Mark and Linda

2012-02-14T19:37:00.001-08:00

We have had a very unusually warm winter. We got our 2nd SNOW for the winter yesterday and most of it is already melted. That mentioned we had several days in January where we could go outside in jacket weather.

Since it was so nice on January 30 I took Matt to swing. He loves to swing...just like his mommy :)

He has 6 teeth now. He had 4 of his top teeth come in within the same week. They aren't completely in yet, but they're close.

Matt turned 1 in the first week of February. We had some of Mark's family come over to celebrate and Matt was kind of unsure what to do with all the people around. We recorded his birthday celebration with the cake and such. Before the end of the birthday song he was putting his head down on his high chair and after we blew out the candle and people started clapping he started crying. Mark had to get him out of his high chair to calm him down and finally convince him to try some cake. Once he tried the cake he really liked it. (I tried posting the video but it took forever to upload and then it wouldn't allow me to view it...maybe I'll try fighting with it another time to see if I can get it posted)

We decided to celebrate his birthday again with just the 3 of us on his actual birthday so I could get some pictures of him actually being happy instead of scared.

2011-12-02T23:22:00.001-08:00

Matt has been growing so fast it's hard to keep up.

He was a puppy for halloween and wasn't too impressed with the costume.

We went to a ward halloween party (which was the day the pictures were taken) and then I took him trick or treating halloween night. He didn't seem to be too sure about why we were trick or treating. There were a lot of people who thought he was a lion or a bear. Oh well, I didn't really mind. He was cute whatever people thought he was.

Matt started crawling backwards around the beginning of November but hadn't figured out how to crawl forwards. We went to Darla's for her youngest daughter's naming ceremony. The three babies were adorable together, so of course I had to get pictures

While with the other babies it seems Matt learned how to crawl forward. He crawled forward on Sunday, November 13 and by Tuesday the 15th he was using furniture and such to pull himself up so he could stand. Now that he can crawl forward he's really hard to keep up with. We've had to bust out our baby gates and baby proof as fast as we can before he gets into stuff. Now that he can move where he wants to go he likes to chase Lily. Lily likes to lie down on the carpet a few feet away from Matt and when he crawls over to her and starts "petting" her (his petting isn't very gentle, we're still working on that with him) she'll get up and move a few more feet and lie down again and then look at me and meow when Matt follows her. You'd think she'd realize she needs to go somewhere he can't reach her...

Matt also likes to "help" me look at the newspaper by grabbing the pages while I'm looking at them and scattering them on the floor. Then he likes to play with them, of course. Lily decided to hide under one of them and it actually worked! Matt didn't find her.

2011-10-03T22:50:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago I decided to make some rice crispy treats. Apparently the marshmallows I had were REALLY old because they browned instead of melted. I learned from the experience to never try to melt old marshmallows (seriously, these marshmallows were probably a year and a half old.) They never did melt down. they just got browner and browner until I decided it was hopeless...too bad I didn't have the stuff to make s'mores out of them.

I thought it was funny so I had to take a picture.

Me and Matt went to Oklahoma (Mark didn't come because of his work and school schedule) a few weeks ago for my nephew's baptism and we were finally able to get all the grandkids together to get a picture!

All 17 grand kids with mom and dad and some other adults trying to keep their children in place for the picture. Notice the three babies in the middle -- that's the baby group from December 2010-May 2011. The baby girl on the left side was 4 months old, Matt is in the middle and was 7 months old, and the baby girl on the right was 9 months old in the pic. The cousins had tons of fun together although Matt wasn't quite sure what to think about so many kids running around.

While we were in Oklahoma Matt got his first hair cut. The mohawk he was born with was a lot longer than the rest of his hair so it was starting to look funny.
Before:

After:

I think it looks so much better now. I think he looks a lot older now that it's been cut. It's amazing how much difference a hair cut can make.

Lately Matt has discovered his tongue and LOVES to blow raspberries and stick his tongue out.

In the past week or so he's started saying dada and mama, although at this point I think he's just making sounds, but it sure seems like he knows what he's saying sometimes. The other day I went into his room to get him up from a nap and as soon as he saw me come in he shouted "MOM!"

He's growing so much now and definitely is not having trouble gaining weight any more (yay!) While we were in Oklahoma he got to watch his cousin (the 9 month old baby) crawling around and he seems to have picked up a few things from her. He has started scooting backwards instead of forward, and it's pretty slow, but he's moving. He hasn't figured out how to get his knees under him yet but it doesn't look like it's be too much longer at least at the rate he's going now. He's sitting up by himself and is pretty good about keeping his balance.

What I've been up to

2011-08-29T00:15:00.001-07:00

There's another post below so that I don't have one gigantic post...I'll just have 2 big posts :P This post is about me. The one below is about Matt.

So July 12 I had surgery. I have pictures of it, so if stuff like this makes you squeamish you might want to close one eye (so you can see when the pictures are over) and scroll past the pictures. They aren't THAT bad (in my opinion.) But first a description of why I needed surgery. I'll post the start and end of the surgery pictures in case someone wants to skip them. There isn't any blood. It's just presurgery, stitches and the scar.

Here's why: I had something weird start growing on my right leg about a month or so after Matt was born. At first I thought it was an ingrown hair, and then it got bigger so I thought it was a wart. It just kept getting bigger...I was watching the news one night and it talked about skin cancer being on the rise and showed a picture of carcinoma. I was like O_O because it looked just like (at least to me) the thing on my leg. I called the doctor the next day and scheduled an appointment. (This was in June when I did all of this.) I had my doctor appointment and the doctor said it wasn't carcinoma (hallelujah!!!) but it appeared to be an "infected hair folicle" and if it wasn't removed it would keep getting bigger and bigger. The doctor referred me to a surgeon and I decided to get it removed a couple weeks later. So on July 12 surgery took place and they removed it. By then it was starting to itch and hurt a little...and indeed it was getting bigger. I'm glad it got removed when it did. Here's before, during the healing and after pictures.

* START OF SURGERY PICS *

Here it is pre surgery (that was actually taken in the doctor's office via cell phone camera right before they were going to remove it.) I took a side picture so it can be seen how thick it is.

View from the front. Looks like the bottom part of the pic got messed up a little in transmission from my cell phone to computer.

A few days after surgery. 5 stitches.

After it's all healed up. This pic was actually from earlier today, so this picture is about a month after the stitches were removed.

* END OF SURGERY PICS *

They sent the removed thing to a lab to have them verify it wasn't cancer (it's standard procedure when something is removed to send it to a lab for tests.) It wasn't cancer. The surgeon confirmed it was totally random and there's no sort of increased risk to get another one. The surgeon said my leg was a really weird place for one to be though. So hopefully I won't ever have another one.

In other news, I went skydiving!

We (me and Robby, my younger brother) were going to go skydiving in June but the day we were planning on going it was cloudy and raining and when the rain cleared up it was super windy so we weren't able to jump. We rescheduled for July 23 and that's when we were able to jump. I've got a few pics of it. Let me start off by saying it was fun and I would go again if money wasn't a factor. Also as a side note, I had the stitches I posted about above while I was skydiving, just to clarify the timing. The stitches were in but weren't getting removed until the following Tuesday.

Getting all rigged up. We did tandem jumping, which is basically we aren't in charge of anything besides following directions. Total we had 5 people inside the plane and the pilot...so 6 people total. We had to get up to 10,500 feet elevation before we jumped.

I was first to jump. When it came time to jump they opened the door, and the instructor (the person I jumped with) sat on the very edge of the plane so my butt was in the air, 10,500 feet IN THE AIR and tipped forward, backward, forward and we were out of the plane. On the way down I was thinking "maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." (kind of a little late) and then after a few seconds it became more fun once I convinced myself I may as well enjoy the ride xD. It was too loud to be able to talk because we were falling at least 100 (I think actually 110-120) miles/hour.

The free fall part lasted maybe 10-15 seconds and then the instructor opened the parachute and it was amazing. We could talk without having to raise our voice...it was just like talking on the ground. We did a few 360 turns (which was a whole turn). Oh my, get ready to live! Those turns were more fun than a roller coaster x 2398579823785. I'm not sure who is who in the picture. One is me and one is Robby.

The ride down lasted maybe 12-15 minutes...? I'm not sure but it was super fun. As I said earlier I would go again if given the chance and money wasn't an issue. It cost well over $100 but I figured you don't get a chance like that all the time, so I decided to take it. I don't know that I'd ever want to go solo because I'd be very concerned I'd mess something up and die. (You have to go through extensive training to be able to jump solo though.) I also didn't get a video because that would have been an extra $100 or so. No thanks.

At the beginning before jumping you have to fill out a bunch of paperwork which basically says multiple times that you could DIE or get severely injured and if that happened you/family members/anyone could not sue them and knew that if they tried they would lose because of the documents you're signing. I thought that was pretty funny. They also had about 45 minutes worth of training which they said again multiple times that you could die. They also said like 97% of the time someone dies it's because the passenger wasn't following directions and messed it up.

I have to admit, at the end of the paperwork and training I was seriously reconsidering if I really wanted to jump or not xD. I decided I may as well since I wouldn't get that chance every day and that was something I wanted to do in my lifetime...Mark's mom also jumped as well. She was the first of all of us to go which I thought was pretty funny. She wasn't planning to jump when we went in June and couldn't due to the weather. She went through the training and decided that she waned to jump. xD

So, I've officially been skydiving! It was fun. It's funny to me that I was too scared to ride the Ripcord at Worlds of Fun, yet went skydiving xD. Haha. I imagine I won't be so scared now though if I decide to ride the Ripcord.

About Matt March-August

2011-08-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's crazy how much time has passed. I can't believe the last post I made was when Matt was 6 1/2 weeks old...he's now a little over 6 1/2 MONTHS old. I guess that means lots of pictures.

So, since my last post in March I've quit my job and become a full time stay at home mom =D. I was required to go back to work for two weeks if I wanted to be eligible for rehire in the future...so I went back in the beginning of April and my last day was April 16. (I really enjoyed that job overall, so decided I'd rather leave on good terms just in case I want to work there again in the future.) I love being a stay at home mom.

