Catching Up

Crickeys! It's been about a month since I've posted. Lots of things happening since then. We had a nice Father's Day lounging around at home and on the Monday afterwards, we packed Peanut up for an evening with his grandparents and Mike and I went to the Police concert. Boy, are those boys looking their age. It still was one of the better concerts I've seen and we both really enjoyed it. The ride home sucked, at least I think it did since I fell asleep and Mike had to drive.

Not much has been happening around here. We're in the 3rd month of 100+ degree days so Peanut and I spend A LOT of time indoors, being cranky with each other. I've had wicked morning sickness, the stomach flu, exhaustion, and a head/chest cold that took 2 weeks to recover from. Finally, for about 10 days, I'm feeling normal again.

We had a great trip home to stay with Mom and Dad. I was so tired the entire time that I rested, let Peanut play outside, let Mom and Dad take care of him for me, and laid around reading and forcing myself to finish my school work. It was a week I desperately needed. Flying by myself with Peanut was a challenge. Toddler, stroller, backpack full of diaper bag stuff, toys and snacks, and my purse, and a car seat are not things easily carried through the airport by one person. We made it though and next time would be easier since Mike is going to be with us.

No plans yet on when we're moving out of this horrible state and back to normal weather. Looking towards October now, but plans change weekly, and it depends on our cash flow.

The baby is doing well. Heard the heartbeat again yesterday and have our sonogram scheduled for 8/13. Original plans were to find out the sex, but not tell anyone else and let it be a surprise. But Mike would burst trying to keep a secret, I'd yell at him when he let it slip, and Mom wouldn't stop nagging me until I caved and told her....so new plan. We've decided not to find out the sex of the baby until he/she is born. So take that Mom. We won't even know, unless we figure it out from looking at the screen when measurements are being done. Hahahaha!

School started this week for me again. Thank God that last horrible term is over. I have 2 more terms to go and then I'm done. So in January, I'll officially be educated with a college degree that I won't use unless I'm forced to go back into the real world workplace.

Peanut is due to wake up anytime from his nap and I gotta get his lunch ready. Here's a few pictures from June.

TTFN ~Crys

After swimming at Todd and Joy's.

Discovering dirt is good and rocks are fun to sit on and play with.

Riding with Poppy on the best thing ever that must be touched and grunted at every time we went outside. Looking so grown up in his overalls and tenny shoes that he doesn't were at home cuz it's so dang hot. And perfecting being master of the BBQ'er.

The big 34...

It happened, I'm old. Or I feel old anyway. Actually, I don't feel any older now than I did last week. Maybe thats how it happens, you just go along, feeling normal, then one day, some kid on the street yells, "out of the way old man", and you whip around so fast you tweak your neck to see who the little turd is talking too, and realize it's you. His youthful legs carry him away on his bike before you can catch him and show him that with your age you've learned the most effective places to strike in order to create the most pain. Like smashing his youthful little face in...but I digress.

Yesterday was my 34th birthday. How did this happen? Didn't I just turn 13 like 6 months ago? Maybe thats my mental age, a mid puberty adolescent....that would explain why fart jokes are still so funny to me.

Growing old stinks. It's right up there with going to the fridge to get that bit of left over whatever you fancy, and finding mold on it. Or like running late for an important meeting, and realizing you have no clean underwear in the drawer. Or pushing the button on the vending machine for one kind of soda, and getting the kind you hate more than any other soda, and having no more change in your pocket. I could go on and on and on, but I'm sure you get the point. I'm too young for my mid life crisis, so I have to trudge along for a bit more before I can really start to complain too much. Still, its never to early to start researching what kind of sports car I want to have.

Happy birthday America! 231 years old!

Ok, I know I'm posting this on July 3rd, but thats just cause I felt like doing it early.

Pretty amazing it only took such a short amount of time to take this country from what our fore fathers had dreams of it being, to the reality TV-drunk heiress in jail-school violence place that is it today, way to go America! How about we start dealing with people the way we did back in our countries beginning. You do something wrong, off you go...or off goes your head, which ever. Bah, enough of that rant.

