Ramblings

I haven't blogged in a while and had lots to say but now that I sit down to say it, I can't think of it all. Mom quilted 2 quilts for me in September and I finally got the binding on one of them. The other will have it's binding tomorrow or the next day since I got the fabric for it yesterday. It's a pinky-purpley girly quilt that I put together over 2 years ago at the Royal Ridges retreat . Lately, Peanut's favorite thing to do is "drive" his toy cars all around the floors, the walls, on me and Mike, chasing after us and Blackjack. This Tony Stewart car from my parents for Christmas is the favorite. It used to make noises and drive itself but that freaked Peanut out so the batteries came out and after a few days of staring at it, he decided it was OK to play with. There's no stopping him now and he loves to drive Tony around.



Tonight, while Mike finished the dishes, Peanut checked out the soap lid on the dishwasher. I left to get his bath ready......and came out of the bathroom when Mike said to hurry come look and found Peanut like this.
Oh, the joys of a silly baby. Peanut is doing really well. He can say 3 things: Mama, Dada (usually very loud), and Blah ja for Blackjack. He can also scream loud enough to pierce your eardrums, which makes us wince in pain but he thinks is hilarious. He can stand for a few seconds unaided, but no attempts to really walk yet other than side stepping along the couch. In 2 short weeks, he'll be 1. It's very difficult emotionally for me to really think about yet, so I don't. Instead I think about his birthday/superbowl party that Mom and Dad and Steve and Ronda are flying in to attend. Mikes parents, grandma, and stepbrother will be here also for it. So, I'm making my lists of all the things I need to do and get before they get here and that keeps my mind off the fact my wimpy white boy is going to be 1.

Our business is doing well. Mike is getting enough jobs to usually fill of the next week and doing excellent work. Peanut and I are settling into a routine during the day and usually hanging out with Mike once he gets home. Arizona probably won't be a true home for me for a long time still, but slowly I am feeling like I really just might fit in down here so far away from my comfort zone. We're attending a baptist church that is very large, yet we keep going back for Sunday service and haven't made any real attempts to find a smaller church. I don't know the differences between the Christian denominations, but it's a good church and not really any different from the Presbyterian church I used to attend other than it's much, much larger. I'm attending a Tuesday night bible study that is studying Daniel by Beth Moore. The first session was pretty powerful and left me feeling excited and wanting to dive right in to the homework part that will be discussed next week before we go into Chapter 2. It's going to be like another school course, but it such a personal eye-opener that I don't really mind the time spent on studying my bible and working on it. I'm also going to the Wednesday morning bible study that is about the women of the bible. Peanut is in the church nursery for this one, and so far, has been loving the ladies and the 3 or 4 other kids in there with him. I now have no misgivings about leaving him with them. The love they have for taking care of him and the others is so evident that it immediately eased my anxiety and I was able to enjoy the 2 times I've gone without worrying about him. Not bad for not leaving him with anyone but my parents.

I made a couple New Year resolutions, but made them really easy so I won't forget about them in 2 months. I didn't even make eating better or more exercise part of them this year. Mine are start a journal for Peanut to have when he's grown, read my bible more, try to be more patient, clean up my potty mouth so Peanut doesn't repeat me, keep up with the housework a little more, try to become less cynical about others (or at least to keep my cynical mouth shut), and pay off a couple bills. Phew, what a list, but overall, if I'm successful, I'll become a better mom, wife, friend, sister, auntie, and daughter.

And now for the downer portion of my post....Does living away from family and close friends ever get easier? After coming back to Arizona home from Christmas in December, this has been on my mind almost every day. I know meeting other people and making new friends will help, but it's really just not the same. As I put Peanut to bed tonight, I'm struck with feelings of melancholy and the guilty question of is it fair to Peanut that we moved him away from his aunts , uncles, cousins and other non-related family? Then I remember that he'd be raised by a daycare facility if we still lived in Washington and that Mike and I would be in jobs we were burned out in and really struggled to go to each day. That was not the home life we want for him, so I try to suck it up and be grateful we have the ability to fly back and forth to see the ones we love. But the answer I came up with is No, it probably won't ever get easier, I'll probably (hopefully) just learn how to manage it better.

I'm off to do school work. I guess I found what I wanted to say and boy, it was a lot. Say a prayer that Peanut will sleep better than last night and I won't have to get up 4 times before 6am to soothe him back to sleep.

TTFN ~ Crys

My friends call me tiny...