Matt now laughs and smiles all the time. I LOVE it. He has a very easy going personality. He jabbers a lot and loves to play with rings and toys that "crackle" (I guess paper is inside the fabric so when he moves his hand it makes a crackle sound.) I also just found a few days ago that he likes to play with paper and wrinkle it up. He also loves his pacifier and can pick it up and put it in his mouth.

He sits up by himself for 30 seconds or so...sometimes a bit longer if he isn't trying to reach for something. He loves it when I sing songs and do actions with him. His current favorite is I'm a Little Teapot.

He sleeps the night and is an excellent sleeper.

We started him on solids at 5 months (so about a month and a half ago) and he likes everything we've given him. He was unsure about all the vegetables I gave him until he tasted sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are definitely his favorite but he will eat the other vegetables now without spitting it out. (Veggies he's eaten so far are carrots, yellow squash, butternut squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, peas and green beans.) He's now tasting fruits and likes them without a problem at all. (So far he's had banana, pears, peaches and applesauce.) He is a good eater although at times he'd rather jabber than eat.

His last doctor appointment (the 6 month check up) a couple weeks ago we found that he had lost 1 1/2 pounds since his 4 month old appointment. He weighed 13 pounds at his 4 month check up and was 11 pounds 9 ounces at his 6 month check up so the doctor suggested we put him on a mostly formula diet -- and a high calorie one at that -- which basically means we add extra powdered formula. So normally for a 4 oz bottle it takes 2 scoops of powder, we add 3 now. (I was breast feeding him) Apparently my milk had mostly dried up which is why he was losing weight. (My guess is it started happening around the time he began sleeping the night through.) We've decided that he'll just be on formula now because it's too hard to try and keep my milk supply up to where it would need to be while he's drinking formula. It was kinda sad and hard for me to deal with and accept it in the beginning because I wanted him to get all the benefits of nursing...but at least he got 6 months of it so that's better than nothing.

He's started gaining weight back (yay!) and according to our scale is at 14 pounds just 2 weeks later. He actually has an official weigh in at the doctor tomorrow as well as his 6 month immunizations. ** EDIT: He weighed 13 pounds, 12 ounces at the doctor appointment today **

It's amazing how much he has grown and is learning. Here's some updated pics since my last post.

2 months old

2 months old

3 months old

3 months old

4 months old

4 months old

4 1/2 - 5 months old

4 1/2 - 5 months old

5 1/2 months old.

5 1/2 months old

July 4. We FINALLY were able to get him to fall asleep. We were celebrating the 4th of July with family and he was convinced if he didn't stay awake he was going to miss something. He finally fell asleep and guess what...he didn't miss anything.

Trying carrots. LOL. As you can see from his expression he was not a fan at first.

6 months old

2011-03-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

Matt is now 6 1/2 weeks old. It sure doesn't seem like it's been that long. He's gotten so big. At his last doctor appointment a few weeks ago he weighed 9 pounds, 9 ounces. I'm pretty sure he's over 10 pounds now. He's outgrown newborn diapers and has started to outgrow some of his clothes too.

He's starting to stay awake more during the day (and night too, unfortunately) and pay attention to things. He's starting to make sounds. It's so cute to see him starting to be more interested in the world rather than sleeping or eating all the time.

The doctor said he should be starting to smile (on purpose) and laugh out loud soon and I can hardly wait. So far all we've seen is him smile when he's sleeping. He's laughed out loud a couple times for me but that was also while he was falling asleep.

Picture time!

Matt was about 4 weeks old. This was the first time he was in the swing without crying the entire time.

Getting ready to head out. I don't remember where we were going but he looked so cute all bundled up I had to get a picture. He was around 4 weeks in this as well.

Taken last night (almost 6 1/2 weeks old). He was a very happy baby so I decided to take lots of pictures last night. As said above, he doesn't smile on purpose yet. So any pictures where it looks like he's smiling it's just good timing with the camera.

I got a picture of his mohawk. I put his hair up in the "mohawk" style so it can actually be seen. I figure this will be good proof that he had a mohawk once he gets old enough to care.

This is my absolute FAVORITE picture. His expression and hair and everything looks to me like he's on some kind of a ride (like a roller coaster) and loving it. In reality he was probably about to spit up or tip over...but the picture is adorable in my opinion.

On a different note, I can fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans and I'm super excited about that. =D! I've been wearing maternity pants since Matt was born because it hurt to wear pre-pregnancy jeans. Now that I've mostly healed I can go back to normal jeans. It's a good thing too, some of the maternity jeans I was wearing I had to keep pulling up because they're loose now.

I weigh less now than I did before I got pregnant which is pretty impressive especially since I haven't been working out or watching what I eat or anything. Yay!

Baby is here!

2011-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

Matthew Steven joined our family Saturday, February 5 at 3:11 PM. He weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces. 20 3/4 inches long. He was born via c-section. It looks like his eyes are blue, but it's kind of hard to tell sometimes. He has a mohawk looking thing going. He has bald spots on both sides of his head and a stripe of hair down the middle. He already seems to be a quiet observer where he'll just lie content and look around for a long time. That's certainly fine with me!

I got a request for LOTS of pictures, so here they are:

His eyes are shiny because of the ointment stuff they put in his eyes to prevent infection. (This was right after birth -- before I even saw him)

All the above pictures were taken 2/5/11.

This was when we were about to leave the hospital. Those jeans were the "newborn" size jeans I brought for him. Obviously they're meant for a bigger newborn. He ended up not wearing the pants since they would have fallen right off.

He sleeps with his mouth open like me.

And loves the pacifier from the hospital (in fact, that's the only one he'll take)

He turned 2 weeks old on Saturday so these are all his 2 week old pictures:

He's started smiling and making faces while he's sleeping. I love just watching his face while he sleeps.

This morning after feeding him he laughed TWICE for me as well. It was adorable. I tried to get him to do it again so I could get it on video but he wouldn't.

Below is my labor story for anyone that wants to hear it.

My car isn't working so Mark gave me a ride to work on Friday 2/4. I got to work at 2:30 PM or so and as soon as I got out of the car I felt a gush of wetness. I didn't think much of it and started work like normal at the beginning of my shift. I noticed if I sat still it seemed to stop, but when I got up and walked the gushing feeling started again. Finally around lunch time it occurred to me that my water may have broken. I called my mom on my last break and described what it felt like and she said it probably was my water that broke. I wasn't having contractions so I stayed at work until the end of my shift. Mark left work an hour early and came and got me. That night I called my doctor and then the hospital's maternity ward.

The hospital told me to come in and they would check to see if my water really had broken. As we finished getting our stuff together for the hospital I had a few contractions start but they were random and not very intense. We got to the hospital around 1:45 AM Saturday morning (2/5). The night nurse checked me and I was dilated to a 3.5 or so. The broken-water test they took came back positive so my doctor decided to wait and see if I made progress or what would happen. By about 4:00 AM I started having contractions that I had to breathe through and by 6:30 AM when the night nurse came back and checked me I was dilated to a 6 and having regular contractions that I had to breathe through. My doctor told the nurse to admit me if I made any progress so I was admitted around 6:30 AM.

Around 9 AM or so we called my mom to come and be with us in case Mark needed a break or something and then we more or less just waited. I had gotten an epidural by this time so I slept for a while since I really couldn't sleep while I was having contractions. Since my water had broken almost 24 hours earlier they gave me some antibiotics and I was starting to get a fever too. (They also thought I might have had a slight allergic reaction to something I was given -- although I don't have any allergies to anything that I know of.) By around 1:30 PM I was dilated to an 8 but had stopped progressing so they gave me Pitocin.

Not long after that the blood pressure/heart rate monitor alarms started going off and kept going off. The nurse had to come in every couple minutes because my heart rate kept jumping up and then going back to normal. They tried having me change positions but it didn't seem to make a difference. The Pitocin wasn't making me progress either. Around 2:30 PM or so my doctor came in and said that it was time to get baby here before it turned into an emergency so I had to have a c-section. By around 3 PM we were on our way to the operating room and Matt was born at 3:11 PM. Thankfully it wasn't an emergency c-section and everything went well. Once Matt was born my heart rate went back to normal and my fever went away.

Everything appears to be going well with the healing. I think I'm more tired now than I have EVER been in my entire life (which is part of why it took me at least 2 weeks to make this post.) but it's also been pretty exciting.

I'm starting to get to the point where I don't HAVE to sleep every time Matt does. I'm able to move around a bit more so I can start to get simple things done. Matt is doing very well. He had a weight check today and weighs 8 pounds now! (He was 6 lbs 14 oz when we left the hospital and at his first doctor's visit hadn't regained any weight so they wanted to see him again today.)

It's amazing to me to look at him and to think that he was inside me. I'm glad that he is here, strong and healthy and that the pregnancy is over. (Hallelujah!) I don't have to go back to work until April and then I'm planning to go back just for 2 weeks (to put in my 2 weeks notice) and then I want to be a stay at home mom. I'm pretty excited for that. I'm also already back to my pre-pregnancy weight which is pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned.

Ready for baby

2011-02-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

So I've got 6 days left until I'm due and I'm ready for the baby to come now. My belly button is starting to pop out which as far as I'm concerned must mean he's done.

Belly picture time!
35 weeks:

36 weeks:

I forgot to take a 37 week picture, so here's the 38 week picture:

I don't know what's up with my left eye some of those pictures...maybe it's the angle or something?

The 38 week picture was from Monday and if anything I think my belly is even bigger...in just 3 days xD.

I had my baby shower a couple weeks ago and I think it was the most fun I've EVER had at a baby shower. I don't know if it's just because it was my baby shower or if it was just that awesome. It was mostly family and a couple co-workers. Granted, I've only been to a few baby showers so my comparison group isn't that big.

We got a lot of things we needed plus some other things that will come in way handy when the baby is older (such as teething rings. Thanks!) After the baby shower we were able to get everything left on our registry that we need and we're about as prepared (physically, emotionally, mentally, etc.) now as we can be.

After my baby shower was over I had a doctor's appointment and at the doctor's appointment they found that my blood pressure was high. They had me lie down on my left side for 10 minutes or so and then checked it again and my blood pressure went back to normal. I was dialated to 1.5.

