Relief

I think I mentioned that we had found a house in Blackfoot. . .well we got a call this week. Oops, they sold the house. Ahh!! So we started scrambling to find a new place. No one was answering/returning my calls. Ever apartment complex I called was booked up with at least a 6 month waiting list and don't even get me started on the costs! Not one of the apartment complexes included utilities, yet they were all charging over 700!
In a state of stress I began my search in earnest employing all of the resources I know of on the internet (google and craigslist).
In the end I found an apartment . . . agreed to rent it and then happened to trip onto a site which included some renter comments. Usually I don't look at these, but for some reason I did this time and noticed it was VERY negative. Then I read the others and found another site with comments. There were about 16 total comments and of those 1 was positive and it was very short. So I backed off of that one and started the search again.
I ended up finding a few homes for rent in Rexburg, all of them higher than we wanted to pay, but still within our abilities. Then I started calling the companies. It took me 3 days, emails, phone calls/messages to get in touch with them but I finally did.
I'm still waiting for a return call about a couple questions.
So I searched again and found a townhome, emailed the owner and received a reply within a few minutes. We exchanged a few more questions and answers and finally I think this is the one. . . It's farther from campus than we were anticipating, so I've still got my ear to the other two companies just in case, but it's the best option so far:
I've included what few pictures we have of it. Don't be jealous.



This week also saw the completion of the last wiring in the house. Everything officially works. We ended up opening up an entire wall (a small one) because there were more studs than drywall and we couldn't figure out where all the wires went, but it's done and we'll worry about repairing it next week after we move everything out.
Also interesting to note that we're staying the night at my mother's house tonight because when we got home this afternoon we no longer had water. . . yes that's right, no water. Why? Well, after about 10 calls to the landlord he finally called back and . . .oh oops. . .forgot to pay the water bill last month because he went on vacation last week when it was due. Seriously? What kind of landlord are you?!?!

Anyway, on to a happier subject: We got our new car :)
My mom got the final okay for the closing on her new house, and since it is out on 2 miles of unpaved road everyone involved felt it would be wise to get a more durable car with higher clearance and 4 wheel drive. So she bought a new subaru. This meant they had an extra car. . . oh what to do with it?
So, we're the proud owners of a new Honda Accord LX. It's pretty.

Also Jason has been sick as a dog for the past week. His latest is the flu. Stay away my love, stay away. He and Alisabeth match each other well. No new work stories because he literally drags himself through the day or comes home early due to sickness.
We did have a nice yard sale this last weekend. We sold about 1/2 of our earthly possessions and a good chunk of my mother's as well. I was actually quite surprised about how few people there were. Most of them didn't speak any English and had license plates from Sonora. They were worried about how much tax they would have to pay crossing back over the border with their loot. One lady actually took our table completely apart so that she could bury it on the bottom of her other items so they wouldn't see it.
I just nodded, tried my best to not let them bargain me to death and looked away as they stashed it away.

In the end we took most of the remaining clothes and books and housewares to Goodwill. I could have tried to sell again next weekend, but no one was interested in the clothes and most of the larger items were gone. I did keep a few of the things I felt had actual worth to try to sell them on E-bay instead of yard selling. We made enough for gas on the moving truck all the way up, now we just have to see if the last few items can get us gas money for the car :)

We also had our first Christmas. It was at the Liddeke's house and it was a blast. All of the little grandkids went first and since they're all girls there were a massive amount of little beautiful dolls. I was a little nervous because Alisabeth was at attention when she realized that all the little girls were getting dolls. After about the third one she kept saying "my turn!"
So when she got a different box I feared for her reaction, but Sonja picked perfectly. When she opened her new trainset she was more than thrilled. She was immediately enthralled.
The adults had a gift exchange once the younger ones were done and I ended up with a really cute candle holder. Jason got coffee mug with some Vanilla flavored coffee. He gave the coffee to the highest bidder and planned his hot chocolate revenge.
After we had enjoyed the gifts and family for a while we had to rush across town for a "Surprise" party for Holly. We had balogna sandwiches and chips for dinner and then a great cake made by Jason's younger sister. The gifts were really nice, my favorite being the little figurines her youngest girls got for her. It was a nice night which culminated in my daughter throwing a coughing fit and making herself sick, so after locking her in her seat I got her back out and bathed her while Jason cleaned the seat and then we headed home. (She was gone before we got half-way there).

It was quite an eventful week! I'm excited for this one which promises just as much fun. Christmas Eve will start at the Liddeke's Mexican Christmas dinner followed by an overnighter at Jason's parent's house. Then gifts in the morning followed by more gifts at Nana's house and Christmas dinner. Whew! See you on the other side.

"We already had those yesterday"

Our little three year old is speaking up a storm. Luckily most of it still doesn't make any sense. She's at the stage of contradicting everything you say regardless of the truth or how she really feels. She's also into the stage of screaming at us when we don't do what she wants. It's got to be the hardest thing I've faced thus far. Then today, after screaming at me, and hearing my serious threats of having to go to bed at 5:30pm she sat back in her seat, started to eat her "I don't like it" dinner and after a few minutes whimpered out "Sorry I yelled at you mommy."
At church today we sat and played during the whole Christmas program (to keep her quiet, really) and she said "I love you mommy." These moments help me to realize that we really are getting through despite appearances and gives me hope to keep going.
Below is my sweet girl after the street fair. It's not as good as what they did at Sea World, but it cost about 1/3 of the price, so what can I say, it's good enough. She was delighted to be a cute kitty.

This week also marked my immensely amazing success with the bathroom light. I think I mentioned that in the last blog, well, I being the amazing genius that I am (and humble too) figured out that we had already torn open the wall by the light fixture, so I just connected it at that point instead of over by the switch, this way we had the return we needed.
Here's praying that the other lights work similarly (with easily traced returns). . . that's tomorrow's project.

