Other people have toddlers. I have Kiki. I wish this meant I never cleaned up poop or puke...but alas, she's still a cat. Entertaining nonetheless.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Spring Cleaning!
What a whirlwind the past couple of weeks have been.
First an announcement, and then an explanation. I have quit my job in the lab and withdrawn from school. While this may come as a shock to some of you, those of you who know me closely know there was a lot of soul-searching that led to this decision. I haven't been happy for at least the last year with my job in the lab. I was close to finishing school, but no closer than I was a year ago. I've realized no matter how easy it looked from the outside, I couldn't physically make myself do something my heart was no longer interested in doing. I'm not sure if my bad job situation was keeping me in school, or school was keeping me in my bad job situation, but the minute I sat down and talked to my boss about it I felt like a million pounds was lifted from my shoulders. So I'm still working at TOSH, but no longer in the Biomechanics lab. For the time being I am helping back in the office for the athlete training program, and for the first time in probably 2 years I'm again enjoying being at work. You should ask my husband what a better mood I'm in! Instead of dread and doom I'm looking forward spring gardening, enjoying my hobbies, and counting the days to our next WI trip in May! Life is too short to be so unhappy!
More about that WI trip. It looks like we'll be visiting mid-May. We're driving this time!! Partly to haul some stuff back to Utah, and partly because Jason and I really want to drive there together before we have kids. Jason actually hasn't seen much of the country between Utah and WI so a driving trip is in order.
This past month I turned 29. I'm enjoying it so far. I got some lovely cards. My favorite was a funny one I received from KTP, so I decided to include it in the blog.
I also got some beautiful dish towels from my sister-in-law Misty. The poor dear didn't know what to get me, but upon hearing she was willing to sew something...these were my request! I would happily accept another set of these for each of the next 3 major holidays at least! Love them! They also came with this cute card and wrapping paper with pictures on it of me as a baby! What a crafty and creative sister-in-law I have.
The replacement for my dead Dell laptop arrived and I LOVE her! I got a Toshiba Satellite and really have no complaints thus far. Laptops are hard to test in stores where they are bolted down to the counter. I didn't want a "counter-top" I wanted a "lap-top"! Luckily when this one arrived the keyboard and all the little features that are hard to test in the store are even better than expected. I don't have many pictures for this month, so I will include one of "Toshiba" as we call her. ;)
Saturday I got out with friends and went bowling. We try to go bowling every month or two with Cory--Jason's old college roommate. Cousin Heather usually comes along and it's a fun time. We found a local bowling place that has a weekend "shoes and 3 games for $9" special that's surprisingly not as much of a dive as the "cheapest bowling in town" designation would lead you to believe. This is the first time Jason hasn't made it along, but it was fun nonetheless.
By Sunday Jason was starting to perk up a bit and we watched the Superbowl together. We decided it was a bad idea to go spreading his bug around just yet, so we stayed in. What a game! I nearly had an ulcer by the 4th quarter...but the Packers did it! I told Jason it was lucky he had a WI wife so he still had a team to cheer for after his beloved San Francisco 49er's were out.
We checked our planting log from last year, and much to our dismay, found it unwise to plant tomato seeds until at least March. Last year we got a little too excited mid-February and by the time the weather outside was suitable for tomato planting we had seedlings that had outgrown their containers and were nearly flowering! In careful preparation Jason moved the potting soil inside to warm up, and last night we picked out next year's seed varieties. From the heirloom seeds Jason ordered last season we have 13 varieties we haven't tried yet, and one returner from last year that we really loved. Looking through our seed collection was exciting, and now my spring fever is even worse!