They had me come back on Monday and my blood pressure seems to be good now. I was also dialated to a 3. Over the past couple days I've been feeling different than I have the entire pregnancy so I'm pretty sure my body is working on getting ready for the birth. It was enough that I called into work the past two days because I'd rather not go into labor at work. Plus the blizzard we just had would have made it really hard for me to get to work even if I wanted to. So far, no real contractions (just some random, non-hurting tightening and loosening.)

The due date is February 9. I would certainly be ok if he came a little earlier than that. My next doctor appointment is scheduled for after the due date, so if he hasn't made an appearance by then we'll be discussing options at the next doctor appointment. I don't want a valentine's day baby...but we'll see what he decides.

On a side note my car decided on Monday it didn't want to start although it worked just fine on Saturday (I didn't use it on Sunday). Mark had to give me a ride to work on Monday and since we had a blizzard on Tuesday and it's so stinkin' cold we're still not sure what's wrong with it--we haven't really even looked at it aside from trying to start it again. My car will turn over when I try to start it but it won't catch...a co-worker suggested it might be a spark plug or something? We'll see. I hope we can get it started to drive it to the car shop. There's been a suggestion that it could be the cold weather...but who knows. If the baby comes this week that would still be ok with me because once he's born I don't expect I'll be wanting to go any where for at least a week or two.

2011-01-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to post but have kept putting it off. Not any more!

Everything has been going well. We had a follow up ultrasound on December 2 to check baby's growth and development and he appears to be doing very well. We don't have to have any more follow up ultrasounds. :D!

Starting next week I go to weekly doctor appointments until the baby is born. It's amazing to me that our baby is due in a little over a month! Where has the time gone!?

We've finally gotten our nursery ready...at least the furniture in place. Here's some pictures:

I have never really gotten into decorating the nursery (or any room for that matter) so the walls get to stay the color they are. Plus when the baby is born he likely won't care what the room looks like.

Also I've got a lot of belly pictures. I'm trying to take weekly belly pictures from week 32 until the baby is born since that's when most the growth happens. Here's the latest belly pictures:

29 weeks

32 weeks

33 weeks

34 weeks

I didn't realize how big my belly really is until I saw the pictures I just posted. I haven't been knocking stuff off counters (yet) although it is getting difficult to bend over. I'm also not to the point of being ready for him to be born any time. I'm trying to mentally prepare (as much as I can anyway) for the big change this will be as well as all the changes that will result from it. I imagine as we get closer to his due date I'll be ready for him to come though.

2010-10-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

I had my follow up ultra sound on Thursday and all appears well. Our little boy is already 1 pound 6 ounces (up from 11 ounces a month ago) and growing exactly how he should be. The doctor that did the ultrasound this time said she thinks it's "a whole lot of concern over nothing" and that he looks good. He was also breech at the ultrasound but since I'm only 25 weeks it's not a reason for concern yet.

We scheduled another follow up visit in 6 weeks just to make sure he keeps growing like he should be...but so far so good. Yay! At this ultrasound he was opening and closing his mouth (the doctor said he was "smacking his lips" xD) and at one point he had his fingers in his mouth -- it was so cute.

We moved a couple weeks ago and are now in a 3 bedroom townhome instead of a two bedroom apartment. We're still working on unpacking but so far we like it a LOT better than the apartment.

I have to admit I don't like unpacking (or packing for that matter) so it may take us a few months to get everything unpacked and organized.

Here's the latest belly picture at 25 weeks:

That picture was taken in the baby's room. There really isn't much to see because it's mostly empty...aside from a few boxes in it. We're planning to get the baby furniture in the next week or two so I'll have something to post about again soon. :D

It's a boy!

2010-09-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

I had my 20 week ultra sound today and we found out that we're having a boy! We're planning on naming him Matthew Steven. (We would call him Matt.)

I have pictures from the ultrasound but don't want to post all of them. If you want to see them e-mail me or let me know and I can e-mail them to you.

It was kind of funny while the doctor was trying to take measurements the baby wouldn't close his mouth. The doctor thinks he was asleep with his mouth open and didn't want to wake up xD. We did get to see the baby's tongue a few times though...I wouldn't have known it was the tongue if the doctor hadn't pointed it out.

There was some thickness in the back of the neck that the doctor was a little concerned about. It's not too thick, but it's right at the top of the "normal" thickness range. Apparently that's a symptom of down's syndrome, which we didn't test for. He checked all the other common signs of down's syndrome, such as a hole in the heart and/or dialated kidneys. Everything appears to be normal. The doctor said that some babies do have thick skin in that area and don't have down's syndrome but they check just to be safe.

At this point Mark and I aren't too concerned but the doctor scheduled a follow up visit with us in a month just to check and make sure everything is ok...and see if the baby will close his mouth!

Since I'm 20 weeks I decided it's time to take a belly picture, so here it is:

2010-08-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

What a few past weeks it's been! I'm glad they're over and hopefully it all goes better from here.

We started having problems with our Kia (it would die at stop signs) so we took it to the shop...a few days after we took it to the shop they told us what they thought the problem was (catalytic converter and some sensors) and the price. We weren't thrilled about the price but weren't ready to buy a different car yet. (We've already put more money into the Kia in repairs than it's worth so we decided we were going to get a different car before February when the baby is born.) We told them to go ahead and fix it. They called us back a couple days later and said that they replaced the parts but the car was still having the same problem and they didn't know why.

We called them back a couple times over the next week and finally were told the car needed a new motor and it would be several thousand dollars to fix it, plus we would have to go to a salvage yard and get the motor ourselves and bring it to them. (I think it took them several hours to even get to the motor...and that was with all the tools they had!) That's when we decided we're done with it and it's time to get a different vehicle. The car shop decided they would buy the car from us and not charge us for any of the work they did. (I think the mechanics decided to make it a shop pet project.) It was nice that they wanted the car...cause I don't know if the Kia could have made it to a junk yard without dying.

So, I took today off work and we bought a car. Here's our new (to us) car:

It's a 2002 Ford Explorer and the best part is we didn't have to get financing for it!

It's good to have two cars again. Hopefully we don't have as many problems with vehicles any more. It seemed like the Kia was in the shop at least every other month. I also have to say if this all had to happen, I'm glad it happened now and not after the baby is born. I think the entire situation would have been even more stressful with a newborn to worry about as well.

Also, here's some pictures of my growing belly:

This was at 13 weeks.

This was at 16 weeks (last night in fact)

I didn't realize how big the changes were until I compared the pictures. Now it's starting to become more obvious that I'm expecting. Around the end of September we're supposed to find out (hopefully!) if it's a girl or a boy.

We also decided that we're moving in mid-October. We got approval for a place so all we have to do at this point is wait for October to pack up and move. I'm so excited to be moving! We've been in the apartments we're in for almost 2 years and it's just time for a change. The new place is only about 10 minutes away from where we currently live. I'm so excited to be moving that I've already started packing what we don't use often.

2010-07-29T20:34:00.000-07:00

So we actually have something to post about -- we are having a baby!

I'm due February 9, 2011 and I'm offically 12 weeks as of yesterday. I haven't had really bad morning sickness -- I've only been sick twice. Although for the past few weeks I've had nausea off and on pretty much the entire time. Not fun, but at least I'm not throwing up all the time. That's especially nice since I'm working full time.

I haven't had extreme fatigue either. I'm usually as tired as I normally am. Although some times, especially days where I'm nauseous I run out of energy faster than I otherwise would. Thankfully that hasn't been very common so far.

I haven't been super sensitive to smells either except the trash can xD. Unless it's a brand new bag with nothing in it I have to hold my breath when I throw things away or make Mark do it. xD I also have a hard time eating any kind of breakfast cereal (which is tough for me because that's what I would usually have for breakfast.)

I've had some food cravings - the latest is Beef Ramen Noodles, actually namely just the juice...but it doesn't taste right without at least cooking the noodles along with the flavoring. A few weeks ago I really wanted potato salad and then when we finally made it I didn't want to eat it any more xD. The food cravings haven't been too weird though, nothing like pickles with ice cream. Most of my cravings have actually been healthy...ice cream just plain doesn't sound good.

Here's some pictures: These are from my first appointment. I was 9 weeks.

They had me come back the next week to let them know our decisions on genetic screening. When I went to my appointment at 10 weeks they decided to just check on the baby since I was there. The nurse tried using a machine to find the heart beat but was unable to find the baby. She let the doctor know and the doctor decided we'd better do another ultra sound just to make sure everything was ok. Everything was fine. The little squirt was just hiding :P. So I got some more pictures:

The doctor said the smaller circles are the arms and legs. I can kind of see it but seriously, if they weren't there telling me what was what I would have no idea. I also got to see the heart beating at my first appointment.

Mark has school on the days appointments work best for me so he wasn't able to go to either appointment. Hopefully when his schedule changes in September he'll be able to come to the appointments.

We're pretty excited and all our family knows. Mark's grandma wants us to have a girl. We don't really mind if we have a girl or boy...we're excited to just be having a baby. We were going by a "if it happens it happens" philosophy for like the last 2 years or so and then in May we decided we were going to actually start trying...and that's when I got pregnant. How convenient xD.

I'm not really showing much, at least in my opinion. Although sometimes at work I get the feeling that some of my co-workers are getting shifty eyed or watching me out of the corner of their eyes, suspecting but not wanting to ask :P Maybe that's just me. I'm sure they'll tell me what they were thinking when they find out. I'm not really sure when I want to tell my co-workers. My manager already knows, but once I start showing it's going to be pretty obvious.

2010-06-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

I finally got pictures of the plants I was talking about in the last post.

Here are the very dead peas:

Here is the tomato planter. There is a tomato plant in the top and a tomato plant in the bottom. AND we have 2 tomatoes forming! So of course I had to include a picture of that:

I got tired of having dead plants/containers of dirt just sitting on the balcony so I put it all in the trash...all we have now is empty planting containers. Who knows, maybe at our next place they'll get more use.

Yesterday we happened to drive past an oil painting sale. I convinced Mark to come with me so we could go look at some paintings and we ended up buying a couple. The first one is my FAVORITE and it's hanging in our living room now:

We also got this one for Mark's mom since she really likes horses. It's in our dining room until we can get it to her though.