Countdown to the yardsale. We're doing it on Saturday. We are going to underprice everything so that it sells, and sells fast. The goal is no longer to get as much money as possible for the trip. Heavenly Father provided that for us.
Jason's truck died on the way home on Thursday. The clutch burned out. He made it all the way to the exit next to ours, so i came and "bumped" him all the way home.
I hate towing cars, and neither of us wanted to wait hours for the tow truck so I just started nosing him home with my car. After a second we got going fast enough so that he could go up the hill on his own (thank goodness). (Did I mention the car was stuck in 5th gear).
After the hill I bumped him through the two left turns and we were home free. It was nice. After that we went to the mall and Alisabeth decided that she's going to save up for one of the official Disney Princess Cinderella dresses ($60). We told her it would be a long time and that she needed to fill her piggy bank all the way to the top for it. She has a good start after helping me clean out daddy's truck to get it ready to be hauled away. (We were going to give it Jason's parents, but now that it's broken it's more effort than it's worth.). There was a bunch of change in the glove compartment and she got all of it for her efforts.
I'm trying to think of what else we did this week. Oh yeah, Jason bought my Christmas gift and I accidentally found out because I was reconciling the bank account that day and suddenly a large transaction appeared and I went to research what paypal thought they were doing charging my account. . . oops. Luckily for me he doesn't check the bank accounts so he wouldn't have any clue what I got for him. *evil grin*

Jason had a great experience on Saturday. About midway through the day the other adviser was too sick and had to leave. So Jason was alone for the rest of the night, no big deal except that a customer came to get their car at about 4. It was the other adviser's customer, so Jason started to try to find it. He found it, half done in a technician's bay. That technician was gone, for no apparent reason, so Jason began searching for another technician to finish the job. The other tech was gone too. So Jason is alone in the building with a used car technician who didn't want to do anything (including his own job), and a customer. The customer was very understanding, but it was fun for him.
I told him he should just have finished it himself, but he told me it was a wiring job and there were wires everywhere. He didn't want to get involved in the middle.
He was also told this last week that he's not allowed to leave because he'll be too hard to replace. When he told me this over instant messenger I asked if that meant they were going to double his salary and give him benefits. He just laughed.

My other success this week was getting most of the house packed up. I broke down and bought a few boxes from U-haul. Every time I went to find someone with free boxes they were either really small or they canceled on me last minute and I was just getting tired of it, so I figured I'd go with them. I spent $20 and we'll probably be able to return many of them (they have a guaranteed buy-back) so we won't have lost anything.
Our other money success was our landlord granting us a refund of the deposit even though we're breaking our contract early. I had Jason talk to him. He traded us December rent and all of the remaining supplies for our deposit which was weighted on his end, but I'm okay with that. At least we're getting out with enough to pay our first month in the new place in Idaho.
We set the date for the 5th to load the truck. We'll head up to Utah and stay with friends that night and the next and be up in Blackfoot on the 7th to get our keys from our new landlord.
Ah the joys of moving.

Success

Finally! Finally finally finally.
Today (Jason's day off and the day that I get nothing done around the house. . . ever) we finished the last circuit. . . Do they all work. . .well, sort of.
Why? Ha, it's funny you should ask. See the guy why built this place had never heard of logic or planning. Apparently to him it seemed like a good idea to run single wires to every light switch instead of running a complete set of wires.
The effect of this decision is that we can't find the return wires for any of the lights.
Possible solutions include ripping up all of the ceilings, or running wires along the outside which will look absolutely atrocious, or praying with every ounce of faith that we possess and hoping that some of the exposed wires we found (but didn't know where they went to) turn out to contain return paths for the lights.
Any better ideas would be welcome.
We now have three working lights not including any of the bedrooms or the bathroom. Ah I love life.

Also this week on The Flanneries:
Alisabeth started earning money this week by doing chores and helping mommy around the house. Why? She saw an umbrella and simply had to have it. She already understands the concept of buying things and usually tries to hand things to any uniformed person and then turn to me and say "I wanna buy that." So we took it a step further and told her she would be able to buy it herself if she earned money. We explained how she could do that and then we made a big deal of putting whatever change we could find into a little piggy bank (already 1/3 full) and marking a spot about half an inch above the money already in there. Toward the end I started stuffing bills in there because they take more room.
It took her two weeks to get to the line but as soon as she got there she got such a giddy look of excited anticipation on her face that I could do nothing but smile and love her to pieces.
I didn't get to go with her to pick it out, but Jason said she was quite decisive. She chose a purple parasol. It's very cute and so far it's done everything except sleep with her. . . if only we had some rain. :)

We also took a trip up to Phoenix on Wednesday to see the lights at the temple. Every year they set up a huge light display which contains most of the scenes from Luke about the Savior's birth. There are three giant camels and wise men on the front lawn, sheppards in the fields on one section of grass. An ancient prophet writing about His birth and a bunch of other scenes. It was very cool.
Alisabeth totally understands that we're celebrating Jesus's birthday this month. She's amazing.
Tonight's Family Home Evening lesson was about his second coming (I modified my sunday school lesson to fit since we didn't have time to do anything but circuits today). She was actually engaged the whole time. We talked about how she is sad when daddy is at work, but excited when he comes home. This is what it will be like when Jesus comes back. We will be excited because He will tell us that He loves us. She even parroted it back at the end. "I will be sad because Jesus is at work, but when he comes home we will be happy because he says he loves us!"

In my life there's not much new, I've packed up all the books, and all my sewing stuff. The only thing I have left to do is a ribbon on a gift for a second cousin-in-law, and then that will be packed away too. I even packed my motivator movies by accident. All I have left are Disney. . .
The one cool thing is my story, but even that is sort of pushed into the background by everything else we have going on. I have to really be able to concentrate to write well, otherwise it's disjointed and wrong.
I did, however, somehow manage to get Best Buy employees into a lot of trouble. I guess they've changed store policy since I worked there. Saving boxes for people is not longer allowed. I got two loads from them, but when I called back for more I was informed that district had called to tell them they were no longer allowed to give them out due to liability issues. I felt bad. Hope they didn't get into too much trouble. . .
Now I don't know where to get more from though, so it's a dilemma.