Everyone in the house is sick right now. It sucks. Last week when Crystal and Elliot came back from visiting the NW, Elliot had a little cough going. Then, the next day, that cough became a big cough and Crystal had the little cough. A few days go by, and now I have the cough. I hope whoever made Elliot sick has a raging case of the crabs soon.

We had planned on going up to my Dads house for the 4th, but they are going on vacation next week, and it hardly seems fair to make them sick before they leave. So, now we are going to sit around the house and likely just watch TV or something.

Things are still on track for moving, we just have to put our heads together and decide how much money we need to have saved up before we go. Next week I'll be going into the bank and talking to them about a business loan to purchase the Seattle branch, and with any luck can talk them into giving a little bit extra so that we will have money to live on. I don't think there will be a problem with work coming in up there, but Crystal being the head of the Office of Financial Dealings, she thinks she gets to make the decision. Last time I checked its my business card that says El Presidente on it, and not hers! Oh well, I don't want to put us in a bind either, so its better that we have some set aside.

We have about a months worth of bills money saved now, so hopefully we can sock away another months worth in the next 2 months and that will be enough for her to relax and we will go. I've been checking on prices for moving trucks, they sure are spendy. Looks like we will be paying about the same price we did when we came down, so at least it hasn't gone thru the roof over the last year. I want to get rid of some of the junk we have around here and hopefully that will allow us to downsize and get a smaller truck too. If I get a smaller truck, and can get my Dad down here to help us load it, we will be set. I swear, he can get make a 4 bedroom house fit into a pick up truck if he had too, its amazing. I call him the moving truck Nazi.

Well, off to do a job now, everyone else is still sleeping. Lucky them :)

Damn, thats hot.

Well, Crystal and Elliot are gone. They left yesterday to go up and visit Grandma and Grandpa (and anyone else she can track down) up in Washington. I took them to the airport just before noon. Did you know in today's high security crack down you can just walk up to a ticket agent, ask them for a "escort" pass and in about 30 seconds, you are on your way down thru security to the gate? They didn't even ask Crystal for her flight info to make sure she really was a passenger, just asked for my ID, and you know how hard those are to forge....man, all that extra money going towards all that security is money well spent in my opinion! Anyway, needless to say, I got to walk them down to their gate and say an extended goodbye. That was nice...sad, but nice.


After I left the airport, I had planned (conspired is more like it) with my dad to go and play golf that afternoon since I would be up on PHX anyway. So, I took off like a lightning bolt from the airport and made it to the course that is my dads retirement community (read that "old farts village") and off we went. When I got to the course at about 1:30, it was somewhere close to 105 degrees out. No biggie, drink lots of water, everything will be fine. Well, in my haste to get to the golf course on time, I failed to go get something to eat, which was my plan, but it slipped my mind, dreaming of making eagles and birdies and what not (I actually was on the green in 2 on a par 5 and was putting for eagle, but missed it and settled for birdie). So, 13 holes later, I had to quit. I was hot, shaky, and hot. I knew if I pushed it, I'd pay for it later, so I rode around in the cart with my dad for the remaining 5 holes and watched him continue to shoot the lights out. Its a good thing I quit when I did, he would have beat me so bad, I'd never hear the end of it. Probably still wont :)

So, I climbed back in the car, and the temperature gauge said 118!

Yes, that says 118 F'ing degrees!!!!! No wonder I was hot! God lord! My dad of course, called me a sissy though, for whatever reason, the heat just doesn't bother him. The only thing I could come up with as to why this is, was after spending some time in Vietnam as a youngster, he just got used to it, or, it was so much more worse there, 118 of dry heat, really can't compare to the hot humid jungles of Vietnam. Either way, he is like a machine, he just played on, and he was only drinking soda and part of a small bottle of water. Machine I tell you!

Anyway, today was a busy day. With Crystal and Elliot gone, I have nothing to rush home for, so I scheduled 5 jobs for today. 3 of them being repair jobs. One of them, had a pine colored bed frame. Anyone that does furniture repair will tell you, the lighter the wood, the harder to onsite repairs. There is just something about it, kinda like white colors. There are 31 million different shades of white, all of them nearly impossible to match. So, I did the next best thing...improvised!