They are oil paintings but they look more like photographs. I love it when paintings look like that. The artist said that since the houses aren't selling his paintings aren't selling very well either. He was having a 75% off sale on them when we stopped by and wanted to make a sale bad enough that he said that HE would pay the sales tax on them. (If they weren't 75% off we wouldn't have bought them though. I'm too cheap to pay full price on something like that.) Normal price was any where from $15 to $90 each depending on the size. I think we got a good deal and we're very happy. Both of these paintings are 2 feet by 3 feet...so they're certainly decent sized.

I've been looking at our walls lately and they're pretty sparse as far as decorations go...so I've been keeping my eyes open for art/good pictures to put up. I'm really excited about these paintings.

Mark REALLY likes his new school (YAY!) and loves the classes he's in. Hopefully the 2 years or so he'll have to spend at this school won't seem so long since he likes the classes.

His pinky finger also seems to be healing well. At his last doctors appointment the doctor told Mark to grip his hand and Mark couldn't because of his pinky. He has another doctors appointment in a about a week and a half to see if it's completely healed yet. Mark hasn't quite been able to grip yet but he can move his pinky into a fist position which is more than he was able to do last week. He hasn't lost his finger nail either. Hallelujah that the body can heal it's own injuries in most cases! We're both glad that the injury wasn't any worse.

2010-06-13T22:33:00.001-07:00

Mark changed schools. A few weeks ago Mark was getting ready to enroll for fall classes at the community college and found that the classes he needs to take for a networking degree are all offered when he can't take them. He talked to the counselor and the counselor told him that he needs to change what he's going to school for then. (I was like "What!?" when I heard that.)

So we decided it was time to look for a different school. After doing some research I found some info on ITT Tech and filled out a request for more information. Mark got a call the next day and was able to go on a tour and get more information about how it works and if it would be a good fit for our situation. From what we've heard it sounds like it will be excellent. Mark is excited to start classes, which is good, because class starts this Tuesday.

Their semesters aren't like other schools. The classes are year round and last for about 3 months each. The school chooses the classes he needs to take as well as the schedule. They are day time hours and they just tell him what day and time. (They're all finished by 1:30 PM so he will have time to get to work.) Once he gets a degree they'll also help him find a job to use the new degree at. Mark is working on an associates degree, and some of the credits from the MCC may transfer, which is fantastic!

On Thursday (June 10) Mark's left hand pinky finger got smashed at work. We thought it just got bruised because it was black and blue, bleeding slightly, and was pretty swollen. On Friday Mark went to work like normal and it started hurting a lot worse and swelling again so he decided to go to the hospital to get it checked out. After the hospital took x-rays they found he broke the bone in his finger tip. They put it in a splint and told him to tape it to his ring finger. (I didn't take a picture, it's really gross.) Also they are pretty sure the nail is going to fall off in a few days, but it should grow back within a month or so. His finger should heal in a month or so as well.

So Mark gets to start class with a broken finger. Hopefully it heals quickly and correctly.

Our potted plants are not doing well at all. The peas all died. :( (I'm almost embarrassed to post a picture xD!)
I think part of why the peas died is because the roots weren't able to get deep enough...maybe we put too many in the container as well, who knows. Container gardening is harder than it looks. The top soil seemed to help a little bit and then the next time I checked them they were dead. I can't remember if I forgot to water them or what. We decided we're not going to plant a garden again until we have a yard we can plant in.

Well, that's the latest. It seems like a lot has happened these past few weeks. Hopefully it calms down for a while. I honestly don't mind our life being so boring there's nothing worth blogging about :P

TV

2010-05-09T19:19:00.001-07:00

Well on Thursday night (when I posted last) our TV stopped working. This was a pretty old TV we got from Mark's parents a couple years ago. This TV stopped working about 6 months ago as well and Mark's dad (who works on TVs for a living) came and fixed it for us.

On Thursday (well, technically Friday morning) when Mark got home from work we decided to go to Walmart and "browse" for TVs. We went with the intent of looking and buying if we found something we like. We found a TV and TV stand that we liked so we went ahead and bought them :D!

As soon as we got home we started making way for the new TV, so I forgot to get a real before picture before we started moving everything around. So we'll just have to make do with what pictures I could scrounge up of the old TV and set up.

Since the above pic was taken there were some shelving changes...here's as close a picture as I can find to really show it:

(So all you have to do is take both pictures and merge them in your mind to get a real sense of what it looked like xD!)

Here is our new TV (and we had to get a TV stand thing too.)

I REALLY like the new TV and the TV stand we got. I also really like the shelves and space that the TV stand gives (which is why we got it.) The window on the right side used to be half covered up by the white shelf (viewable in the 2nd picture). I can't believe how much room it seemed to open up.

Well, I figured I'd post about this because it's pretty much the biggest change in our lives at the present. We don't have a very interesting life, but that's exactly how I like it!

2010-05-06T21:54:00.000-07:00

I figured it was about time for an update on the plants.

Our peas have grown a lot. Here they are last week:

Since then I decided to build some fence things for them to climb. I didn't realize how hard container potting can be. We used normal potting soil and I think the roots are running out of room. I got some top soil today and put some of that in the container, so we'll see how they do.

Also our tomatoes aren't doing so great. I really want some tomatoes to grow so we bought a couple tomato plants (like 6 inches tall each) and put those in a special tomato planter. I hope they do well. Maybe I'll take a picture of them next time.

Mark only has finals left of school and then he's finished until the fall semester. Yay! That's about all for us.

Planting a garden

2010-04-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

Mark and I decided to plant a garden this year...At least as much as we can. Since we live in an apartment we're limited to container gardening. We decided to try planting peas and tomatoes (and some flowers.)

Last Sunday we planted the peas and today I noticed they're starting to sprout. =D!!
I'm so excited to see the sprouts so of course I had to take pictures.

Here is a view of about half the container. If you look closely you can see specks of green.

Here's an up close view.

I can hardly wait to harvest peas! I hope our tomatoes and flowers will start sprouting soon. I love seeing progress especially since this is the first time since we've been married that we tried to plant a garden.

Ohio trip

2010-02-11T21:56:00.000-08:00

Kaelyn's blessing was on Sunday, February 7, so I went to Ohio to be there for it. (Mark wasn't able to come because of school so it was me, mom and dad.)

It was tons of fun and I'm so glad that I went. This was the first time I have ever been on a plane before and it wasn't bad at all. I especially like take off. When I was in high school I wanted to be a flight attendant when I grew up...I've definitely changed my mind on that. I don't mind flying, but I wouldn't like that for a job. Plus I'd be gone all the time and that would stink.

Anyway, the trip was awesome. We got to Ohio on Wednesday evening just in time for dinner. We got to hold Kaelyn and she's absolutely adorable! I know Lynette posted this pic on her blog already, but I can't resist:

This is Kaelyn's confused look. Often when I was holding her and Lynette talked she'd make this look. She didn't seem to know what to think. xD

On Thursday it was snowing a lot and me and Lynette decided to go make snowmen. Dad came out and helped after a few minutes too. I didn't bring any snow/cold weather gear, so I had to make do with what was available. (the middle snowman is holding a news paper)

Here's one of just the snowmen. We made 3 big snowmen, a baby one and a dog.

The snowmen didn't survive the storm :( They tipped over into each other and by the end of the week our snowmen looked like a wimpy attempt at trying to make a snow fort. xD It was snowing most of that day though, and the snow was wet and heavy.

A few times me and Lynette goofed off with the camera, here's my favorite goof off picture:

We went on a tour to a chocolate factory. Here's the outside of the building:

The tour was pretty cool. It was neat to see how much work goes into making candy. Then of course we went to the candy shop. I ended up getting a few things:

The letters are made of chocolate and they had the entire alphabet plus 0-9. That was pretty cool. (I got L for Linda and M for Mark, of course) I didn't take any pics of the inside of the store because I didn't know if they would get mad.
I also got two candy bars, one for me and one for Mark.

and a couple of these, which are bags of black licorice.

Overall it was pretty cool.

On Monday we went to Kirtland, OH with everyone, including Steve's parents.

Kaelyn was so cute while we were getting ready to go, so I snapped a few pictures of her:

There was snow in the trees and I thought it looked awesome so I got a few pics:

The tour in Kirtland was pretty cool. I got a lot of pics there but don't really want to take the time to post them all. Here's one of all of us that were there:

While we were finishing up the tour I got a call from the airport saying our return flight on Tuesday afternoon was canceled. We were planning to fly back to KC Tuesday afternoon but ended up rescheduling it for the morning. It was a good thing too. Columbus was getting snow and so was Chicago. By the time we got to KC the Chicago airport was shut down so there's no way we would have been able to get out at that time.

Overall it was super fun but I'm glad to be home now. It was good to be able to meet Kaelyn finally and to see Steve and Lynette again.

Update

2010-01-11T00:57:00.000-08:00

Wow. I didn't notice I haven't made a post since August. It doesn't seem like it could possibly have been that long. Oh well. We haven't really had much going on worth writing about.

A week before Christmas we got new couch covers, so that's what my post is going to be about today. I've been meaning to post this for several weeks now but finally just got around to it.

Before:

After:

I definitely have to say I like the after ones a whole lot better. We decided it was time to get new ones because our cat liked to try and chew on the old ones. That hasn't been a problem with these new ones, which is fantastic!

As far as life goes, we're both working and Mark is going to school. All of that is going well.

The latest

2009-08-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Sometimes having a vehicle is a pain...

My car got a flat tire last Tuesday night on my way home from work. (At like 11:45 PM) So I was working on changing the tire and got all the lugnuts off and then the stupid tire wouldn't come off. I had my phone out ready to call Mark, and a MODOT motorist assist vehicle pulls up. Thank goodness they did!! The MODOT guy even had a hard time getting the tire off and had to hit it a few times with a hammer to get it off. (I didn't feel too bad then, because if he couldn't get it off, I know it wasn't because I'm wimpy :P) He was pretty impressed I had started changing the tire by myself...He said he'd been doing this for 7 years and it doesn't happen often where a female will start changing the tire on her own. Thanks dad and brothers for making me learn how to change a tire! Anyway, we got the tire changed and I went on my way.