Jason hasn't done anything spectacular either this week. He did complete an entire circuit today though while I finished another one. I came around the corner into the bedroom at one point to see two shoes sticking out of the hole in the wall that leads to the crawl space. He's amazing.

Nothing super exciting happening here. Just waiting for Christmas and New Years. We've set the moving date for the 5th of January, though it may shift forward or backward depending on weather as the time draws near. Hopefully that will be plenty of time to finish this house and get through the holidays. . .
We'll also be throwing a surprise party for Jason before we leave, but don't tell him that.
It'll probably be on the 4th or 3rd before we leave, and it will probably be in an undisclosed location that I haven't set yet.
For more information you'll have to wait because I don't have any. Although brownies instead of cake does sound better.

Why does metal expand?

We have a lovely heater. It works very well and in such a small place it creates a toasty warm atmosphere despite the leaking doors and windows. Yet I am annoyed at it most mornings. . . There is a trigger switch for the electric lighter on it that ensures that it can not be opened unless the door covering the fan/heater portion is closed. All good and well, yet when the metal door expands and contracts, which it does a lot in this drafty house, it moves just far enough away so that the contact doesn't happen. Thus sometime in the night it stops working and we wake up in the morning freezing and cold. Luckily for me Jason wakes up about an hour before I do . . .so I wake up nice and toasty. :) I love my husband.

Well, my book is coming along nicely. If only I didn't have any responsibilities or cares in the world and could lock myself in a small room for a while it would be a lot better. As it is I've got about 40 pages done. (For a normal sci-fi book this is roughly 1/4 to 1/5 done. The good thing is that I've only been writing on one time-line and I'm a little less than 1/2 way through it. This is the shorter time line too, so I'm assuming that I'll have plenty of material. At first I was trying to write both time lines simultaneously, but I figured out pretty quick that trying to switch my mind back and forth over 200 years of history was pretty difficult. Instead I chose to stay with the first group all the way until I'm done with the important part of history that they have and then I'll drop them like butter on a griddle and pay attention to the meat of the story. I still want to weave the two story lines because they are intended to mirror each other in some ways, but we'll see how that works out.

I also got a call a week or so ago letting me know that Galusha is literally squeezing me in. They made a place for me despite the fact that they are already overloaded. Not only that but I will be learning how to do auditing. This has always been a dream of mine as it is a large part of forensic accounting, but I didn't have time to take the auditing class (and I heard it was a waste of time) so I figured I had lost the opportunity. When Jeff suggested it I was shocked. I told him, "I'm really green in that area, I have never done it at all."
He told me they knew, but if I was willing they would show me the ropes and teach me everything I needed to know. I am thrilled. I'll be working under Fred, one of the partners, and he's a great guy.
As soon as we had that set we started working on the other important details like, where to live, what to take, how to get there. . . All of this meant that we had to cancel our trip to Boise, which nearly devastated us all, but since we'll be nearby for the next few years I'm sure we'll find opportunities to visit.
I started apartment searches the next day and every place I called was completely booked up. I posted a wanted ad on craigslist stating that we needed a place for four months in IF and got a reply that made me cringe. (asking A LOT more than we wanted to pay). We still had time, and most of the apartments said they might have people moving out in December, so we still had options, but I decided not to stress about it any more and just focus on the moving details (and getting the house finished!)
Then a few days later I got an email from a lady who said they had a house in Blackfoot to rent (about 45 minutes away). I called back more to get information rather than because we were really interested. The conversation went something like this:
"Hi, I got your email about your house in Blackfoot, what were you looking to rent it for?"
"Well, um, do you have any cats or dogs or anything?"
"No, it is just my husband, my three year old and myself."
"Oh! I have a three year old!"
"Oh that's cool."
(in the background) "Honey, what are we going to rent it for?" giggling, and then she comes back on, "What do you think is fair?"
"Well, how many bedrooms is it?"
"4"
"Oh, that's definitely out of our price range. We were looking for something small."
"How does $500 sound?"
"Um, you can get a lot more than that for a four bedroom house, some of the 2 bedroom apartments were going for 700!"
"Well, we really would like someone who can make sure our pipes don't freeze and stuff like that, we're trying to sell it, but we're too far away to maintain it until then."
"And what about utilities?"
away from the phone, "honey, what about utilities?" back to me, "we'd pay all of them except garbage, and if you wanted phone or internet or anything you'd have to take care of that."
"Wow, really? We'd love to rent from you!"
And thus I will again be driving 45 minutes on ice . . . every day . . . all winter long. . . curse you Idaho.

Jason was also quick to act on our news. Because I would be starting rather soon in January he gave his last day as Christmas Eve to his boss who was saddened and surprised, but not as distressed as Jason had anticipated. They had a great conversation and Jason walked away with a new respect for the man and gratitude that he hadn't laid on a guilt trip or anything.
We figured the last week in December and the first few in January should give us ample time to complete the repairs to this place and move up to Idaho.

My mom agreed to let us move in for a few weeks so that we can completely empty this place so the work will go faster. I hope it will make life easier for us. However, that gives me just under three weeks to get everything packed and moved to her house, run a large yard sale, and complete the wiring, fixing, patching, painting and cleaning of this place. I'm still hoping to get our deposit back even though we're breaking contract. I figure we moved in when it was dirty and nasty and under construction. If we move out and it's not there's no reason he can give for keeping it. :(

Bitsy has been in rare form recently. Apparently the terrible twos were merely a precursor to the real trials. She's pushing every limit right now. I know that most of it is due to the stress she's feeling from us because of the move and all the fun stuff we've been going through the last month or so, but that doesn't make it any easier to handle in the moment. She's amazingly smart and incredibly aware of everything that's going on. She continually astounds me. I will be interested to see how Jason does as Mr. House Husband for the next few years. (We've committed three years to Galusha).
I think he'll go through the same transition I did and then find a happy medium. Those two have always had more in common than she and I have so I don't doubt they'll buy a go-cart, fix it up, and have many happy days together.