This coming President's Day weekend we are going to spend away in St. George and visit the Baxter grandparents. They get a place there for a few months each winter and enjoy having lots of company. Although southern Utah is usually this is a nice mid-winter getaway, it looks as though the weather is going to be warm all week and then turn colder for the weekend...so I'm not sure how much "warmer" it will be there so to speak. This week in the Salt Lake Valley it is in the 50's...a nice taste of Spring! For the weekend trip we are planning to take bicycles and enjoy the outdoors, but if the rain prediction holds true we might just stay in and play games instead. Time will tell. It's really our first road trip since Jason finished his hiking contract last fall, so I'm looking forward to it either way.
I hope everyone enjoys their Valentine's Day. Jason and I don't have any big plans, and that's OK. We will enjoy a nice dinner out some night when the wait isn't so long and we don't have to compete with all the other couples trying to have the "perfect" evening.
Take Care!
S.~
More about that WI trip. It looks like we'll be visiting mid-May. We're driving this time!! Partly to haul some stuff back to Utah, and partly because Jason and I really want to drive there together before we have kids. Jason actually hasn't seen much of the country between Utah and WI so a driving trip is in order.
This past month I turned 29. I'm enjoying it so far. I got some lovely cards. My favorite was a funny one I received from KTP, so I decided to include it in the blog.
 |
| If you recall our skunk problem, you know why this card is fitting. |
In more recent news, after a near brush with death, Jason is going to make it! Jason had the cold/flu last week and I spent the better part of 4 days feeding him whatever combination of medicines would alleviate his symptoms. It was one of those rapid-onset bugs where at 7am before work he seemed fine, by 9am he told me he thought he was coming down with something, and by the time he got home at 7pm he'd already notified his boss he wouldn't be coming in the next day. Since he's working 4 ten's he only missed one day of work (Thursday), but generally looked and felt miserable from Wednesday-Sunday. He spent the better part of 3 days moving from the bed, to the futon, to the recliner, back to the futon etc. On Friday I was leaving the house to get my hair cut and asked Jason (laying in the recliner) if he knew his hoodie was on backwards. He carefully explained to me that it was that way on purpose, so that he could pull his hood over his face for sudden-onset naps. Poor sick monkey!
Saturday I got out with friends and went bowling. We try to go bowling every month or two with Cory--Jason's old college roommate. Cousin Heather usually comes along and it's a fun time. We found a local bowling place that has a weekend "shoes and 3 games for $9" special that's surprisingly not as much of a dive as the "cheapest bowling in town" designation would lead you to believe. This is the first time Jason hasn't made it along, but it was fun nonetheless.
By Sunday Jason was starting to perk up a bit and we watched the Superbowl together. We decided it was a bad idea to go spreading his bug around just yet, so we stayed in. What a game! I nearly had an ulcer by the 4th quarter...but the Packers did it! I told Jason it was lucky he had a WI wife so he still had a team to cheer for after his beloved San Francisco 49er's were out.
We checked our planting log from last year, and much to our dismay, found it unwise to plant tomato seeds until at least March. Last year we got a little too excited mid-February and by the time the weather outside was suitable for tomato planting we had seedlings that had outgrown their containers and were nearly flowering! In careful preparation Jason moved the potting soil inside to warm up, and last night we picked out next year's seed varieties. From the heirloom seeds Jason ordered last season we have 13 varieties we haven't tried yet, and one returner from last year that we really loved. Looking through our seed collection was exciting, and now my spring fever is even worse!
This coming President's Day weekend we are going to spend away in St. George and visit the Baxter grandparents. They get a place there for a few months each winter and enjoy having lots of company. Although southern Utah is usually this is a nice mid-winter getaway, it looks as though the weather is going to be warm all week and then turn colder for the weekend...so I'm not sure how much "warmer" it will be there so to speak. This week in the Salt Lake Valley it is in the 50's...a nice taste of Spring! For the weekend trip we are planning to take bicycles and enjoy the outdoors, but if the rain prediction holds true we might just stay in and play games instead. Time will tell. It's really our first road trip since Jason finished his hiking contract last fall, so I'm looking forward to it either way.