On Thursday (my day off) we went and got the tire fixed. I had been meaning to buy 4 new tires for my car with our tax refund money...but we got distracted and bought a new computer instead xD. They couldn't fix my flat tire because a stud (which is what the lugnut goes on to help hold the tire on the car) was broken and they couldn't fix it because they only did tires not any kind of repairs...So I went to a different shop and waited for 2 1/2 hours or so for them to get everything fixed and ready to go and then came home thinking I was done with car problems.

OH NO! I WAS WRONG! Everything was fine until Monday when I was about ready to leave for work. I got in my car and it wouldn't start...so I had to run back inside and get Mark to take me to work. Mark talked to his dad and on Tuesday we were finally able to determine that the starter had gone bad and got it started and drove it to the gas station to get some air in the tire (one of the tires they fixed was flat O_O!) and then took it to the shop.

We got to pick up my car from the shop today (so far so good) and I'm SO glad to have it back. It's amazing how much you take things like vehicles working properly for granted when they are working properly. Hopefully it stays working properly now.

We've been too busy handling everything to write about it...at least it makes for a new blog post ;)
Mark also started school on Tuesday, so he's trying to get back into the swing of things with school.

Both of our jobs are going well and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my job in the new department. That's it for now and it's fine with me for life to lay low for a bit so we can recover from this past week (financially and emotionally. It's awfully stressful to have car problems and then have to take the car to 3 different places to get everything fixed!) I certainly hope the other car doesn't decide to start acting up...

Promotion

2009-05-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

I got a promotion at work :D!

I've known about it for a week or so and decided not to write until now so that it doesn't matter if it gets out. Training starts on Wednesday.

I'm moving to a different department, which is a smaller department. I'll also have things like e-mail to help me do my job better. Basically the department I'm moving to will be one where we try to resolve the customer's issue in one phone call and minimal transfers, so I will have more tools to help me accomplish that.

I'm pretty excited. I will have training for 5 days and then move to a new schedule. If you need to know my new schedule, e-mail me. I'm not going to post it here.

Anyway, that's really the latest.

Tagged

2009-03-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

I was tagged by Lynette, and apparently I HAVE to do this, so here goes.

The rules:
1. Go to your document/pictures file on your computer
2. Go to the sixth file
3. Go to the sixth picture
4. Blog about this picture
5. Tag six other people

I don't have a sixth file in either my document or pictures file xD. So I went to pictures and chose the first file, and chose the 6th picture. Here it is:

This is Daniel tied to a tree at my parents during a family gathering. I'm not sure the story behind it. I came outside and saw Daniel trying to run and pull the tree over behind him to get loose. I had to snap a picture because I thought it was funny (and it reminded me of the story about mom tying Allen to the tree in the front yard when he was young to make sure he stayed out of the street.) Allen was nearby keeping an eye on Daniel. By the time I took that picture, Daniel was getting irritated that he couldn't run across the yard because the rope was holding him back.
Soon after that we stopped to get a picture of mom and dad and all the grandkids.

Anyway, I tag whoever wants to be tagged. I don't know who all reads my blog.

2009-03-01T23:14:00.000-08:00

I'm so glad that most of the time I'm healthy.

Little did I know, the sore throat I wrote about last time was just the beginning. Over the course of the past two weeks I ended up getting over the sore throat just to end up with a cold: runny nose, cough and sinus pressure. Around Tuesday night my ears started to hurt and I could feel something building up in them (it felt like I had water in my ear.) By Wednesday, it was starting to get hard to hear out of my right ear. After talking to Mom a bit for some ideas of what I could do to get rid of my cold and make it so I could hear, I went to a CVS minute clinic (This was actually the 2nd time I went...I went two Wednesdays in a row, the first for the sore throat and then the second mainly for my ear.) Come to find out, I had an ear infection from my cold. I hope that NEVER happens again. It got so blocked I could barely hear out of my right ear. Literally, there were times Mark was standing a foot away from me, on my right side, and I couldn't hear a word he said. He would have to come to my left side so I could hear him.

The doctor gave me some antibiotics, and today my ear infection finally cleared up. I blew my nose three or four times, and both my ears popped a few times, and viola, I could hear again!

These last two weeks have been miserable for me, just because of being sick. I'm really glad Mark didn't get it and hope I didn't give it to anyone else. (This is one of those kinds of sicknesses NO ONE deserves to have)

I've still got a cough and a slightly drippy nose, but I will take that any day in exchange for the ability to hear.

It's amazing to me what we take for granted because it's so normal. I didn't realize how much I had to listen until I couldn't hear any more (and actually had to make an effort to be able to hear.) I'm also very glad I don't get sick very often.

2009-02-15T16:55:00.000-08:00

Being sick is terrible. I started getting a sore throat around Thursday. I'm still sick. Oh I hate it. I ended up having to call into work Friday and Saturday, and I am most definately ready to go back. I usually don't mind staying home by myself, but being sick and having to stay home is a different story. When I'm sick I don't feel like doing things I normally would do on my days off.

So I'm very ready to go back to work, and hopefully my body will agree and make me better so I can go to work tomorrow xD. I have a store throat and can't talk very loud without straining my throat. (which is part of why I called in and didn't even TRY going in...you have to be able to talk!) One of my co workers told me on Thursday that she had just gotten over strep throat...I hope that's not what I have, but who knows. I don't really want to go to the doctor, although yesterday I was thinking pretty hard about going to CVS to a minute clinic or whatever they're called, since my insurance covers it and appointments aren't required (meaning no phone calls xD!)

Anyway, on another note, our internet is being really stupid and has been for about the past 2 months or so. Our modem will die randomly and sometimes won't want to come back on. We have to reset the internet several times before it will finally take. We think it's a modem issue, but haven't gotten around to calling our internet provider though, because we both hate making phone calls xD. We might have to though...We've tried to replace some of the wires/connections and it's not working very well...it's frustrating. We also need our internet because Mark is taking an online class for school.

On a better note, I now can say I like the department I'm currently in, it sure beats the other department. (I HATED it for the first 2-3 weeks, but once I knew more or less what I was doing, it got lots better)

Mark's taking 2 classes and an online class this semester and it's a LOT better than it was last semester. Last semester Mark got kind of stressed out from school, and this schedule works so much better. Online classes are fantastic, and I'm sure Mark will be taking more of them.

We're thinking about renting for another year before going into a house. I was talking to Lynette and she was telling me how much they had to spend to get their house...and with this kind of economy, they probably won't lend to someone who doesn't have at least 20% down payment. We're working on our savings and paying off our credit card, but I don't know that we'll have enough saved for a down payment, for closing costs, and mortgage payments, etc. by the time our lease here is up. We'll have to look more into it. I really would rather buy a house instead of renting another rental property, but at this point it might not be an option. Oh well.

2008-12-30T22:29:00.000-08:00

Still nothing much going on.

I've been out of training for almost a month at work. So I've been answering the phone at work instead of making calls. The first week or so after I was out of training I HATED it. Now I don't really really like it, but it's tolerable. I think it comes from knowing what I'm doing. I hated having to start at the beginning not knowing very much and having to start over again. It's not too bad now.

Mark is out of school for the break between semesters. He starts his next semester in January. He's going to be taking 3 classes this semester, instead of 4. One is also online. Online classes seem like they might be more convenient, so he's going to try one out and see what he thinks of them.

We're starting to think about what we want in a house, because hopefully this next time we move it will be into a house. We're planning to start using my income to pay off our credit card the rest of the way and put money into savings for a down payment. (And to make sure we're able to live off his income...we haven't been very good about even paying attention to that and we figure it's better to get into the habit before we have to live off just one income.) In May or June we're going to start looking for a realtor and find out what all we need to do to get started on buying a house and then start working on it. We're tired of renting and ready for a house.

Well, that's about it for now. Happy new year to everyone.

2008-11-21T23:20:00.000-08:00

Well there's not really a whole lot going on now, but I decided I probably ought to make a post.

I'm still in training until December 2. So far it's going pretty good. I get to help people with problems with their alarm system, and when it actually works I feel pretty proud of myself. (There's a few times where it doesn't work and we have to send a tech out.)

Mark has like 2 weeks of school left :D That's pretty exciting. He's already got his schedule set up for next semester and hopefully it'll be less stressful than this one was.

The Kia is in the shop...again X_X. We had it in the shop off and on for almost 2 weeks. It was in there for like 2 days and then we got it back for 2 days and it went back to the shop again yesterday. It was making funny noises. The first time they just did an engine tune up, and then it started making other funny noises. This time it was a broken part in the trans axle (whatever that is...whatever it is, we got the transaxle replaced around this time last year and it wasn't cheap!) But it's going to cost lots less than it did last year...we're just not thrilled about it.

Because the Kia has been in the shop, my car has been driven lots more, and my car is not happy about it. It's started making funny noises too, and I need to get the tires replaced on it...and we have to pay for Mark's tuition next semester (we don't qualify for a grant) by December...so we're trying to hold off as much as possible on things we can so we make sure we've got enough money to cover it all.

Well, that's pretty much the latest. There's nothing really exciting or anything like that going on, except Thanksgiving, which I'm definately ready for :B

2008-11-01T13:32:00.000-07:00

We're more or less done unpacking. There's still stuff scattered around, but now we're working on organizing stuff.

I got a promotion at work (I could have actually had this promotion at any time, because it was up to me when/if I took it...it's required to advance in the company though. I finally decided to go since November 7th is my 1 year anniversary with the company...and I promised my manager I would finally go.) So, I will have training for the next 5 weeks. I get weekends off now, which is super nice, because I get to spend more time with Mark. (After training is over, I go back to my normal schedule...so no more weekends off as of December 2.)

I'm going to be an inbound/CSG (Customer Service Group) representative. Basically, I answer the phone when someone calls in. Also if they need to troubleshoot or are having any other problems/questions with their alarm system, I'm supposed to help them. Training started on Wednesday and it's going pretty well. I think once I know what I'm doing I'm really going to like it.