Here is the before shot:



And the after shots:



Can you see the damage? It's actually where that new knot is, no its not a real knot, its one I "drew" on there using my color sticks. Turned out pretty damned good. The shipper even said to me, "I can't wait to show that to my husband, I bet he doesnt even realize that its not a real knot!". This was of course, music to my ears. Had her sign my sign off form saying that the repairs were good and I was off and running. That was my first job of the day. After that, I could do no wrong. Now its alittle after 7, I just finished my reports before I sat down to type this, now I think I'm going to grab some dinner, watch alittle TV, then sack out.

With any luck, we will be moving back up at the end of August, stay tuned for updates as they become available.

29 weeks to go, give or take 5

We went to the Dr. yesterday to get the first of many pre-natal visits done. They did a sonogram (I think its the same thing as an ultrasound, but sonogram sounds cooler to them I guess) and listened to the new baby's heart beat. Very cool stuff. I was amazed to see the difference with from this baby to Elliot as far as picture quality went with the test. It really is a great time to be alive, technology is changing the face of the earth in a big way. Anyway, here is a picture of our "new peanut", they measure exactly 1 inch long, I wish I would have had my phone out to record the heart beat, but I'll catch it next time. I'm putting my money down now that this one is a girl. I remember the way Elliot's heart beat was when we first heard his, and they say the boys heartbeat is usually faster than a girls, and this was noticeably slower to me. Crystal will likely tell you I'm full of poo...but who doesn't already know that?


It just looks like a blob now...but I'm sure its going to be a good looking kid, just has to cook for a bit longer.

The Dr. told us that since Elliot came early, there is a risk that this one will too, however, odds are that he/she will come later than Elliot did, usually by a week, maybe 2. Then they told us there was a shot that Crystal could start taking at week 18, deep muscle in the arse, that would increase the odds of the child being born closer to full term. Its a once a week shot, the side effects are pain and sometimes difficulty walking the day after the shot, and it gives you a whole 7% chance of extending the due date......7%? And pain for 20 weeks? I'm a gambler, and those are not good odds. Needless to say, I think we are going to take our chances.

We have been doing our research for the move, we've found that our insurance will not transfer up to the Pacific NW, however, we can start with a new insurance company once we get up there, and they will count the insurance we currently have, and waive the wait time for maternity coverage, so really, I guess we are waiting for the lease to be up, and to sock away enough money to live on for 2 months. Hopefully that will be enough of a cushion to get us by til we are up and running up there, if its not, and we know you, be prepared for us to come over for free dinners...alot...no scratch that, gas will be expensive too, be prepared for us to invite you to bring us dinner...alot :)

I gotta go shower and get on the road. Hope everyone is doing well and in good health. For those of you in the Pacific NW, I cant wait to see you.

News

Well, its been a long long time since I got around to making an update on here, Crystal has had the reigns on that for awhile, but no more!

Things have been stirring around here for sometime now, and for the most part, no major disasters have occurred. Sure there is the occasional diaper that blows out (Elliot gets that from his mother), and last night he tried to pee on my arm while he was in the bath, but thats about where the drama ends....sorta.

Crystal isn't doing so well adjusting to the Desert a.k.a face of the sun (and the real heat isnt even here yet), missing her family (I do too actually), our friends (even those idiots we like so much), and we've decided enough is enough.

Last weekend, I was back in Atlanta, GA for a Weathersby Guild Conference. My Dad and I flew in Thursday afternoon (after I left our house at 3:00 am to get to his house and pick him up, then off to the PHX airport) at 2 pm. We had a casual dinner that night with everyone at the Fudruckers near the Hotel where we were meeting. Now, I don't know for sure it was something I ate there...but I was sick the entire weekend. When I say sick, I mean ED was visiting from out of town, and he always brings way too much luggage for his stay...enough on that. Anyway, I pulled the head honcho Kent Weathersby aside and had a little chat with him. A brief play by play of how that went:

Kent: Hello Michael, how is Crystal doing?
Me: She hates Tucson, its too hot, and shes too far from her family.
Kent: Well, perhaps its time to show her physically and mentally, that you are ready to be her Champion, her protector, her provider, and move her back near her family, we talked once before that if you wanted to move your Guild to the Portland/Seattle area, I'd love to have you go there and represent the Guild with a presence, its something we've wanted for along time to be up in the Pacific NW.
Me: Well, I need to sit her down and have that conversation, cause I'm missing my friends and family too, and its really starting to take its toll.
Kent: Well, lets get some research done and look into it, get in touch with some of your adjusters you do work for and see if they could use you up there.
Me: I think I will.