I hope everyone enjoys their Valentine's Day. Jason and I don't have any big plans, and that's OK. We will enjoy a nice dinner out some night when the wait isn't so long and we don't have to compete with all the other couples trying to have the "perfect" evening.
Take Care!
S.~
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Donations kindly accepted
Some months you just feel like you can't get ahead. After a fairly inexpensive Christmas during which we actually managed to save a little money, this month has been a doozy. My laptop died unexpectedly (replacement $650), we finished our planned tile job ($1000), tuition is due ($1400) and Jason's car is in the shop again (hopefully for no more than an oil change). I'm hoping we can catch up by February sometime.
There are two big pieces of news from the last month. First of all, my parents came out for a visit at Christmas! We all had a lot of fun while they were here. We went to hardware ranch and saw the winter elk-feeding grounds, we drove up the canyons and checked out the snow levels at the ski resorts, we spent Christmas eve/day/day after Christmas at Jason's grandparent's ranch in Logan, where we all went for horseback rides on Christmas day with beautiful views of the snow-covered mountains. Best of all my parents got 6 days of travel, story telling, and relaxing WITHOUT cows! It was good to see them have so much fun, and I hope they make it back again soon.
The second bit of news is our recently completed tile job. On the main floor there was linoleum in the bathroom and kitchen. One of the seams in the kitchen floor had been poorly done and was starting to peel up. I had been wanting to do tile for awhile...even more so after finding out Jason's cousins Weston and Kyle have been doing freelance tile jobs over the past year or more. Weston and Kyle's schedule cleared up a bit after Christmas so the first 2 weekends of January was dedicated to installing tile at our house. Under the kitchen linoleum we found VCT tile, however under the bathroom linoleum we were surprised to find ancient tile! It made the prep-work a little longer due to creating the necessity of borrowing a belt sander to get the glue from the old linoleum off of the even older tile. Thanks to Jason's dad's neighbor Nolan, we were back up and running first thing Saturday morning. Saturday the guys managed to get the bathroom tile set, and about 60% of the kitchen. The project was then put on hold until the following weekend while Weston and Kyle took care of church and school responsibilities for the week. The following Friday night the guys were back once again, this time to finish setting the remaining tile. Saturday all that was left was the grout and caulk which was easily finished by sundown. I am so happy to have new tile and thankful to Weston and Kyle for all of their hard work. Admittedly the tile project was a bit of a hassle...we spent 2 nights sleeping on cots at cousin Heather's house, since we only have one bathroom and our toilet was residing in our bathtub. Our oven was moved into and out of our living room during the project, and for the entire week our refrigerator resided on our back porch. To complicate matters, the fridge door couldn't be opened facing the house, so in order to get into the fridge you had to go outside. Luckily (or not so luckily for the barefoot person really wanting something out of the fridge) the weather stayed cold during the week, so the food in the fridge was fine and we were able to move the frozen goods to the upright freezer in the basement. The exciting part is that the tile looks really nice. The bathroom is my favorite, so I thought I'd include before and after pictures.
My 3 1/2 year old Dell laptop has recently been reduced to an awkward desktop. Basically the laptop screen has died...so all my data is there, I just have to mess with hooking it to an external monitor to see what I'm doing and get it off. This is complicated by the fact that my laptop is currently in about a half dozen pieces, after I attempted minor laptop surgery last week to replace the LCD inverter to see if I could fix the problem. Since it didn't seem to fix anything, I just haven't had the motivation to put it all back together...so its currently rather useless. On the bright side, I've purchased a new laptop...which should be here in 1-2 weeks. I am (im)patiently waiting for my pretty new Toshiba.
Projects, projects, projects. Our tile job is ever-so-close to finished (just replacing some trim yet), our tub in in progress, my new laptop is ordered. I hope to shortly win the lottery to afford all of this excess.