At work someone has been telling me how great a Chi hair straightener is, so I read some reviews, etc. I ended up finding a Sedu hair straightener (I think the techinical term is "flat iron.") I compared the Chi and Sedu, and Sedu has better ratings/recommendations all around, so I decided to buy one and try it out. (I've been thinking about getting a different hair straightener for a while.)

Anyway, I'll post some before and after pics.
This is what my hair normally looks like after I straighten it...this is 2 days after it's been straightened, and it was with my normal hair straightener:

I usually wash my hair at night and sleep while it dries, then straighten it in the morning. This is what my hair looked like when I woke up: (It's actually more tame in the picture than what it REALLY looked like...I smoothed it down some before taking the pic xD)

And here is what it looks like after I straightened my hair with my Sedu. It looks straighter and flatter. I'll have to see about getting a pic in a day or two to see if it really stays looking flatter. Because with my old straightener, right after I finished straightening my hair, it looked straight. The question is how long the straightness will last. Anyway, here's the pic:

(Don't mind my eyes in that pic, I was wondering if the camera had taken the picture yet xD) So far I would say I'm satisfied with the hair straightener. I haven't seen anything to make me try to convince people that they NEED to get one though. The result isn't worth what I paid for it, at least not at this point. I was hoping it would get rid of some of the frizziness in my hair, and it's reduced it a little bit, but not as much as I was hoping. Oh well. I'll probably start experimenting with it as well as see about using other products. You can make curls with the hair straightener, and when I feel like it I'll try to see how that works. I tried earlier for a little bit but was kinda scared I was going to burn myself. I was also in a hurry and needed to get ready to leave.

Anyway, that's really the latest. Mark is going to school and working...there's not a whole lot new going on. Here's the latest cute pics of Lily (c'mon, you knew this was coming)

Mark was organizing the DVD rack and Lily thought she fit rather well in the bottom shelf. In that pic she was trying to get out...probably because I had the camera out.

This is my FAVORITE pic of Lily. It looks to me like she's ready to go after the mouse on TV. We were going to watch a movie and it was going through previews and Lily was sitting on the stand in front of the TV. I just happened to snap the picture at the PERFECT time. Every time I see this pic it makes me laugh xD Hopefully it makes others laugh too. She likes to perch in front of the TV sometimes when she can.

Moving

2008-10-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

The past couple weeks we've been busy with moving, so along the way I snapped some pictures that I'm going to share. Lily liked to be wherever I was, but unfortunately, she wasn't much help most of the time. These ones are all at the old apartment.
I was packing boxes and Lily decided she wanted to find out what was in this box:

A box that wasn't being used at the moment, so Lily decided it made a great hide out:

This was just cute. She has her paw over her eyes to block out the sun. This picture was taken around 1 PM. xD I couldn't resist adding this picture, because it's so adorable.

Once again, jumping into a box I was in the process of packing:

We had just taken out the gaming stuff (Wii, PS2, etc) and Lily climbed in to see what was going on. I closed the glass because it made a great picture. (That's Mark's hand in the pic.)

She didn't just leave getting in the way for the old apartment. We have some new pics of Lily checking out the new apartment as well.
In this one she was checking out the master bedroom's bath tub. Usually she avoids the bath tub, so I had to get a picture when she willingly went to check it out xD.

We were trying to put like a dust cloth thing over the box spring of our mattress (you can kinda see it in the 2nd pic) and Lily decided to use it as a balance beam or something. We were trying to put the mattress down while Lily was walking over the top of it. In the last pic I ended up just taking her off of it, because she didn't seem to care to get off any time soon on her own. xD.

Now for pics of our new apartment. Sorry about it being so messy, we're still unpacking so there's boxes all over the place.
Maybe I'll post before vs. after pics. That sounds like fun...but it will be a while before I get after pics of some of them because some rooms have a LOT of unpacking that still needs to be done.
Kitchen, before some extra unpacking:

After some unpacking. Still not perfect, but it's definately a start. That door at the end is actually a pantry (it's pretty small.) That's also where Lily's litter box and food stuff is.

I don't have any other before and after pics yet...only before pics. So I'll get those up and post after ones some other time when I get around to it.
This is the storage area...actually, it's the walk-in closet for the 2nd bedroom/office. (We're using it as an office) There's shelves on both sides, but it's kinda hard to see from the picture. I didn't really want to go inside to get pics of both sides.

This is the office picture. As you can see, the computer is set up in the far corner xD. Eventually we'll have all the boxes out of the way. For now this room is mostly furniture. I don't know if we'd be able to put a mattress in here if we did have company. I imagine after we get everything unpacked we'll be doing some rearranging as well.

Bathroom 1. This is the big bathroom, the "public" bathroom as I tend to call it. (AKA, not the master bedroom's bathroom xD)

This is the other part of the big bathroom.

This is our living room and our big screen TV from Mark's parents. (They got a new one and gave us that one over a year ago...we didn't have room in the old apartment to put it. So they stored it for us until we moved.) That's not as cluttered as it was yesterday. We'll be doing some rearranging with this room as well. (That back door goes out to the balcony)

This is the master bedroom's bathroom

This is the bedroom xD. We have A LOT of work to do in here for unpacking. Most of that junk on the floor is bedding, and some boxes, of course.

Dining room AND our dining room TABLE! Woot! I'm so excited to have a table back. this is where most of the boxes got put when they were brought in. So we're slowly working our way through those.

This is in the office. Dave and Darla gave us Yum-Yum's kitty tree when they gave Yum-Yum away. We had it in our old apartment and Lily didn't really care for it. The day we moved it in, she has been sitting on it a lot. I think it helps that there's a window behind it so it's like basking in the sun for her. I'm so glad she's finally using it :) (That door knob in the corner is for the door to the storage space/walk-in closet)

I'm tired of packing and unpacking. But we like the place a whole lot. Sometimes the neighbors are kind of loud, which I'm not fond of...but hopefully it's just a once in a while occurence instead of all the time. Our old apartment, it was almost always loud.

I'm looking forward to this being the last apartment we live in. Hopefully the next time we move it will actually be a house...but we've got quite a bit of time before we need to talk about moving again, thankfully.

Our downstairs neighbor came up on Friday night around 10:30 PM (while we were moving in) and welcomed us to the apartments and introduced herself to us. She's pretty nice and a night owl, just like me and Mark, so it works out. I was kind of impressed. This is the first apartment we've ever lived at that someone actually introduced themselves to us. It was pretty awesome. We also got to meet the mail man. Apparently he's been delivering mail at these apartments for 12 years. He knows a lot about the people who live here, it's kinda interesting to talk to him. You wouldn't think the mail man could find out that much information about people just by delivering their mail xD. Oh well, I think it's cool.

I still have to clean the old apartment and get the keys turned in, and then we're officially moved. I'm hoping to have that finished tomorrow or Tuesday at the absolute latest.

We rented a U-Haul truck to move and I tell you what, the next time we move, we're going to rent a moving truck again. It was so much better than having to load lots of vehicles. Especially since we don't have a truck any more, the U-Haul made it a whole lot easier.

Oh, I almost forgot about the wisdom teeth update. I ended up getting an infection in the lower left socket (infection...not dry socket) It didn't hurt, but there was a horrible-tasting drainage coming from the area. I finally called the dentist back and they had me come in. They drained it and packed it and gave me more antibiotics. 3 days later they removed the packing and that was it. It didn't hurt hardly at all, it was just uncomfortable. I'm glad it's over. Honestly, looking back, getting my wisdom teeth out hurt LESS than getting any other tooth out that I can remember. That's definately nothing I'm going to complain about.

Update

2008-09-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I went to work today for the first time all week...I lasted about 4 hours before I ended up coming home early. I knew 30 minutes into my shift there was no way I was going to be able to talk on the phone for 8 hours. Since I'm a mentor, I had a session today and decided to wait until that was over. As soon as my session ended, I came home. So I left work around 7:40 PM (It took me about 10 minutes to gather up all my stuff and be ready to go.)

While I was on the phone and talking, my jaw started hurting SUPER bad. I started to taste a tinge of blood, and every tooth in my mouth, especially my molars started to hurt. When I got home I took some pain killer, and that took care of it. Interestingly enough, earlier was the worst my mouth has hurt so far. I've already decided I'm calling in tomorrow. I'm not going to even mess with driving out there and staying at work for a few hours then driving all the way home. It's not worth the gas. And I'm sure the same thing will probably happen again. I need to practice talking again xD.

From what I know, my incisions are healing well. The doctor put in dissolveable stitches, so I don't have to go back... and I don't think any have fallen out yet (I'm kinda scared when they do, because I don't want to choke on one or something xD.) I'm tired of eating soft stuff...but I can't chew anything else still. Oh well.

Oh yeah, Lily was kind enough to puke on one of the couch covers on laundry day, so I was able to get a picture of what the couches look like under the cover while I washed the couch cover:

I don't think it looks that bad at all...except all those buttons are in the seat too, and sometimes they're uncomfortable...and they collect crumbs like a toaster tray O_O.

And while cleaning off my camera, I had to put some more pics of Lily, of course. She's the most exciting thing in our life for now xD.

She was asleep in that. It looks like she was all tucked in, with her little toy beside her ready for bed. Mark couldn't resist taking a picture, and I completely agree.

This is under the couch cover...It's Lily's latest hide out. I was lucky to get a picture of her outside it. Most the time she just curls up inside and you can't tell she's there unless the couch cover is bulging or she's meowing.

Wisdom Teeth, etc.

2008-09-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

Since Lynette got her wisdom teeth out recently, I decided I better stop putting it off. I got my wisdom teeth out earlier today. I only have 3 wisdom teeth that ever came in, so the oral surgeon took them all out...It's the two lower ones and the upper right. They put in dissolvable stitches, so I won't have to go back and get them taken out.

They put me to sleep with an IV, and it took like 20 seconds for me to go out. Mark said it took them less than 20 minutes to get all 3 out. (They were all impacted, so apparently they were pretty close to the surface since it didn't take very long...that's good, hopefully it will be faster healing.) It took me about 30 minutes after they were done to wake up, and then Mark got my prescriptions for me.