Did I mention that Galusha offered us more than we had anticipated in wages? In all we should be able to leave college with about 1/8th of our current student loans. If we can suck it up even more we might be able to pay them off completely. Pray for our terrible spending habits.

Speaking of spending we boosted the economy this last week as Jason and I took Walmart by storm at 12:00am on Black Friday. I thought they did a great job. The doors were open for anyone to come in and shop, but the registers didn't ring up a single thing until 12:01.
We got everything we went for . . . and much much more. I found clothes for Alisabeth that will last for a few years, jamies and a new beanie. I found a few new nice shirts/sweaters for me for work and we got Jason some new (actually new instead of just new to him) jeans. I think that's the first time in at least two years.
We also go tupperware for everyone and their sister, a cute picture frame collage and toys galore for my little girl. Then I threw in a new electric razor for Jason since he can't find replacement blades for his old one.
All in all we walked away with a huge haul. I am glad to because between this and Toys'R'Us we have actually completed our gift purchases for Alisabeth for the next two years. . . literally.
And that's about all our excitement, sorry no pictures. Alisabeth drained the batteries with one of her photo shoot marathons.

Connections

For those who want to hear me rave you can join my most recent post on my other blog. It is called Don't be offended, so read only if you can do that:
http://flan-thoughts-dont-be-offended.blogspot.com/2010/11/tool-analogy.html

A normal post will come sometime soon.

Astounded

This week marked a few cool developments. First: My pride and joy.
Alisabeth was sitting in the back seat in her carseat, I was in the passenger seat and Jason was driving. Robyn was in the back seat too. Suddenly she starts naming the relationships of people. "Robyn in sitting next to me, and Mommy is in front of me and Daddy is in front of Robyn. We're sitting in a square!"
I was shocked. I've seen her name off shapes when she can see them, but for some reason being able to place herself within a large 3-D space and see the spacial relationship seemed a little advanced. I couldn't find anything online for when this normally happens, but I'm dang proud of her either way. When we got home we tested her again and this time she moved into position before telling us that she and we made a triangle. What a girl!!

On a not so happy note, a little over a week ago a woman pulled out and stopped in my lane causing me to T-bone into her. Luckily and thanks be to God, there was no damage or injury for us. The other lady was a little sore because she saw us coming but instead of moving she just braced herself. Her car would be totaled if she tried to turn it in. I hit straight into the side bending the passenger and driver doors to the point where they will not open. Sadly it was a gift from her sister after she lost her house and everything she owned recently so there's not really any option but to crawl in through the passenger side.
She called her insurance and the police before I realized that we had no damage or injury so we had to give lots of statements and denials of claims. It was lots of good fun. I was so mad that it had happened, but grateful that no one was injured, it could have been a lot worse if I hadn't had time to slam on my brakes.

We also got most of the boards up in the house and all of the external wall's outlets finished. Two circuits done, and a third in place when we work on it tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get the bathroom done tomorrow and then we only have to figure out how the heck we're supposed to get to the hallways and the heater and swamp cooler. Those are going to be boogers. We'll probably also get a few more of the patches done. Hopefully we won't have to open any more walls, I'm tired of cleaning up mold.
After that we'll move everything away from the walls invite all of our closest friend in the area over and put up all the drywall and mud and tape them in the same day. We're going to save the painting for after we move out, that way we don't have to worry about messing it up while we're living here :)

Lastly this week marked the start of a prequel to the book I wrote last year. I started it because I realized after finishing the first book and starting the next that it didn't follow well. It lacked an understanding of the planet's history and made it impossible to grasp the significance of what the main character was doing. So I dropped it and stopped writing. Then just the other day I needed something to keep my mind busy so I started thinking about the story again and there it was. I started writing yesterday and I already have 16 pages. I LOVE when inspiration strikes. After this book is done I'll need to go and revise the first book so that the details match more closely and possibly rewrite a bit of it to connect the ideas better and then I'll write the third book. Once they're all done I think I'm going to try to send them to a publisher. I figure they can only say no, but with three books written it's a better bet than a lot of beginning authors. They'll need a lot of editing, but I've heard most books do.

Jason is having a blast with his new position. For those who didn't know he was demoted and his pay was cut by more than $800 a month because of a bad phone call that the general manager happened to overhear and a few not favorable customer satisfaction surveys. His manager was surprised when Jason told him the pay wouldn't be enough, but eventually we had no other choice than to accept it. So we're cutting back significantly and doing what we can to suck it up until January at the earliest. We've also prayed a lot and we're going to fast forward our 5 year plan. We were going to settle for 5 years and then send Jason back to school for Computer Networking, but with all that's happened so far the automotive field just isn't looking great so we're going to head back to school early and complete a bachelors for him.
The part of all of this that I love is the fact that though the demotion upset him, he didn't let it stop him. He's turned it around and basically proven to them that they made a mistake by upselling the heck out of everything and taking every opportunity to improve himself. He is outselling the guy they chose in his place and basically kicking butt. I feel bad for them only because they're going to be hurting when he leaves in January or March.
Of course there is a downside to the new plan too: it entails me going back to work. We prayed about it a lot, and we'll also be moving back to Rexburg, which I am super exited about. Although I hate winters I REALLY miss the atmosphere of a small town. I loved the friends we made there as well, and though most of them have graduated and moved there are a few left, and I have no doubt we'll find more.
We've already contacted my old boss who has assured me that if he doesn't have a position that he knows of several other firms who do that he will refer me to, but he refused to give me any names until they're sure they can't offer me anything. :)
My mom was devastated and Jason's parents (though they didn't tell us directly) didn't like the idea but all three sets of parents are supportive and hoping for the best for us.
If Galusha can offer me a job we'll be moving in late January, if they can't we'll wait until April because Jason won't start school until then at the earliest. It's going to be another interesting roller coaster.
A friend called and we laughed that we were both begging for the day when we'd get a steady paycheck and now that we've got one we realize that all steady paychecks are not the same. Especially with the rental market as it currently stands.