So, anyway, I got home just before Midnight on Saturday, and Sunday morning when I woke up, Crystal and I had a good talk about moving back. When I first mentioned it to her, she looked in my eyes and I could tell right then, if I get her back home, I'll never be able to do any wrong the rest of my life so long as I did this for her. So, we are moving back home! There are still some things we have to iron out, but its a done deal.

We are in a lease on this house until August 31st, so thats the earliest we can go, then, we have to check with our insurance to see if we can move our policy up there, or if we have to start a new one. If we have to start a new one, we have to stay until January sometime...and thats cause our current policy covers maternity stuff...since Crystal is PREGNANT again and expecting January 7th. :)

So, things are coming along nicely. I have spoke with many adjusters and the resounding response from them is "hurry up and move". So thats a nice burden lifted wondering if there is work there. Many of them have told me that the Seattle area is where the majority of their need is, but I'd like to get Portland/Vancouver up and running first, open my own refinishing shop, and then see about getting a business loan to open Seattle. Will then look for someone to run that branch for me, I can travel too and from to help out with big repair jobs, and be more of a manager in that area. Thats putting the cart in front of the horse just a touch, but I'm trying to get a time frame down for my vision of where I see this thing going. Like Kent said to me when he heard this plan, "thats not a bad idea, you don't want to be going out doing service calls when your 60". And he would know, cause I think he is rapidly approaching that age and still working in the field, but, he is damned good at what he does, and I think maybe just a pinch of a work aholic, much like my Dad...and me, who am I kidding. This work has quickly become a passion for me, I love taking something broken and making it whole again, or taking something ugly and old, and giving it new life, very rewarding stuff.

I'm going to miss my Dad and Step Mom very much, but I'm hoping with us being so close to the Beach, and them in the warm weather all year long, we will both have reasons to travel and see each other more than we have in the past. Even living as close as we do (hour drive time), we don't get to see them all that often. I'll also miss the sunny warm winter weather here, but, to be honest, I'm really missing the rain and the cold. Not so cold that I can't feel my own butt cheeks, but that cool brisk fall air...oh baby, poppa is coming home!!!!

Post of Pictures and a Thanks

Quick post of pictures.

Nekid before dinner of macaroni and cheese.

Peanut and Marvin Monkey from Build a Bear.

Nappin with Marvin. Marvin is 1/2 inch taller than Peanut was at birth.

Playing with Blackjack.

Is my hair messed up?

I'm outta here!

Thanks to Aunt Jen and the kiddos. Peanut got his package last week and loves the books. The Curious George book is read at least twice a day and sometimes he'll sit through Runaway Bunny. The cow puppet is ok as long as it's not on anyone's hand. But it's fun to drag around by the ears.

Off to do more schoolwork. I'm insane and signed up for a third class because I like to punish and stress myself. As long as I force myself to leave my sewing area alone, I'll get a little bit of school work done each day. It's getting harder and harder to not throw in the towel and give up.

Oh, and to rub in our beautiful weather, it's been in the 80's all week and perfect outside. Hahahaha to all the suckers still in the PNW.

TTFN ~Crys

Latest news

Hope everyone got their tax forms in the mail and postmarked today. Ours are finished, federal refund already deposited in our account (score big time for us. We LOVE our CPA!) and the OR and AZ states have been sent off yesterday. Usually, we don't wait for the last weekend to finish up, but we were waiting on the IRS to send us 1 more letter about our business in order for our CPA to do our taxes and we got that in the middle of March. And I needed time to sit and follow the directions to fill out the state form. We saved about $300 from doing the state forms ourselves. Not too shabby and we'll be getting a little back from OR so it was worth the few hours it took me to finish up.