On a side note, I am especially thankful for my supportive husband this month, who hasn't so much as flinched when I told him what my tuition would cost...when the tile job became this month's project, and when my laptop unexpectedly died. I know money can be a huge arguing point for married couples, and if anything he has shown a great deal of confidence in me making financial decisions--not complaining about the price of my new laptop, but instead trusting me to make wise spending decisions. He knows I worry more about money sometimes than he does (and he's the "financial professional"). I picked a good one.
Stay tuned 'til next month. I hope this finds you well!
S.~
There are two big pieces of news from the last month. First of all, my parents came out for a visit at Christmas! We all had a lot of fun while they were here. We went to hardware ranch and saw the winter elk-feeding grounds, we drove up the canyons and checked out the snow levels at the ski resorts, we spent Christmas eve/day/day after Christmas at Jason's grandparent's ranch in Logan, where we all went for horseback rides on Christmas day with beautiful views of the snow-covered mountains. Best of all my parents got 6 days of travel, story telling, and relaxing WITHOUT cows! It was good to see them have so much fun, and I hope they make it back again soon.
The second bit of news is our recently completed tile job. On the main floor there was linoleum in the bathroom and kitchen. One of the seams in the kitchen floor had been poorly done and was starting to peel up. I had been wanting to do tile for awhile...even more so after finding out Jason's cousins Weston and Kyle have been doing freelance tile jobs over the past year or more. Weston and Kyle's schedule cleared up a bit after Christmas so the first 2 weekends of January was dedicated to installing tile at our house. Under the kitchen linoleum we found VCT tile, however under the bathroom linoleum we were surprised to find ancient tile! It made the prep-work a little longer due to creating the necessity of borrowing a belt sander to get the glue from the old linoleum off of the even older tile. Thanks to Jason's dad's neighbor Nolan, we were back up and running first thing Saturday morning. Saturday the guys managed to get the bathroom tile set, and about 60% of the kitchen. The project was then put on hold until the following weekend while Weston and Kyle took care of church and school responsibilities for the week. The following Friday night the guys were back once again, this time to finish setting the remaining tile. Saturday all that was left was the grout and caulk which was easily finished by sundown. I am so happy to have new tile and thankful to Weston and Kyle for all of their hard work. Admittedly the tile project was a bit of a hassle...we spent 2 nights sleeping on cots at cousin Heather's house, since we only have one bathroom and our toilet was residing in our bathtub. Our oven was moved into and out of our living room during the project, and for the entire week our refrigerator resided on our back porch. To complicate matters, the fridge door couldn't be opened facing the house, so in order to get into the fridge you had to go outside. Luckily (or not so luckily for the barefoot person really wanting something out of the fridge) the weather stayed cold during the week, so the food in the fridge was fine and we were able to move the frozen goods to the upright freezer in the basement. The exciting part is that the tile looks really nice. The bathroom is my favorite, so I thought I'd include before and after pictures. In other exciting news we used paint stripper to remove the chipping paint from our previously refinished bathtub that was starting to flake. That stuff was STRONG! We actually set off our 'explosive gas alarm' on our carbon monoxide detector in the process and had to open a few windows. The result is a bathtub that no longer has chipping paint, but is once again it's original UGLY brown color. We purchased a white spray-enamel kit specifically for refinishing bathtubs so we're going to give that a try later in the week. If all goes well, we will go from a chipping white/brown tub...to an ugly brown tub...to a new-looking white refinished tub. Wish us luck! Hopefully there will be pictures in the next edition of this blog.
My 3 1/2 year old Dell laptop has recently been reduced to an awkward desktop. Basically the laptop screen has died...so all my data is there, I just have to mess with hooking it to an external monitor to see what I'm doing and get it off. This is complicated by the fact that my laptop is currently in about a half dozen pieces, after I attempted minor laptop surgery last week to replace the LCD inverter to see if I could fix the problem. Since it didn't seem to fix anything, I just haven't had the motivation to put it all back together...so its currently rather useless. On the bright side, I've purchased a new laptop...which should be here in 1-2 weeks. I am (im)patiently waiting for my pretty new Toshiba.