Other than that we're doing well. We made it through another week and our pretty princess is at the top of her game. We got an amazing sale at Toys R Us and walked away with gifts for the next 3 years for an average of $7 a game. I'm most excited about mousetrap and twister, both of which are personal favorites of mine. (of course they're both 6+ but we'll see what we can do to introduce Twister earlier :-)

Sicko

So, what have we done this week. . . gotten sick.
We had dinner at grandma and grandpas on Sunday, preschool on Monday, little Gym on Tuesday.
Then I got a call from Grandma that her girls were down for the count with something nasty.
They'd gotten it from the other set of cousins. Symptoms: vomiting, stuffy nose, coughing, fever.
Yes, beautiful.
So I started watching for the signs. Thursday night she was warm and whiny so I checked the temp: 102
Since I knew exactly what it was I called grandma instead of heading to the hospital and we started her regiment of children's medicines. We also got some for Jason since he was starting to feel the itchy nasty throat.
I called and canceled our trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday with the rest of the preschool and once again we stayed home.
I took it one day at a time and ended up canceling all of Saturday's activities too and now we're at Sunday and I've already made the calls. It started for me last night with a slight sore throat that progressed toward a raging soreness and clogged sinuses and nose. I know pretty picture right?

Well, there was one good thing that we accomplished this week:
We still got to celebrate Halloween because of an early church trunk-or-treat.
Her friend Bella came too and the two of them were able to be princesses together. Alisabeth also found a little girl who's grandmother had made the same dress. After Bella left for the night Alisabeth frolicked after the older Cinderella until we made her leave with us. So we got a little candy after all :)

We accomplished a few other things last night before I got sick too. Yesterday we got the boards up and the last outlet in for the living room circuit and I marked the places for a few more of them to go. Jason also started the repair plaster on the holes we'd already patched. We're going to wait to paint until we move out since we don't particularly care if the walls are drywall gray or white, but we'll get it in, nice and sanded.
Lastly on our list of accomplishments is this:

I got a couple of requests for pretty skirts similar to the one I made Alisabeth, so this is my next one. It's yellow tulle, even though it looks white. Also I'll be adding an orange ribbon along the bottom. This one is a gift, and I have a few other gifts to make, but I've been told I should sell them so I might make a few more to see how it goes.
They're super easy and cheap to make. The waistband is scrap material that I got in the discount bin (and super cute I might add) and the tulle was $2 a yard with a 50% off coupon which means that the yard you see here cost me $1.00. Gotta love sales.
Let me know if you want to place an order :)

Birthday.

So Wednesday I think it was we decided to get the second circuit working.We hooked up everything in the living room and plugged it in. It worked like a charm. . . except that when you flipped the switch all of the outlets came on, and the outside porch light never turned off :) Anyway, that was a switch of 2 wires and then we were in business. The whole event took a little longer than we had figured so we went to be a little late, but at least we have 2 circuits completely done. On to the last one in the living room and then we just have to figure out how we're going to get access to the kitchen and the washing machine one. :)

And now, on to the main event:
Alisabeth's birthday. By Friday I was pretty despondent. I hadn't heard anything from anyone we had invited, so I started making phone calls. All of the grandparents verified that they'd be there, and once we hit preschool I was gratified to hear that several moms were planning on coming. All in all it turned out great. We had about 10 kids and twice that in adults :)

I made pumpkin cookies finally and we had A TON left over so those were served up along with weenies, chips, carrots/broccoli and dip and a few other things. I meant to make a batch of the spinach and artichoke dip but I ended up putting together her new kitchen instead.

The games included bobbing for apples, a bean bag toss and musical chairs toddler style. They enjoyed the bobbing a lot, but I wasn't there to make the bean bag thing fun so Jason said they were bored in a minute. *Sigh* The last game included prizes; so suddenly everyone was excited to play again, though a few refused to dance/move. :)

Then we sang over the cake. She waiting patiently for us to finish and then after 3 puffs she got it out to our delight and cheering. By this point she was a little overwhelmed with all the people so she wasn't saying much, but she gladly accepted a cupcake and even wanted more.

Then came the presents. We saved this one for last. She also received princess crown/shoe from Kyt, a princess dress-up game from Em, a new set of bath ducks from Grandma/Grandpa Liddeke (just in time, the old ones had mold growing inside and I have to throw them out), some books and a soft teddy bear along with a lego train from Grandma/Grandpa Flannery, a really cute skirt from Ella, a necklace from the Mehr family, and play fruit/cooking stuff from Nana/Grandpa. And of course the kitchen set from us, G&G Liddeke and Nana. She was enjoying opening them as much as she enjoyed playing with them.

The other kids enjoyed her presents too :)

And once the kitchen came all of the children disappeared down the hallway for a while.

There's my little princess.

Here she is again complete with earings as well as her crown.
The whole party lasted about 1.5 hours and then suddenly everyone left at the same time and all was quiet. Alisabeth really enjoyed herself though, so that was cool.
I can tell she's a lot like me though. I can only be social so long before I just want to close my door and read a book. Although my social attention span has increased as I've matured it was pretty short when I was younger. We'll have to keep that in mind next year. Maybe it will be a kid only party so that she doesn't feel as overwhelmed with all the people. :)
The rest of the week was pretty boring. I have to finish sewing all the costumes today as we have a trunk or treat tomorrow night (Ahhh), and then I'm moving on to Christmas presents (toole skirts for all of the female cousins).

Preschool

Well, I mentioned in the last entry that we had started pre-school with Alisabeth, it's been nice for us both. She really enjoys showing mommy and daddy the crafts that she makes. Every Monday is a hand puppet featuring something starting with that week's letter. Friday is decided by the mom in charge for that week. Last week we had it here.
The event coincided perfectly with the arrival of my bountiful basket pumpkins which are huge.

The picture isn't the greatest, because it was taken by a 3 year old, but it's decent enough.
So needless to say we had to gut one of them for our activity here. The kids had fun with that. I sat with them and squished the seeds and mush beneath my fingers and made sound effects. I think they enjoyed that the most.



Sorry about the sideways pictures, but blogger does weird things to my imports.