I've seen this handsome fellow many many times going to and from the bank. He and his 2 friends live on a small chunk of land right next to the roadway. I used to see them and think to myself, being a Donkey must suck. You have to live outdoors, flies bug you all day, you eat hay, you drink dirty water, you roll around in the mud for fun. Then I saw god gave them one thing that cast a ray of sunshine on their lives, and then it was clear to me, being a Donkey can't be all that bad.


We are just 12 days away from Crystals Mom and Dad getting here, then the idiots arrive the day after that. My Mom and Dad, Grandma and step brother Mike are also coming down. We are so excited, I think alittle pee might have just come out thinking about it. They are all coming down to visit for Superbowl, and another small event, Elliots 1st Birthday! It's so hard to believe that he has been with us a year already! He is growing up so fast, and getting smarter and smarter by the day. So fun to watch him learn something new, like when he uses a toy to smash the TV screen with instead of just his hand, thats fun. Or when Crystal picks him up as he has a larger toy in his hand and he decides to smash mommy in the head with it, also fun. He is a treat to have around though, makes me smile alot.

Since everyone is coming down, I decided I better get cracking and get a bed frame built for our spare bed. When we went up north for Christmas, Judy and Ernie had gone out and got a brand new bed and frame for us to sleep on, so I felt guilty and had to get going. We had got a bed for in their when they came down last October, but I left to go out of town as soon as they got here, so I didnt have time to get one done then.

So, I had a spare hour this week (inside joke) and whipped one up. Here are some pictures:

Sitting in the garage, just finished the 3rd coat of lacquer:



And in the bedroom, fresh linens and all:



It was fun to build, what isn't? Eventually this is where I'd like to see the business go, get into building some custom stuff. Last week I did a custom built in bookcase for a shipper I had gone and repaired some furniture for, the finished pictures didn't come out, way to dark, but here it is before it got painted (I still don't understand why people want to paint perfectly stainable wood:



My neighbor came over and chatted with me for a bit while I was building it too, found out he has his own business doing welding. So now I have another vendor I can use when I need some welding done, which is something I didn't have yet for work, so it worked out well.

Business is starting to pick up alittle bit, which is nice. I'm getting more and more freeway miles in. Just got the truck back in August and I'm really close to the 10K mile mark already. However, I get to see some good wrecks, and after I pass them, I thank God for making me get off the freeway to get that 44oz soda I really didn't need.


Well, it's time to go and clean up the garage now. I have only one piece of furniture out there to work on right now, and I'm waiting for some new legs that I had to order to fix it. I enjoy working on stuff, but I enjoy having my garage empty of stuff even more.

Take care everyone, those of you coming to visit soon, we can't wait to see you!

What a day...

Well, it started like any other day. Up at the crack of dawn, 6 am. Only today I could have, probably should have, stayed in bed. I had taken today off because we are getting DirectTv and today was install day, after having 3 other installs scheduled, it finally happened, but thats a different blog all together, so lets move on.I tried to go and brush my teeth, no water. Uh oh, did we not pay the bill? No, I know we did. Maybe they are working on it down the street or something, we do have alot of construction going on around us. So I head out in the living room and look at our handy dandy inside/outside/nuclear clock...21 degrees? Did we get tele-ported to Alaska? This cant be right! So I glance outside...it even looks cold. On goes the jacket, still wearing shorts and off I go to HomeDepot for a long screw driver bit that I need for my current garage project...photos and what not to follow in a couple days when I'm done with it. Damn...its really cold outside! Then it hits me...the water isn't off...the pipes are frozen!!! CRAP!Come about 11 am, the DirectTv guy shows up. "Hey, you got a leaking pipe on the side of your house, this is the 3rd house I've been too and everyone has a broken pipe". Not good. As I come around the side of the house, I see a refreshing looking pool...we don't have a pool. Then, I see a glimpse of Multnomah falls...wait a minute, thats in Oregon. This isn't just a leaking pipe, I've struck oil!!!! clean, refreshing oil..but oil none the less. I crank off the valve and shut the water off, wonder how long thats been going for...judging from the birds taking a bath in the stream of water 4 houses down, alittle over a long time.So, we call the property manager, who gets ahold of a plumbing company that does work for the builder down here...4 hours later, a portly disheveled fellow shows up...you know, your typical been around the plumbing block kind of guy. He comes over to the side of the house with me, I turn on the water so he can see where it's leaking from, and I kid you not he says "I'm not certified to work on that". Are you kidding me? What kind of plumbing company isn't certified to work on the pipes? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of being a plumber? So, he gives me the name and number for a guy they use that is certified to work on it. A phone call and 2 more hours goes by and they call to tell us "we have you on the list, and we will get to you tonight". 8 pm rolls around, and they call us back "we are out of parts, every house we have been to today has needed a new check valve (also the part we need, sigh), we've used up all we had at the shop, so we have to get more tomorrow, will anyone be home?". Sigh, yes, someone will be home, just come give us water back!!!!I know it's not a life or death kind of thing, but being with out water sucks! I managed to take the valve apart and get it down to a slow trickle so that we could turn it back on for a bit and get in some showers (and some of us needed it more than others!) but then we had to turn it back off again. It just sucks.With any luck, tomorrow we can get it fixed and be done with the problem. Until then...we wait.On top of that, I was planning on taking the truck into the dealership this afternoon to get not 1, but 2 safety recalls done, passenger side air bag and passenger side seat belt....anyone want to go for a ride? =:)

