Tagged

10 Years ago...
Nate had just hit his one year mark on his mission. I was living in Provo, Utah by myself in a little basement apartment. I was working full-time as an HR Assistant and was incredibly ALONE. I bought my first computer that was ALL MINE on my first real credit card. I would spend hours on that thing, writing letters to Nate, sending emails to friends and family and teaching myself to design my first website.

5 things on my list to do today...
Wow, I already got them done and it's only 2:30 in the afternoon! They were:
1. Buy dog license at Pasco City Hall
2. Deposit Check at bank
3. Pick up library books and DVDs waiting on hold
4. Help Kim with her computer
5. Make Dinner, not pick it up from a drive-thru (well this one isn't done, but I'm going to do it!)

Snacks I enjoy...
1. Nachos...any kind, the ones with real cheese or artificial...I'm not picky!
2. Popcorn from the movie theater with extra butter and salt
3. Chocolate...cookies, candy, cake, pie, ice cream...you get the drift.
4. Krispy Kremes...the chocolate ones with the whip cream inside...mmm, I could die happy.

What I would do if I were suddenly a
millionaire...
Invest it, go on vacation without the kiddos and then maybe go back to school and start a computer business of some kind with the hubby.

3 bad habits......
1. Sleeping too much...I tell the kids if I could be any animal I would choose a bear so I could hibernate all winter long.
2. Stressing, worrying and being way too anxious about EVERYTHING.
3. Letting my priorities get all messed up.

5 places I have lived...
1. Lebanon, Oregon
2. Walla Walla, Washington
3. Longview and Kelso, Washington
4. Provo and Orem, Utah
5. Richland and Pasco, Washington


5 jobs I have had...
1. Library Page (the girl who sorts and re-stocks the shelves)
2. Library Clerk
3. Human Resources Assistant
4. Assistant Librarian at a high school
5. Receptionist at Novell

5 things people don't know about me...
1. I have to sleep with a fan at night. HAVE TO. I need the white noise...not the actual blowing of air. If I sleep somewhere else and there isn't a fan, I have to improvise or I don't sleep. That means, turning on the AC/Heater, running a bathroom fan, or tuning the radio to static. I know, weird. I finally bought myself some white noise CD's (yes, they really sell those) so I would always have my trusty white noise wherever I go. Usually I just pack a small fan...or all my relatives know to dig out a fan for me.
2. When I was 21 I was diagnosed with Sensory Integration or Sensory Processing Disorder. Yeah, Google it, most people don't know what it is. It's most often diagnosed in children and always coincides with another disorder like anxiety, autism or learning disabilities. It explains A LOT of my anxiety and depression issues. It also explains why I have to sleep with a fan. :-)
3. I saw M.C. Hammer in concert when I was in middle school. Yeah, I know..it gets better... Guess who opened for him? Vanilla Ice.
4. I don't really know how to swim. I can kind of dog paddle, but not that well. I'm afraid of the water.
5. I'm obsessive about lining up books with the edge of the book case. When at the library or a bookstore, I'll start doing it without noticing. I guess this goes back to the job at the library...

Jen, it's time to come out of hiding and do a quick post, I'm tagging you! And Heath and Amber, too. And Steph, are you still doing a blog? You, too!

The Story of a Car

Back in July I received an email from Nate asking me if I would be interested in buying a car. These are the pictures he sent:










Um, well, yes...as long as this car was going to look a little less crushed and a lot more "driveable", then yes, I would be interested.

You see, Nate's coworker and good friend, buys totaled cars from auctions at low prices and then through a few friends with mad skills at fixing cars at great prices, he fixes them up and then sells them for a profit. I know, I know...we've all heard the stories of the people out there doing this with not so reputable results, but we know and trust this friend and have watched him do it time and time again with positive outcomes. So starts the journey of our new car...

In October the car was nearing completion...or so we thought. We decided to put our little Sentra up for sale. Our first new car ever. We bought it when we were expecting Kenzie. We needed a car that would fit a car seat. It had given us some happy years and now we were going to use the money from it to pay off some debt and put a nice-sized down payment on our "new" car. Surprisingly, it sold pretty quickly and we got the price we asked.

We thought we'd be down to one car for maybe a month at most. I was okay as long as I had my new car by Thanksgiving. Then if we had to travel in inclement weather for the holidays, we'd have our 4 wheel drive. No such luck. Well, then if we could just get it by Christmas? No such luck there, either. Let me tell you, being in a one car family with two kids in separate schools, Nate working full-time in Richland and going to school in Pasco...this was just not fun...at all.
Thankfully we had some very helpful neighbors/friends who helped make our lives easier by giving rides whenever we needed them. Thanks guys!