This weeks cooking experiment was to duplicate the squash/artichoke dip we had tasted at the Melting Pot.
Can I just preface with the fact that I know absolutely nothing about artichokes, and the diagrams/images online are less than helpful. I eventually dissected them to the best of my abilities so that I could cut out the heart and chop it up, but I'm sure more trained eyes would have cried at my attempt. Either way what I got tasted fine, so I'm proud of my efforts. (Next time I'm buying the ones in the jar though).
The sauce turned out wonderfully though and we had it for dinner with sliced apples, bread and carrots.

I wanted to include this one to prove that he was still alive. He's actually doing quite well. We allow him outside for most of the day and he usually gets locked out whenever I have an errand to run because he won't come/stay in. The cutest thing to watch is when he scares away the alley cats. He's half their size, but he runs after them and they scatter. It's funny.
His newest trick is climbing in trees. Usually when I come home from my errands that's where I'll find him. He gets down just fine, so I'm not worried.
Featured below are Alisabeth's skirt that I threw together with the scraps from her Halloween costume. I added some shorts from the scraps of another costume I had made in the past :) and then used more of the satin (all of the remaining parts) to sew on a bottom border. So now she has at least one skirt she can play in. I didn't get anything done on her costume yet because my iron was bumped and knocked to the floor one too many times and now sports a cracked/bent bottom which catches on anything and everything when you try to use it.
I'm waiting until we get paid tomorrow so I can get a new one.
Only one week left until Halloween?!?!?!

And last but not least, my masterpiece.

It took me almost 45 minutes to get this thing to go together. I've never wired an outlet before in my life, so that was fun, plus trying to get the stupid ground wire to curl around the grounding screw correctly, and then getting the whole thing to fit nicely into the tiny container was a pain the the putuccus.
Eventually I got it however, so that's what counts. (Jason meanwhile put up 3 pieces of drywall in Alisabeth's room and completed several other tasks, but we won't mention that.)
We also got one circuit completely done (Yeah!!) and the living room is almost completely hooked up. The only thing left in the living room is to drill a few holes to get the wires to the last outlet on the circuit and then the whole thing will be complete. 2 circuits down, 4 to go.
The next exciting thing is Alisabeth's birthday. It will actually arrive on Thursday, but we're waiting until Saturday morning at 9:30/10 am to celebrate it. (I couldn't get her new play kitchen delivered until then.)
We're really excited. I want to make my cheese dip and a few other finger foods and then of course we'll have cake and ice cream. She's been talking about it for a week. She's excited to turn 3.

Well, being that it's a little after 1 in the morning here I'll end this entry, but I'll probably add another one after the birthday party on Saturday.

What fun!

This week (and last) has been very good. I've been keeping myself busy, plus we started going to Preschool so that's 3 days a week out of the house, if I can add story-time at the library I'll rarely be home!

About 2 weeks ago (for those of you not on facebook) I went and got the material for Alisabeth's Halloween costume. Now I know I could have made it a lot cheaper, but it's dang gorgeous, so it must be worth it :)
I still have the hemming to do, but luckily with toule it doesn't fray, so I just hemmed the satin for now and I'll get to the rest soon . . .
I also completed the crown and necklace to go with it. . . but I let her play with them. . . and now they're gone...
With the scraps I threw together a little skirt today. It's got a waistline in silk and a skirt of the sleeve material. Way cute. . . not at all modest. I'm thinking of adding in a pair of cotton shorts underneath so she won't have to wear a leotard or tights underneath. She loves it though, and it did it's job to distract her from the real dress which she can't wear until Halloween.
These were my main two accomplishments. (in the kiddo department anyway).

I also took the sewing opportunity to finish the pajama pants I started a month ago. They're way cute, and made from a clearance piece of silk that was BARELY large enough to accommodate the pattern. I ended up having to cut the pant legs to get it to fit with the patterned part in the right place, but the cut doesn't look horrible, and they're just for jamies, so I didn't stress too much.
In the cooking department I also had several successes. We have started signing up for Bountiful Baskets which arrive the Saturday after you purchase them. They are filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, the down side is that you never know what you'll get until you get there. We've had some mishaps (cauliflower potatoes that were too soupy) and some good surprises (like a constant source of lettuce which forces me to eat salad almost every day now), but the best part is getting things that we have no idea what to do with. In my last basket we got both okra and butternut squash. Also that week we purchased a case of apples.
I let them all stew for about a week until I was afraid they would start to go bad and then I forced myself to use them:
Okra - yoked, dipped in french bread crumbs and fried for a few minutes until golden brown and soft inside. Very nice.
Apples - nothing interesting yet, but I think I'm going to try an apple pie from scratch wish me luck.
Butternut squash - this was my true dilemma because my husband hears the word squash and automatically doesn't like it. So I used my handy-dandy search engine on Allrecipes.com and ended up with Butternut Squash soup. I figured it I got it cooked before he got home he'd never know. . . plus it had cream cheese in there. :) Turned out to be a huge success. He saw the recipe, so I couldn't slip it past him, but he tried it anyway and found that he liked it. I enjoyed it too and Alisabeth even ate a small bowl. Good times were had by all.
My last cooking success actually came today. I used our pork roasts to make sweet pork and then used that to make tamales for the first time every. I was worried, but they turned out great. I learned a bit and I think they'll be even better next time.

On to the smaller members of our family: Midnight is still alive. . .
Alisabeth started going to a preschool group with a bunch of other moms from the church with kids about the same age. I went with her the first day and it's a good thing I did because the second mom ended up having to take her daughter to the doctors for some stomach thing so she would have been all alone with 7 toddlers.
It was fun. We studied circles and made frog faces from circle shapes. We also studied the letter m and traced it, colored pictures and learned a bunch of words that start with the "m" sound.
In two weeks it'll be at my place. . . we're going to make goop from cornstarch and water and play with it outside, and make ghosts from lollipops and tissues. I'm excited. Our letter is going to be "o" so we'll have to see what we can do.
Little Gym was also really fun this week. We moved up to the next class so that she's in there without me. There are two teachers and they do a really good job or keeping the kids focused. The theme was "under the sea" and we were supposed to bring swim goggles, but I didn't know so instead she pretended. This week's theme is "Slumber Party Sleepover" so we'll be in pajamas and with blankie. Good luck on that one.