Recovery

Well, we made it back from "home" safe and sound. It was a very good trip. We didn't get to see everyone we wanted too, including my little brother cause he had a case of strep throat, but we did get to see a few people that we missed and that was good.

While we were there staying at Crystals Mom and Dad's house, I volunteered, got drafted, held at gun point, whatever you want to call it, to help do some remodeling around their house. Actually, I had a blast doing it. That stuff never feels like work to me, its fun. We put down new laminate flooring in their hallway to tie it in with the rest of the house, then it was time to re-do the bathroom. We stripped it down like a security risk at the airport, all the way down! We ripped out the old bath tub, the vanity and a cabinet that was above the toilet. The room looked like the Arizona country side...flat and open. After plan A was a terrible failure, we went with plan B and got the new shower installed. Took us all day, but in the end, Ernie and I were at least able to shower before we went to bed, that was nice. Then bright and early the next day (the same day we had to come back home) we got new flooring down, installed a new vanity and sink and put up a medicine cabinet. We had to leave for the airport at 2:30, and we finished at 2. So I quickly showered and got dressed, loaded our bags into the car and we were off!

The flight home sucked! Elliot nursed pretty good right when we sat down on the plane and was asleep before we took off. Then, the flight crew thought it would be neat to park the drink cart right at our isle. First can of soda they opened up "phishhh" bang, he was awake...and pissed! Good job lady! I think America West hires the not so smart ones to work on their planes. I've never seen such older women (and I'm not being mean, I'm talking early 60's easy!) working a plane before. It was rather bumpy all the way back too, which didnt help anything. Then when we landed in Phx, it was raining....deja vu? So, after waiting just over an hour our baggage finally comes out...soaking wet. Apparently it sat out on the runway for sometime so the rain could get to it. Ugh, avoid America West airlines with all your strength!

So, we got back home about 12:15 Friday morning. Saturday, Big Mike called me up and asked what my schedule looked like for the week, and I told him I had a few jobs but nothing to big...then he said "good, come pick me up at the PHX airport tomorrow". He surprised us and came down to visit for 5 days. He spent 2 of them in a rental car out driving around and checking out the sites. It was good to see him again, he's a good guy. Wish I would have gotten to spend some more time with him, but maybe next time.

While he was here, we managed to get out and see the Pima Air and Space Museum. What a let down. They had some cool planes in there and stuff, but man, they sure werent very well taken care of. I know its mostly run by volunteers and what not, which I can understand, but for the price they charge for admission (13.50) they should be able to at least keep the things painted nicely. Some of them had paint running off of them that was almost exposing the skin of the planes, sad. The plane I wanted to see the most was off limits cause they were building a new hangar around it. Sometime in April they will be done building the hangar, I don't think I'll be going back.

Only 22 more days and Crystals Mom and Dad will be down here for almost 2 weeks visiting, can't wait! Mike and I found a stocked lake not to far from our house, so going to go and get some fishing tags so Ernie and I can go fishing while they are here, thats gonna be fun. Then the day after they get here, Steve and Ronda are coming down to visit also, they will only be here for a few days, but looking forward to it none the less. Everyone will be here for Elliots 1st Birthday (Superbowl too!) so we are having a big party for him Sunday. My Mom and Dad will be down from PHX, along with my step brother, also a Mike. My Grandma Grimm is coming down from Ohio, haven't seen here in forever! It's gonna be a full house on Sunday, but it's going to be alot of fun too.

I'm off to work now, have a couple go back's today then home to work in the shop...again.