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.