Soldiers being killed, school shootings... then it happens close to home.

Today at 6:45 right in the middle of the dinner hour a Mall very close to my work was attacked by a gunman with a shotgun. I didn't even hear about it until we got home from having dinner with the in-laws, having my mom print pictures, and visiting a neighbor. At first I just thought shooting at a mall -- probably gang related. But it wasn't, it was a man going into a crowded mall and shooting random people. There were families there, there were children there, there were brothers, sisters, mothers, father, grandparents, THEY WERE INNOCENT PEOPLE! People were hiding in stairwells, in stores, even in freezers at restaurants trying to stay safe. People died (possibly 5 - 6 counting the gunman).

Why do people do this. What gives them the right to take the lives of innocent people? I've asked this when I hear about school shootings, bombings, 9/11. But WHY!? If their lives suck so bad, why not just kill themselves why take others down with them? I just don't get it. I'm sure I never will.

It's scary because the shooting happened just down the street from where I work. We eat at that mall on occasion. I mean it's the only Mall in Utah with a Pottery Barn! How scary to go back there. Knowing what happened there, that people were killed there. I'm sure the mall will be closed for days -- to clean up and to let the people heal.

We can't live being scared though. I've talked about this before here. I know when I go out (even before this happened) I have mini anxiety attacks because I have a very wild imagination and I imagine the worst possible situation and how I'll get out of it. Then this happens and it will start all over again. I mean these people thought they were safe, they just went to the mall to have dinner or to shop and THIS HAPPENS!

Yeah I'm in shock. I sat down to watch Heroes that I had taped from earlier on DVR to take my mind off of the shooting and all I had was breaking news of this story (not that I was mad -- I mean we need to know what's going on). I'm sure for the next few days I will just be obsessed in finding out all the info that I can about this. It's crazy to watch the footage of the cops going into the mall with their guns drawn. Staying close to the walls and entering storefronts with caution. Even video of the cops on the Mall roof. Can you imagine how long and hard it will be to clear an entire Mall? This Mall takes up a few blocks, the cops will have to check each store, dressing rooms, backrooms, restaurants, freezers, crawl spaces, stairways. It's just crazy! Tragedy

So yeah I'm going to bed. I need to sleep. I need to not think about this.

KSL News Story
KUTV News Story
CNN New Story

Time? What's that?

2007-02-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

I figured after the christmas rush of parties and last minute shopping my life would slow down once the new year came.

I was wrong.

I seem to be over exerting myself. Joining groups and making myself available all the time. I rush home from work trying to run errands as I go. Then have meetings/girls nights/card groups or whatever is on the board for today.

I haven't seen my husband for more then 10 minutes in a day the past 2 days and won't see him the next 2 days.

So here is why the husband and I haven't had a moment together:
Sunday - Super Bowl - I couldn't even get my husbands attention if I walked in the living room naked. But the rest of the family would have gotten a good show
Monday - Girls Night Out. - normally one of the girl's husband calls around nine to tell her that the baby is crying and he doesn't know what to do (this is their third child). So we are usually home by at least 10. Not this night. She didn't come to girls night and we didn't get home until Midnight. Oye Vey I have work in the morning.
Tuesday- Card Group - We only have our card group once every two months so I was okay with this. And the husband had basketball practice so I was off the hook on feeling guilty.
Wednesday - Bunko - This is just starting and it was suppose to be the second Wednesday of the month but since it's Valentines day next Wednesday they bumped it up a week.
Thursday - Belly Dancing - This is a eight week class and the one day a week that I actually work out right now. So I love this class. I just need to come home afterwards. Last week we went shopping.
Friday - I actually don't have anything planned for this day. I may just have to veg at home and catch up on my DVR. We are getting pretty full this week.

So now we know

2007-02-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

I guess I need a follow up to my last blog post.

It's has been a crazy week.

Aside from Little Miss visiting, arranging a ride for her from the airport, meeting a fellow blogger, staying up till we were too tired to talk, going to lunch with her family, running errands (and can't forget the chocolates), taking her to meet a new friend, eating cheese fries, trying to get a good picture of us at temple square and finally waiting to make sure she makes it through security with her plant lucy (all of which made for a perfect weekend!) life has been very crazy and just in a jumble.

Not to go into too much detail -- we did find out from the doctor what our options were to have children. He recommends Invetro - and not just put the egg and sperm in a petri dish and let them have at it. But we have to inject the sperm directly into the egg. Yeah fun for us. Oh yeah and did I mention that it's $10,000 more then the normal $10,000 procedure? Yes that is at least $20,000 for us to have a child. ONE CHILD (if we are lucky twins). It's been an emotional week. Ask Little Miss with her crying because she had to leave, and me crying because every family that walked into the restaurant had at least 5 kids we made for quite a pair eating our cheesy fries.

So we have to figure out what is more important having children of our own or adoption.

It sucks to be given a 1-2% chance of ever concieving on our own, a 5-6% chance of concieving by insemination and a 60-70% chance with invetro. I'm sad, but not depressed. I think the past 4 years of "trying" has helped build up my acceptance for these results. I think I've put off getting tested because in the end I knew what the results would be. It will be a long journey regardless of the direction that we choose.

So really I just want to tell all the people out there that have kids to cherish them, love them. And even if they are terrors they are your little terror (lol). Your lucky, not everyone can have kids. And I've found a lot of people that fit into the same category that I am in now. Maybe it makes it easier to deal with knowing I'm not in it alone. And I have great friends who even though they don't understand they listen to me and let me cry when I need to.

Umm yeah didn't mean to make this post so serious and sad. But that's life right.