Projects, projects, projects. Our tile job is ever-so-close to finished (just replacing some trim yet), our tub in in progress, my new laptop is ordered. I hope to shortly win the lottery to afford all of this excess.
On a side note, I am especially thankful for my supportive husband this month, who hasn't so much as flinched when I told him what my tuition would cost...when the tile job became this month's project, and when my laptop unexpectedly died. I know money can be a huge arguing point for married couples, and if anything he has shown a great deal of confidence in me making financial decisions--not complaining about the price of my new laptop, but instead trusting me to make wise spending decisions. He knows I worry more about money sometimes than he does (and he's the "financial professional"). I picked a good one.
Stay tuned 'til next month. I hope this finds you well!
S.~
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
My Parents have a Blog!
My mom recently decided to start a blog about day-to-day farm life for anyone who is interested.
http://wifarmlife.blogspot.com/
It will probably be boring for all my farm-kid friends...but for some others who wonder what goes on on a dairy farm, it may be interesting. Hopefully my parents can find time to keep it updated frequently!
S.~
http://wifarmlife.blogspot.com/
It will probably be boring for all my farm-kid friends...but for some others who wonder what goes on on a dairy farm, it may be interesting. Hopefully my parents can find time to keep it updated frequently!
S.~
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Addendum:
I almost forgot to mention we got our first "real" Christmas tree this year! Merry Christmas everyone!
We also treated ourselves to a new TV for Christmas. The 26" LED LCD is a major upgrade from the basic Walmart TV I took along to college 10 years ago (and we were still using until last week). Merry Christmas to us! :)
We also treated ourselves to a new TV for Christmas. The 26" LED LCD is a major upgrade from the basic Walmart TV I took along to college 10 years ago (and we were still using until last week). Merry Christmas to us! :)
Dear Blog...
November was a fun month. We took a trip to WI to surprise my family for Thanksgiving. I have not been home for Thanksgiving since I moved to Utah 5 years ago, so my family really didn’t expect us to be there, giving us the perfect opportunity to surprise them. We purchased our plane tickets mid-September and managed to keep our secret safe all the way to Thanksgiving! I talk to my mom every day, so there was more than once that I almost slipped up myself and gave it all away. The closest call we came to our secret being blown was when my friend Larissa’s dad (who happens to be a federal milk inspector) made a routine visit to my parents’ farm and told my parents he thought Larissa was having dinner with me over Thanksgiving. My parents, who were totally in the dark, were convinced he was just confused and thinking of some other friend of Larissa. Lucky us!
We flew to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport on the evening before Thanksgiving—luckily missing the blizzard on both ends of the trip. Thanksgiving day we picked up our rental car and drove the 4 hours to dinner at my Dad’s cousin’s house. This was the first actual holiday we have spent with my Dad’s side since getting married—so that was very fun—lots of food, chit-chat, and general relaxing to be had.
Friday night we went out with friends. Going out with friends has changed over the years. I spent most of dinner holding a 3-month-old, while a 3-year-old and 15-month-old did their best to squirm and flirt with all of those around us. Larissa’s children (20mos & 3mos) were with daddy for the night, or the children in the group would have nearly outnumbered the adults! Dinner was so much fun, but I wonder when we all grew up. After asking if I had any surprise news worth making a surprise trip for, my great friend Andy informed me he figured I was coming home to announce that we were expecting a baby. After informing him that this was not yet the case he said he was going to keep telling people I was pregnant anyway. :) Old friends are the best.
Saturday my mom’s side of the family got together for their 2nd Thanksgiving dinner! They had scheduled Thanksgiving dinner for the Sunday before the holiday, in order to make things easier on my aunt and cousins who work at a holiday store at the mall (as you can imagine it’s CRAZY there during Black Friday weekend). We couldn’t move the holiday without tipping off my parents that we were coming, so we decided to see if everyone would be willing to gather again the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Once we arrived and surprised my parents, it dawned on my mother that my grandmother had invited them to dinner Saturday not just because she was being nice, but because everyone was getting together again in honor of our visit! My family is the best!!