We finally finished out training this last week for foster care, now the only thing holding us back is the wiring at our place. That should be done within the month and then we'll be on our way to success!! I'm stoked.

Jason worked a lot this last two weeks, but he's still managed to be a great dad. They had a camp-out two weeks ago in the backyard complete with a fire in a pit.
He also cleaned up all the cactus that had fallen down and got that dumped. He'd done a lot of running around for me, including picking up our new (used) bookcases.
Continuing his car fetish he's fixed a few for friends, but somehow the karma of that never rubs off right because he got two flat tires this week in a row. We now have to replace all of his tires. . . grrrrr. Luckily their sales turned out to be more than we expected so we have the extra cash for the extra expense. (Amazing how that happens when God is in control).
He's also spent every other second reading through the Harry Potter series again. He's obsessed!!

Other than that it's been a quiet day in the neighborhood. Thanks for joining us.

Whoops

Again my weeks are flying!
We finally got assigned a licensing worker! This is great, it's one step closer to being foster parents.
We had our first couples interview with her on one of Jason's lunch-times. I felt bad because a 1/2 hr interview ended up taking almost 1.5 hrs, but his boss is really supportive so as long as he lets them know they seem fine with all the work missed.
Jason had his individual interview this morning. It took about 2 hrs. Mine is on Thursday. Once we finish the electrical we'll have our final inspection and then she'll have to write a 15 page report on whether or not she feels we're ready and able to be foster parents. Usually if you get that far it's in the bag, but we're not taking anything for granted.
We have a lot of work to do before then, one of which is purchasing "tot locks." If you've ever bought a video game or super expensive software from a store and seen how they open the plastic cases around the game/software you'll know how a tot lock works. Super strong magnets that can only be unlocked with another super strong magnet. We're going to purchase two of them, one for the chemicals cabinet under the sink and the other for the medicines cabinet over the sink. They're super expensive, but then we don't have to worry about keys or weird catches that take two hands to open and are usually frustrating.
The we've finished almost everything else required of us (or will by the time we finish the electrical ;)
In other news Jason is doing well at work. He had a day last week where he sold more than any of the other service writers. This was a fluke, but it was still cool. He's doing well and learning a lot. If nothing else I think this job has shown him that he has a lot of potential in an amazing amount of areas.
Alisabeth is blossoming too. The other day I finally found the new erasable markers that we had purchased and gave them to her, then I showed her the traceable numbers and letters on her writing board. She spent the next hour tracing them all. She got a little frustrated whenever she messed up a little bit, but that's normal for her. She loved being praised for this accomplishment. She even showed daddy when he got home. She's getting used to the kitty, although I can be sure that if the door is closed to her room she's in the process of stuffing him into a box of some sort.
Midnight is doing well too. He's adjusting well, although with all the rough play he's having a hard time learning to be soft. He also really loves to pull the keys off our keyboards if we leave the house for too long. We went and stayed with Jason's parent's little girls overnight and when we got home I was missing the "b" key and Jason was missing two of his.
I'm doing well as well. I'm trying to get everything organized and into a pattern. We've gotten money matters taken care of, now it's just a matter of getting the house organized and in shape (continually, and not just sporadically).
Overall it's been a normal and mellow type of week, I love those kind.

So far it's still alive

This was a quick week. . .
Honestly I don't know what we accomplished. ;)

Friday was the most eventful night. That day Alisabeth and I drove to with my mom to view her new potential property. The pictures below are turning 180 degrees from the vantage point of the work shed across the driveway from the house:

And this last on is the manicured front of the house. It's well done to prevent erosion since the whole place is on such a large hill.


That night we furred out the living room wall. It would have gone much faster, but Jason had to distract me. Before Jason even got home I had three pieces (of 11) cut and ready to put up. Then I looked up and Jason walked in with this black little spot crawling all over his shoulder. Due to that fact it took us until almost 10:30 to finish the one wall. Our little black critter is names Midnight and is beloved by all of us. He's five weeks old, almost 6 though and was already eating solid foods and pooping without problems.
He's a cuddly kitten and even allows Alisabeth to torture him endlessly, although he doesn't have great coping skills so he tends to get backed into a corner a lot. So far though, he's still alive.

Saturday we went camping after we came home from the temple. We started out later than I had planned. We also had rain in all directions so I was quite nervous, but it went well.
Alisabeth fell asleep on the drive up and woke up with a night terror when we had to stop for directions. After that ended she was about again (about 5 minutes later) until after we had pitched the tent and gotten the fire started and the food cooking. We ended up eating at almost 7:30. She was so excited to be out there. She kept pointing at the fire and dancing around it and in circles. We set up a circle of rocks about 3 feet from the fire in every direction so that she never got close but she was so excited just to watch the huge blaze.
We found out that the rain which had passed straight through us on our way home ended up causing a total of 65 cars to get into accidents yesterday night, so we were pretty lucky on both accounts driving home from Phoenix and driving up to the mountains.
Also this week was the first long-term consequences for Alisabeth. No toys were exciting enough to cause much concern when lost, but her bed certainly is. She did great the first night, but the second night she couldn't stop jumping on it and doing things she knew she wasn't supposed to do, so she lost her new bed for the week. She gets it back today, we'll see how she does. She has been sleeping on her old toddler bed. She doesn't mind that part, but she does mention that she wants to sleep on the bigger bed. Gentle reminders of why she can't and a reminder of when she gets to try again seem to be doing the trick.
As for Jason and his work? He replaced the breaks on his truck this week after trying to kill his wife on Tuesday. There were no breaks as I drove around trying to pick up the mattresses for the new beds. Took me almost 600 feet to stop, but many prayers and VERY cautious driving got me home and safe.
He also found out that half of his spark plugs weren't connected correctly, so now his truck drives like a dream (in comparison).
His great experience with work this week was a nice lady who came in for an oil change. She was on the phone while he waited talking to someone about her finances and finally (since apparently he wouldn't let the conversation go) she said "You are the rudest man ever and I hope you get fired" and then she hung up on him. Jason's immediate thought was "I don't want to help you."
He did anyway and she kept talking about a coupon she had used six months ago. Finally he got the car into the bay and gave her a discount on her oil change, which she complained about. Then she came back a bit later and asked if the car was still in the bay. He checked and it was, then she told him her husband had found a cheaper deal and she wanted to take it elsewhere. Jason went back to check but the oil change was already done. I'm sure she had some fun things to say about that too. Well, at least he mostly has good customers to deal with.