Hope everyone's Easter was a good one. Ours was nice and quiet. We went to church and came home to put a turkey in the oven. It's been about 5 years since I've cooked a turkey, and I'm proud to say, only 1 phone call was made to Mom. It was excellent and we enjoyed a quiet dinner and relaxed on the couch.

We've also found a home church for us. It's a very small, Presbyterian church that we started attending about a month and half ago. The pastor and his wife are around our ages, and made us both felt very welcomed, as did the rest of the congregation. Mike and I both feel right now, we need to be part of a small church as we explore and build our faith in our Lord. The other church we went to left us very lost in the sea of people and feeling disconnected. Not encouraging feelings when trying to get myself and Peanut up, dressed, fed, and out the door on time on Sundays.

I haven't posted in over a month simply because time gets away from me. Between business work, school work, and Peanut work, it's usually after Peanut's bedtime when I can post, and by then, I'm too tired to have a coherent thought in my head (like now). So, here's some of the latest Peanut pictures.

Checking out his shoes from our friend Shay.

Easter basket goodies.

What is on my head?

Easter family picture. Ignore Peanut's super ginormous eyes. It was about 30 seconds before naptime and about 3 seconds from total meltdown.

Finally, Peanut realizes tuna casserole is even more excellent when eaten with his hands. He still doesn't like mushy or soft things touching his fingers, but tuna casserole is A-OK. He immeidately went to the tub afterwards to scrub it out of his ears, hair, eyebrows, and even his eyelashes.

That's all for now. I'm off to do a little work for my last bible study class tomorrow night and then to bed.

TTFN ~Crys

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

Quick post with a few pictures. Happy (late by 2 days) Birthday to my sister Jen and Happy Early Birthday to my sister Dee. Your presents went in the mail today.

Our St. Patrick's Day was nice and laid back. We went with Mike to an inspection that lasted about 5 minutes and earned him $125. Nice! Then we went to lunch at a really good small Mexican place we found last week. Then, instead of the Home Depot, we hit the church we've been attending for their big indoor garage sale that was going on. We got there in the last hour, but scored 3 good finds. For a whopping $18.38, we got a nice credenza that I'll use to store some sewing things in, a twin bed frame for Peanut when he's in a big boy bed, and about 1/2 yard of fabric for bag linings. The credenza ($15) needs the door put back on and some very minor tweaking, the bed frame ($3) sanded down and restained, and the fabric washed ($0.38). We'll take before and after pictures of the bed frame. It's going to be awesome when he's done.

Here's a few new photos....

Spring training game. One of the few times Peanut left the hat on his head.

YUMMM! Oreos are good.

I think Peanut watches Mommy's hand gestures when she drives. ;)

I'm off to get back to school work.

TTFN ~Crys

Felt like sharing....

Last week I went and did a claim for a shipper that was skeptical at best that I would be able to fix any of her broken furniture. These are my favorite people to deal with, well, usually they are. 99% of the time, the person ends up getting blown away by what can be done with their broken furniture...even the fugly stuff that makes you wonder what they were thinking when they bought it in the first place, but I digress. This was one of those 99% times. She had some various things that were broken and damaged, an antique clock, a dining room chair arm, a desk, a dresser, the normal stuff. Got that all fixed and signed off on, then she asked me to take a look at an old tv armoire that she had and was damaged at her last home.

The story she told me went something like this: "We bought this house, then we decided we didn't like this one particular wall, so we had the builder add in a nook that would exactly fit this TV armoire, they built it, but they built it too small, so instead of fixing the wall, they cut my armoire". Then she showed me this:


Wow, cut it they did. So I take a closer look at it and tell her, sure, I can fix that. But I'll have to do it another day as I have another appointment to go to. This lady was so happy that it could be fixed, I probably could have charged alot more and gotten away with it...damn it all to heck, hind sight sucks! Anyway, I made an appointment with her for yesterday, and went back to fix it up. At first I was thinking I was just going to use a whole lot of putty and spend hours shaping and sanding it. But when I went back, I really got to looking at it and came up with a better idea. Why not build it back up using real wood? So, I took some measurements, and ran off to Home Depot, conveniently located less than 2 minutes from her home :)

With wood in hand (tee-hee) I went back and started the process with this:


Then, filled in the gaps with some putty to make it all flow together, broke out the sand paper and gave it a nice smoothing out. Took a step back to figure out what colors to use, went to the truck and got the colors, and finished it off with this:



I love it when a plan comes together :)

Can I see your green card please?