They prescribed pain medicine, an antibiotic, and special mouth wash. I've had a cold for the past week, and I'm supposed to take 3 antibiotics a day. I've taken 2 so far, and I think it's helping my cold go away xD. Maybe going to the doctor for a cold isn't a bad thing...xD I've been fighting this cold for a LONG time, and I am so ready for it to be gone.

I can hardly open my mouth still. The oral surgeon's nurse told us that I needed to eat something and then take some ibprufen and my antibiotics when I got home. I couldn't even open my mouth enough to put a spoon in it. O_o, so I asked Mark to buy me some Ensure or something like that (Pretty much, what it is is like a dietary drink of some sort that's supposed to be nutritious and can be a meal replacement.) It's kind of expensive, almost $11 for 6 8 oz bottles, but it tastes like a chocolate milk shake, AND it's actually somewhat filling. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything before my appointment, so when I got home I was starving. Also, when I got home, my cheeks and bottom lip were numb...so if I ate anything (I was going to eat yogurt, but couldn't get the spoon in my mouth cause I couldn't open my mouth wide enough xD) it probably would have dripped out (eww.) So, I drank my lunch and dinner (in the form of the Ensure drinks) They are surprisingly very good, but I won't be buying it on a regular basis...although I will most definately recommend this to anyone who is getting their wisdom teeth out.

I iced my face most of the time since I got home, and my face doesn't look or feel swollen to me :). The numbness ended about 4 or 5 hours after I got home...so now my face feels normal, aside from barely being able to put half a tea spoon in my mouth (I was actually able to eat some chocolate pudding, but it took some work. xD) The bleeding had stopped by the time I got home, and it seems to have clotted. I haven't tasted any blood at all.

I can feel the stitches, but I'm trying to keep my tongue away from it because I don't want them to get loose until they're ready. I'm not supposed to start taking the prescribed pain meds until tomorrow...so I really hope they don't start to hurt bad tomorrow :/ For now, it doesn't hurt because I'm making sure I take the pain pills to cover it xD.

Anyway, even better news, we found a new place to live! It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bath for about what we're paying for our current 1 bedroom, 1 bath. It's near Worlds of Fun. It is an apartment. We originally were looking for a house to rent, but we weren't able to find one we really liked, and wanted to make sure we knew where we were moving to before we ran out of time...so we've officially found a place. (Actually the last house we looked at was a 2 bdrm, 1 bath, it had less space than the apartment we're going to be moving into, didn't have air conditioning, and the person was asking $675/month. We're getting more for our money by just going to an apartment.) I'm SOOO excited and ready to move in! We're moving in on October 17. It actually has a dining room too!!! (All the places we've lived did not have a dining room) This dining room has carpet under it...not linoleum/tile. I don't like that, but I'll put up with it because I'm so excited to even have one xD. It also has a built in washer and dryer AND a pantry, and the 2nd bedroom has a walk-in closet = LOTS OF STORAGE!!! WOOT! Anyway, both Mark and I are both extremely excited and ready to move.

I have work off until Thursday to recover (and extra time beyond that if I still need it.) So, I think once I start to recover a bit (or get bored enough) I'll start doing some packing. Well, that's the latest. The apartment is in North KC and about 10 minutes from Mark's job and about 20 minutes from my work.

Work

2008-09-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

I had an extremely interesting day at work today. Tornado sirens went off today and the managers decided we were going to have an evacuation. I work in a call center, so they've never practiced evacuations before. It was definately interesting. Everyone went into the hallway, so we had about 100+ people in a hallway that's supposed to hold 52 max. We were there for almost an hour and then got to go back to work. The evacuation was honestly really boring. All we did was sit in the hall and sit around or talk.

Anyway, we went back on the floor (that's what they call taking/making calls.) I left for lunch at 7:10 PM (which is normal. I'm supposed to be back by 7:40.) When I got back around 7:37 or so, the ceiling tile over where I was sitting had fallen down onto the desk, as well as a bunch of water. Someone had moved all my stuff to a new desk and put a tarp over the area I was sitting. The ceiling was dripping water. Apparently since it's been raining so much over the past few days, there's a leak in the roof some where, and it soaks into the ceiling tiles and makes them fall down, at least in this case. I'm so glad I was at lunch when it fell. Someone that watched it fall told me that if I was sitting there, there would have been no way for me to avoid it...meaning I could have easily ended up at the hospital had I been there when it fell. Just the thought of what could have happened makes me like O_O! It's at least an 8 or 9 foot drop from the ceiling to where I would have been sitting.

Anyway, everything was ok, but it was kind of scary. Earlier at some point a different ceiling tile collapsed on the other side of the building. I didn't hear about that until several hours after this happened...it's not very comforting to have the chance of ceiling tiles falling down on your head. Hopefully they'll get that fixed once it stops raining enough to be able to work on it.

Here's the latest

2008-08-31T17:32:00.001-07:00

Well, we're starting to run out of time to find a place to move, so over the next month, we're going to be house/apartment/duplex searching. The city we're moving to doesn't have a list of rental properties, so we're going to have to start calling around and looking online and through news papers and possibly drive around, etc.

We took Lily to the vet on Wednesday because she needed her annual shots...wow, for a couple days you could TELL she wasn't feeling well, thankfully that has passed. It made me feel bad that she wasn't feeling well, because she was fine before going to the vet.

Anyway, when she got back from the vet we gave her a replacement for her new toy (the picture is on another post, but I'll post it again.) She completely finished demolishing it the night before, so it was great time to give her a new one. Here's before and after pics.
BEFORE:

AFTER:

She now has a new blue one that looks like the before. She's never demolished it quite that bad before xD. This is the first time the stuffing has actually come out. She's feeling much better now and is thrilled with the replacement. We even bought 2 in case when we move if there aren't any more at the other Wal-Marts, we'll have a backup. It's the only cat toy we've found that she actually likes to play with. She thinks the others are lame.

Other updates, we finally got our couches replaced. This is an update to my post about the downtown KC rant. We got the couches on Saturday (August 16), I have before and after pics of that too (I'm so proud of myself xD)

BEFORE:

AFTER:

(Don't mind Lily in this pic, she had no idea what I was doing and was kind of curious why I was standing on the other couch across the room xD)

The pics make the couch covers look like different colors but they're really the color of the smaller one...a greenish tinge instead of cream colored like the big couch pic looks like (The lights made it look like that) I'm not too fond of the color, but couch covers are expensive...to get other ones would probably cost more than what we paid for the couches. (The couches are in pretty good condition under the couch covers, the person we got them from thought the couches were ugly, so she got couch covers) The next time I wash the couch covers I'll have to get a pic of what they look like underneath. I don't think they're too bad, but I like using the couch covers because right now we don't have a kitchen table...so we eat in the living room.

The old couches went to Mark's parent's house. Mark's brother wants the couches but wasn't able to pick them up, so Mark's parents are storing them for him. (Thanks!)

Mark's school is going well. It started almost 2 weeks ago. We took our cars to the auto shop and finally got them tuned up and working how they should be. (I won't go in to how long it took or the price, because that all was a pain x_x, but it's done now, so we're good for now.)

I'm trying to go to the dentist sometime this week or next week to get x-rays for my wisdom teeth to come out before the end of the year. We're hoping that I can get them out September 22...just so that we can be done with it, and since we've got dental insurance, there's no point to keep waiting until rates may increase next year. I need to stop putting it off and find a dentist xD.

I've got lots more cute pics of Lily that I HAVE to put up because they're so cute they need to be shared, so here they come:

She's IN a plastic bag...don't ask me why, she did that on her own xD She climbed in and turned around to stick her head out.

Sleeping on a chair.

Sitting in her shoe box. That's her latest place to sleep or chill.

Trying to sneak into my work stuff. She likes to climb into my bag (the blue one)

Mark was reading and Lily wanted attention. As you can see, she walked over the book so Mark couldn't read without giving her some sort of attention. She also decided to play with his bookmark in the 2nd pic.

Funny animation

2008-08-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

I saw this animation in a forum, so I decided to watch it.

It is hilarious! xD. Click the link, feel free to leave what you think in the comments. It's about a spelling bee, make sure you have your speakers on.

LINK
http://onelani.deviantart.com/art/Spelling-Bee-33828926

It's so funny I had to share it.

Downtown KC

2008-08-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

Dang I HATE downtown KC.

I was looking at couches on craigslist.com and found some couches in downtown KC I was interested in and went to see them today. I think if anything else is on craigslist in downtown kc, I'll let it pass unless it's something I REALLY need.

I got lost half a dozen times at least. I ended up in Kansas once, and almost in North KC. Goodness sakes, it was ridiculous. The biggest problem is downtown the exits all start with 2, and you have to go with whatever the letter is. THEN, when you actually get to the exit you need, it doesn't even have the exit number on it, it just says EXIT. That's why I took the wrong exit several times and had to try to find a way to turn around...and downtown is like only one-way streets...which sucks when you're trying to turn around x_X. Dang. It sucked. I didn't like downtown before, but now I really don't like it. It's so confusing.

Anyway, on a better note, I decided we're going to get the couches :) now we just need some place to store our current couches, and we're working on that. We're probably going to pick up the couches this Saturday or next Saturday...we'll see.

Pressure Cooker

2008-08-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

I was talking to mom the other day about getting a pressure cooker and decided I really wanted one, so last Tuesday me and Mark went to Ace Hardware and bought one. I used it on Wednesday to make a beef roast. DANG THAT WAS GOOD!! It tasted just like mom's. As soon as I opened the pressure cooker I was almost drooling because it smelled so good.

So, I officially really like my new pressure cooker. Sunday I'm probably going to use it to cook some chicken that I've had in my freezer for months. I can taste it already...