By January, we thought for sure we'd get the car. The repairs were done, the okay by the state patrol was done, but he only had a temporary title. The bank won't loan you money on a temporary title. So goes the wait again. There were quite a few days I would call Nate up and say, "forget it, go buy me a mini-van from the dealership! I don't want that car anymore. I don't care how much money we're going to save!"

Thankfully, we stuck it out and on Valentine's Day we got the phone call that our title was in the mail! Last weekend we made the final arrangements with the bank. (That would be over two hours of waiting and signing papers and waiting some more with two very ornery children.) But now I'm driving around this fantastic car...




Isn't it cute? I feel so spoiled!!! We've never owned such a nice car. It has all the bells and whistles and is so much fun to drive. The girls love the sun roof. Even when it's freezing, they beg to have it open. They love to exclaim how they can SEE EVERYTHING, because they're sitting up so high. I love that I can now play my ipod without the fm transmitter that sounds terrible, I love how much power it has, how comfortable the seats are, that I can fit SO MUCH STUFF in the trunk and my keyless entry makes me want to sing songs of joy. I could keep on going. Nate loves that he now has the option to tow stuff, that we can put the seats down and actually buy big stuff and not worry how we're going to get it home and that sun roof makes him pretty happy too. So if you happen to see me drive past, be sure to notice the big smile plastered on my face. Who says a new car can't buy happiness? :-)

The Real Reason I Got a Dog...

Yup, she's finally calming down enough to sit at my feet while I sit at the computer. (Don't look too closely at my messy office. Actually, let's be honest...this is my office when it's clean.) It's only taken nine months, but I find her sleeping at my feet more and more often lately. The rest of the time she is still doing this:

• tearing up random bits of paper and spreading it all over the floor
• tearing up random bits of kleenex and toilet paper and spreading it all over my house
• chewing up toys, shoes, books, and whatever else she can get her little paws on
• jumping on the children
• nipping at the children
• barking at guests
• bringing in little "presents" from outside and depositing them all over my house, such as rocks, frozen ice chunks when it snows, clumps of mowed grass in the summer, and now bits of tumbleweeds and tackweeds after our wind storms. Yeah, lovely.
• chewing up her tennis balls until they resemble small bits of rubber and felt and then depositing these little bits all around my house
  

I know, the laying at my feet thing doesn't look so cute anymore, huh? We're stuck with her, though. The kids adore her, I love her about 1/2 of the time and Nate "tolerates" her.

Make Blogging Work For You

Seriously?!

That's all I have to say...


Updated for all you doubters out there...

Okay, I know you're all thinking this can't be real, can it? Go check out the website, you can buy it for just under $300!! And here's another video of Ellen Degeneres using one on her talk show...

Excuses, excuses...

It's happened again. I've let my blogging fall by the wayside. I've actually started and not finished three posts in the past two weeks. This is what I've learned about myself regarding blogging lately:

1. I'm long-winded. Once I start a story, I can't seem to make it short. The harder I try, the longer it becomes.

2. I can't stop comparing myself to everyone else who blogs. Really? I know it's a waste of time, but I just keep doing it.

3. There is a pattern to my blogging. You may just see it as a bunch of posts one week, then nothing, then a bunch of posts a few weeks later, then nothing. Guess what? There's a pattern to my madness. And madness it is, folks. As all things tend to be related to them lately, so does my blogging it seems. My hormones. Seriously? Yes, seriously. Ask Nate, they seem to rule the roost at our place. It seems they've taken over my blogging habits, too. Not hormonal? I blog, I communicate, I email, I go out, I do dishes, I clean laundry, I smile, I laugh, I get things done. Hormonal? I don't blog, if I do blog, I don't publish it because it's crazy-town talking and who wants to hear that? I also tend to let the dishes go, the house go, dinner's not done, emails don't get sent, phone calls left unanswered, laundry piles up, Mrs. Cranky comes to visit and stay, I stay in, I get paranoid, I get angry, I get weepy and panicky and anxious and don't sleep. You know, the usual. Some months it's only a couple of bad days. This month was extra long. I'm still coming out of it. Ovulation just rolled into period and there wasn't much of a break in between. I'm tired of telling people it's "that time of the month". Really, they're going to think I'm just coming up with excuses to not "fill in the blank here". I'm starting to think I should have named my blog something like:
Pre-Menstrual Madness or The Days of My PMDD or Stories From the Pit of Despair or PMDD: Pity, Misery, Despair and Disasters Recounted Here or Welcome to Crazy-Town or PMDD: Poor Mormon Dope Despairs or PMDD: Pathetic Mom's Dysphoric Disorders. Then at least people would know what they're getting into when they click on the link to my blog.

**Sigh**

So, here's to a better week of blogging. There really is more to me than this crazy person who takes residence here a couple days (or weeks) a month. Really.