One step at a time. . .

Looking at my last post I realize a lot has changed and no one knows!

We were thwarted in our attempts to accomplish anything electrical the first week after our trip, so instead I pulled weeds out front. This was my biggest accomplishment. Of course everywhere I pulled up a weed ten more have sprouted in it's place. Stupid never-ending job.

We also had an inundation of flies, and had two mornings of "icky bugs" that were all found and erradicated. This led to my "no fly left standing" policy. I keep my water vacuum filled and at the ready. About three times a day I turn it on and spend five minutes sucking up all the nasty little varmints. The first day I scored about 25, I haven't yet beat my record, but I still have plenty of time.

We also had the blessing of having Robyn come to stay with us for a little while. It's been a wonderful experience so far. She makes little to no trouble, and provides my husband with hours of entertainment because she brought her RC helicopters with her. :)
She has also been amazing in giving us free baby-sitting for a couple of date nights. I try not to abuse the gift, but it's a hard temptation :)

Bitsy keeps growing like a weed. She's now so long that when she's stretched out on her toddler bed she almost touches the edges. . . AHHHHH!

Thus a few changes were required. Rearranging the room was the first part.
We had to get another bed anyway since we needed a real one for Robyn, and we will need it when we are approved to be foster parents, so we broke down and bought a new bunk-bed. It's a twin on twin, but it was sturdy and a good size. I was amazed at how many of the lower bunks were hard to get in and out of. We went with one that had enough space so that we could sit upright on the lower bunk.
We decided to buy new, because the best price we could find on craigslist was 150 and they needed work. This one was 197 and brand new. We also got a new dresser because each child has to have their own. Sam Levitz furniture was great in giving us a discounted price on the dresser. The sale had ended on the fourth of July weekend, but they brought it back just for me.
The only thing we need now are the mattresses :(
(They will have to wait for next paycheck, because even on craigslist the prices are too high for now.)

This weekend also marked the first major "furring out" portion of the electrical project. Seen here are the two foot spaced studs and framing around the windows. Then we will run the wires, put in the new outlet boxes and cover everything with drywall and then paint and it will be as good as new.
This was the easiest option available. The other option was cutting into the walls (plaster and brick) so that we could run the wires through conduit to the outlets. This is amazingly expensive. We ended up using more wood than we thought because I hadn't figured in all the pieces we wound need, but hey, we knew it would be much more than we thought, so all is well. :)

Lastly, our family is still surving and thriving. We're having a blast. Jason started his new job as a service writer and is enjoying the interactions with customers. He's also learning a lot about sales and the managerial perspective.
I'm doing a few sewing projects and just working hard to keep the house half-way decent.
Alisabeth is learning her letter sounds through starfall.com and is enjoying listening as words are sounded out to her.
Robyn is about to start school and has gotten everything she needs, including an amazing deal on a used TI92 from a pawn shop for 1/2 the price of a new 83 model (very old and out of date).
She's the queen of good deals!!

Foster classes are at week 7, we are still waiting to be assigned to a licensing worker so we can start the interview process, but it will come in time.

We also started receiving "Bountiful Baskets." For $15 we get about 25 lbs of fruit and vegetables. Plus I bought an extra 48 ears of corn for $11. We can't choose which fruits and vegis we get, but it's always great quality and it forces me to learn how to use new things. Last night we had taco salad for dinner and the only thing we purchased separately for it was the hamburger.
Life is good.

What a fun trip! (continued)

To pick up where I left off:
Tuesday: Sea World
This was for Alisabeth and she had a blast:


Excuse the coloring, I think little hands may have gotten a hold of the camera and changed the color settings. It took me a second to notice.



I know, I know, we spoil her, but seriously it was way too cute to pass up. She spent the next 2 days touching her face gently and saying "I'm a kitty"

I love the fact that Sea World had a huge area for kids. Everything from water to sesame street shows and rides. She loved it.

And of course they had animals. I love these little guys!

Wednesday was our sailing excursion. Women only. . . and Fred the hired captain. It was very relaxing and fun.
Thursday was massages and then Jason went to the automotive and air and space museums at Balboa Park. I won't include his pictures, but please note that I am grateful for digital cameras. There are more pictures from the museums than from any other part of the trip.
Friday we went and took Alisabeth to the San Diego temple and walked around and looked at everything. It was nice. We were supposed to leave her home and go do a session with my mom, but when I got up I hadn't slept well and I felt poopy, so we decided to cancel that and just relax. It worked out well though. Then that night my mom had both of the kids, ours and Spencer, my cousin's 5 year old son. So Jason and I watched The Shirley Temple version of "The Little Princess." It is such a good movie!!

Then we got down to business. Everything was packed and ready by 10:30 pm and we left the house at 3 am the next morning headed home.
All in all it was definitely worth the wait and the money spent.
I forgot the mention the starter. . . We drove all the way there, pulled in the alley-way by the house, parked in someone else's spot while we figured out where we were supposed to park and then got in to restart the engine and . . . nothing.
Turned out our starter decided to poop out. . .
Jason was willing to fix it, but he didn't have tools and we already had plans so we found a mechanic near our rental, dropped it off to him and rented a Kia Soul for a few days while it was getting fixed. It all worked out well, but it was an ominous start to the vacation. ; )