The next biggest thing is I need more recipes. I really should get around to looking up some recipes online for the pressure cooker. I've decided not to buy cook books unless I'm able to flip through it and make sure I would actually use some of the recipes. (I bought 2 cookbooks online, and I think I've used one recipe total...it was kind of a waste of money honestly)

Anyway, on to the next topic:
Our vehicles are having problems again.
I took my car to Meineke on Wednesday because it was making a funny noise (Wednesday is my day off...that's why so much happens on Wednesday xD) It was kinda weird, me and Mark pulled into the drive way, and one of the people who works there came right up to me and started asking me what kinds of problems the car was having, etc. I'd never had someone do that before and it was kinda neat. Mark went into the office to do the paperwork while I explained to the person all the problems we were having. It was the Meineke in Independence, and I was extremely impressed with that. We're taking the Kia next Wednesday because it's got an oil leak and has some problems with the exhaust system. We already put quite a bit of money into the Kia since we've had it...so we're hoping these repairs won't be half as much.

Mark is starting school around the 20th, and we found some books online at www.half.com. Apparently it's an ebay company, and we bought 3 of Mark's books from there (1 was a teacher's edition math book...which it didn't say it was...so we're still working with the seller to see if we can send it back and get a refund. Mark went to the bookstore and just bought one so he could make sure he'd for sure have the right one for school.) The other two books we still haven't gotten in the mail, but I REALLY hope they're the right ones. The prices were lots cheaper than even the bookstore's used prices.

Well, that's about it for now that's going on. We're still looking into finding a place to live in Gladstone, but we've got until October to get that figured out.

Lily

2008-07-23T13:14:00.001-07:00

Lily has been being super cute lately. Here's an example:

I was in the bathroom yesterday getting ready for work and she curled up in the sink and just laid there xD! She was in there for like 15 minutes. This is the first time she's done that. Other times she'll curl up in shoe boxes and laundry baskets.

A few weeks ago I was folding laundry, and she was in the laundry basket, so I started putting clothes in the basket:

She didn't feel like moving xD She was in the laundry basket like that for like 20 minutes. It was hilarious to me, so I took a pic.

She does stuff like that all the time, and it's super cute. I rarely have my camera with me when she does something cute, so these are just examples of how super cute she can be.

The other day she had her toy in her mouth (here's a pic of her FAVORITE toy):

It's a fish that hangs from a string that we move around and she loves to chase it. It has a bell or rattle or something inside it so it makes noise too. Anyway, she always carries her fish into the bedroom when it's time for bed. Anyway, she had her toy in her mouth, and tried to meow while it was in her mouth. One of the fins got caught on her bottom tooth some how and it was hanging off her mouth while she meowed. I was almost dying of laughter. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it. It was priceless, and I doubt I'll ever be able to get a picture of it, because it probably won't happen again.

Yay

2008-07-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

We've got Mark all enrolled in school and his schedule set up. Hallelujah. I'm glad it's done. School will be starting next month. It's really weird for Mark going back to school, but it's best in the long run.

We're also looking into moving to Gladstone when our lease ends. Gladstone will be a perfect middle between our jobs. We just need to find a place to live. We don't really care to live in an apartment again. A duplex would be okay, but I would rather a house. Whatever it is we need 2 bedrooms because one bedroom just plain isn't enough space any more. It's a pain trying to look for houses for rent. All the searches I do pull up apartments for rent, not houses.

We're just going to have to drive around Gladstone and look around.

Another Update

2008-06-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

Well, there's still not really a whole lot going on for us right now. We had our 1 1/2 year anniversary on June 8. I can't believe it will be 2 years in December, it really doesn't seem that long. Where has the time gone!?

Mark's going back to school. He was officially accepted to the Business & Technology MCC. All that's left to do is take the placement test, set up a schedule, and of course, pay tuition and all that good stuff. It's kinda hard to get used to him in school and I imagine it will take us both quite a bit of getting used to...it'll all be for the best in the long run though.

Nothing much has changed for me. I've still got that promotion thing where I'm a mentor. They are hiring for Team Lead position (which is kind of what mentors are trained in a bit, but team leads are never on the phone with customers unless a customer wants to talk to a supervisor...if they're on the phone, it's with fellow co-workers.) Unfortunately for that position, you have to have CSG/inbound training, which I don't have. (and probably won't have until November or so when I'm done being a mentor.) Right now team leads schedules stink too. They have alternating days off based on which week it is. I think that's terrible, I'd much rather have my scheduled days off so I know all the time what my schedule is going to be like.

I was looking through remodeling things the other day, and now I really want to have a house. (I wanted one before, but I really want one now.) I was about to go into my kitchen and tear it apart so Mark can build drawers in the cabinets xD. I had to stop looking at remodeling/kitchen pictures.

Here's one of the kitchens I was looking at...

I LOVE all the cabinets and drawers. I want one so much...and Mark can build cabinets like that. We'd probably have to save up for it, but it would be neat to have cabinets built by Mark in the kitchen. Plus there's tons of storage space...and since they're drawers you can measure them out just right to fit plates and cuts and pans and all that stuff in the drawer instead of an entire cabinet! What an awesome idea! (As you might be able to guess, I'm extremely excited about that idea xD)

I was also looking up some stuff about "green" remodeling (Actually, I think it was a headline on yahoo.com or msn.com or something, and sometimes I read the articles) Anyway, they had a video of how they make "green" countertops. O_O! I WANT ONE! They're really pretty, and they pretty much make them out of recycled colored bottles and then resin. Here's a pic:

I actually think that counter top is kind of ugly, but I couldn't find another pic that showed what it really looks like. If I got to make my own, it would probably be either blue colored pieces, green colored pieces, or blue and green colored pieces. And it cleans like glass...seriously, you use glass cleaner to clean it. AND it's economy friendly. (I'm not one of those "green" fanatics, but I think this is a super idea, and I like how it looks...in fact, I think it looks nicer than traditional counter tops. It's pretty expensive though, I don't remember how much.

Too bad it's so expensive to become economy-friendly. If they had economy friendly items at the same prices as the other things, I'm sure more people would buy them. When people barely have enough money to live how they're living now, they don't really care if they're buying the "green" lawn mower...they just want something that works at a cheap price.

Oh, speaking of the "green" lawn mower. Here's what it looks like:

According to a news report, it only costs like $5 a YEAR to run! It doesn't use any gas. That's awesome. Anyway, that's the latest I'm interested in in green products I've heard about so far. I want a "green" lawn mower without a doubt...when we have a place that actually has a lawn we need to mow.

Update

2008-05-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

Well, life has been pretty much the same for us since the last update. I got a promotion/temporary job at work. For those who don't know, I work in a call center for an alarm company. I'm now a mentor, which pretty much means I help people do their job better. I have to be on the phone (doing my normal job) for at least 51% of the time...the rest of the time I can be used on assist (which is pretty much when someone has a question, they call assist, so I answer questions.) I LOVE doing assist. It's so much fun. I will be doing mentor sessions, where I work one-on-one with someone, or with a small group, depending on what kind of session it is.
A few of the sessions are:
new hire
alarms per hour
QA
New hire we go through the new hire packet and give them tip sheets. Usually these are in small groups, the rest are one-on-one sessions.
alarms per hour, exactly as it sounds...we give them tips to raise their alarms handled per hour.
QA, Quality Assurance, we try to give them tips to do better on QA, such as get all required wording in their phone call.
I had training on Tuesday and Wednesday, and there's me and 3 other mentors. Training was pretty much going over info we already knew and a few other things that we need to know, like how to look up information, change information, etc.
When we're on the assist phone, we're considered supervisors (that includes taking escalated calls if it's needed.) We get to be mentors until November, as long as we meet or exceed the standards, like we have to have a high alarms per hour, good QA, good compliance (which means working when your schedule says you should be working), etc.
I think being a mentor is going to be lots of fun. I haven't really had any sessions yet, since we just got done with training. I did shadow a mentor, which was kinda interesting...it was good to see first-hand what they do and be able to ask questions.

As for Mark's job, he's currently considered an employee of a temp agency. Their plan is to hire him on as a full time employee for them. YAY! :D! He filled out, and put in an application not long ago. We aren't exactly sure when they're going to take him on full time though. Mark is also considering going back to school. The MCC Business and Technology school is literally right down the street from where Mark works. Hopefully we can get him enrolled for the fall semester. (He's not really sure what he wants to do...so he's going to try to explore some options.)
Well, that's the lastest.

Kia Update

2008-04-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

Well, we got our Kia back yesterday like 30 minutes before Mark had to leave for work, so he got to test drive it to work. Everything seems to be fixed (hallelujah!) although it ended up costing quite a bit more than we'd expected...oh well, if it doesn't need work for a long time then it'll be worth it.

Mark went to 2nd shift on Monday (the beginning of this week) so I drove him to work, where he was like 1 1/2 hours early, and then I went to work. I get off earlier than him, so when it was time to pick him up, I was a little bit early. It worked out, but I'm so glad we have both vehicles back. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I didn't have a job, but with both of us having jobs and having to be to different places at the same time doesn't work well with one vehicle.

We got a digital converter thing for our TV (since we don 't have cable or satellite) that is supposed to be done before February 2009. (The government gives you up to 2 coupons for $40 off, each coupon...so we went and got 2 converters. They were $10.63 each, which isn't bad. I unplugged it yesterday cause it was messing up the show I was watching. So much for that. Hopefully by the time everything is digital it isn't messing up any more. I read reviews on some of the converters and thought we chose some pretty good ones...maybe I got a faulty one or something?

Anyone who hasn't heard about this, you can request the coupons online...Go to this website for more details: https://www.ntiadtv.gov/home.cfm You can also request the coupons from there...that's how I requested mine. It did take them like 2 months to send them, so if you want to have the converter before time runs out, apply for them asap. (At least it took them like 2 months to send it to me.) When they mail you the coupons they also send you a list of which boxes are compatible with the coupons and a list of retailers near you that accept the coupons.

Vehicle troubles are terrible.

2008-04-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

We took our Kia to the shop yesterday so they could fix the thing that makes the car decide if it should stay in 2 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive. The shop called us yesterday and told us they don't think that's the problem, but they can't find it. They have to tear the entire thing apart to try and find the problem, and then let us know from there what the problem is, the price, and how long it will take to fix it. Also, most places don't sell Kia parts, so they have to go directly to the Kia dealership for parts (which means they will most likely cost more.)

They were supposed to get back to us today about what they find, but we haven't heard anything yet. I can hardly wait until we have 2 vehicles again. It's extremely hard to work out of one vehicle, especially when our schedules are so different.