Jason said our visit was just the way a vacation should be: warmer weather (than Utah at least), lots of food, not too much running around, and plenty of friends and family to chat with.
In other exciting news, my parents will be spending Christmas in Utah this year!! I suggested they visit, partly as a diversion from our Thanksgiving trip, but never thought they would actually make it happen! Please pray for good travelling weather for them. They will be arriving on the 22nd and leaving on the 29th. My mom says in 34 years of marriage she can’t remember ever taking a trip like this for Christmas, where they won’t have to milk and feed cows. Luckily they have good help that’s willing to work for them even on Christmas, and my brother will be staying close to home in case anything unexpected should arise.
Thanks to my brother Jim who helped give my laptop a total life makeover (i.e. new hard drive and operating system) during our visit. Thanks to the Kahler’s, Spankowski’s, Larissa, KTP, and all the family who forced themselves to have a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner just to see us! Every time we visit I am reminded what amazing friends I have gathered through the years. If we missed you this time, perhaps we’ll see you next time…which looks like it will be late May. See you then!
S.~
We flew to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport on the evening before Thanksgiving—luckily missing the blizzard on both ends of the trip. Thanksgiving day we picked up our rental car and drove the 4 hours to dinner at my Dad’s cousin’s house. This was the first actual holiday we have spent with my Dad’s side since getting married—so that was very fun—lots of food, chit-chat, and general relaxing to be had.
Friday night we went out with friends. Going out with friends has changed over the years. I spent most of dinner holding a 3-month-old, while a 3-year-old and 15-month-old did their best to squirm and flirt with all of those around us. Larissa’s children (20mos & 3mos) were with daddy for the night, or the children in the group would have nearly outnumbered the adults! Dinner was so much fun, but I wonder when we all grew up. After asking if I had any surprise news worth making a surprise trip for, my great friend Andy informed me he figured I was coming home to announce that we were expecting a baby. After informing him that this was not yet the case he said he was going to keep telling people I was pregnant anyway. :) Old friends are the best.
Saturday my mom’s side of the family got together for their 2nd Thanksgiving dinner! They had scheduled Thanksgiving dinner for the Sunday before the holiday, in order to make things easier on my aunt and cousins who work at a holiday store at the mall (as you can imagine it’s CRAZY there during Black Friday weekend). We couldn’t move the holiday without tipping off my parents that we were coming, so we decided to see if everyone would be willing to gather again the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Once we arrived and surprised my parents, it dawned on my mother that my grandmother had invited them to dinner Saturday not just because she was being nice, but because everyone was getting together again in honor of our visit! My family is the best!!
Jason said our visit was just the way a vacation should be: warmer weather (than Utah at least), lots of food, not too much running around, and plenty of friends and family to chat with.
In other exciting news, my parents will be spending Christmas in Utah this year!! I suggested they visit, partly as a diversion from our Thanksgiving trip, but never thought they would actually make it happen! Please pray for good travelling weather for them. They will be arriving on the 22nd and leaving on the 29th. My mom says in 34 years of marriage she can’t remember ever taking a trip like this for Christmas, where they won’t have to milk and feed cows. Luckily they have good help that’s willing to work for them even on Christmas, and my brother will be staying close to home in case anything unexpected should arise.
Thanks to my brother Jim who helped give my laptop a total life makeover (i.e. new hard drive and operating system) during our visit. Thanks to the Kahler’s, Spankowski’s, Larissa, KTP, and all the family who forced themselves to have a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner just to see us! Every time we visit I am reminded what amazing friends I have gathered through the years. If we missed you this time, perhaps we’ll see you next time…which looks like it will be late May. See you then!
S.~
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