Meet Hector. Ok, I don't know for sure his name is Hector, but he looked like a Hector while he was flying around in our garage. I don't know why Hector...get over it, thats what I named him.

Hector is a Achemon Sphinx moth, sometimes called a "Hawk moth" or "hummingbird moth", why hummingbird? I can only guess cause they are about the size of a hummingbird. And if it came down to a fight between the two? I'm taking the moth, cause he's bigger? no, cause he has more hair than a certain hairy fairy I used to work with...you know who you are. This thing has more hair than a Yak. Ok, here is Hector's last...and possibly only photo.


Yes, that's a U.S. quarter sitting next to him. I told you he was big. He was actually alot fuller looking in the body, but then Hector made the mistake of landing on my work bench, and then mocking me "what's up honky", "come over here white bread so I can pimp slap you". I've been called plenty of names in my day, and will probably be called more before its all over, but come on, Crystal was watching, I had to stand up for myself. Thats right, there was no backing down from this fight. Sure he was quicker when he was in the air, but now he was on my turf, and he just didn't know when to stop with his smack talking. I was working on building myself a furniture dolly to help move big items on my own, so I was armed with a piece of lumber. What's that you say? Use a weapon against him instead of just going hand to hand on him...did you not look at the picture? All he would have had to do is fly up plug my nose with his legs, and then cram his head in my mouth and bam, I'm done. I wouldn't have been able to breathe. Well I for one am not going out like that. I smashed his face in with that piece of wood, in fact, I hit him so hard his lunch flew out his ass and splattered all over my brand new pneumatic staple gun that was laying on the bench minding its own business, another innocent victim of the human/bug war....why cant we all just get along?

New lovey for Peanut

Easter is coming soon and I've been thinking of what I could make Peanut for his Easter basket instead of buying another plastic toy or fluffy stuffed animal that the cat overtakes and kneads into. I found a pattern for a bunny, dog, or bear at Walmart and some clearance fabric and got to work on Sunday. I finished it Monday morning and gave it to Peanut to see what he thought of it.

Finished!

Quick picture with Peanut before he started carrying it around by it's ear.

Peanut's wrastling moves.

And after it was finished and stuffed, I realized that cheap flannel fabric is cheap for a reason. This poor bunny has already had surgery to fix a ripped seam that happened while I was stuffing it. The real Easter present will be much, MUCH better and even more cuter if that's possible.

Off to do stupid school work while Peanut naps.

TTFN ~Crys

Oh so crafty!

Lately I've been sewing every second I can between school , business book work, keeping up the house (somewhat) and Peanut. I really am oh so crafy! Here's my latest creations:

Small over the shoulder bag for short trips. I probably won't use this but it's still really cute. It's just not a mommy purse for me. A wallet, cell, keys, sippy cup, crackers, wipes for when germy rude people think it's ok to touch Peanut, and loose change just don't fit in here.

Change purses for our vehicles. Large one is in the truck and small one in my car.

I pieced this quilt top over 2 years ago, Mom quilted it for me in September, and I finally got the binding on it in January. And Peanut's new thing is to crawl around like a maniac when a quilt is laid out on the floor. It's rather amusing and tiring for him.

Smallish bag I finished last night. The handles are long enough to go over my shoulder since carrying a short handled bag, Peanut, a diaper bag, and keys just isn't working any longer.

I practiced my meandering quilting last weekend and got my machine all set up for quilting. Instead of throwing the quilt sammich away, I turned it into a pillow. It's perfect for when my back goes out and I need extra support to sit.

And now for the good pics. Elliot had a lemon cookie for the first time the other night. He's like his mom and is a cookie monster now. Mike had to work this Saturday (yuck!) and the lady was so sweet to give him a tricycle her son outgrew. She also gave us a small basketball hoop for when Peanut gets bigger. Don't know why she moved across country with them if she was going to give them away, but we're not too proud to take a free toy. Here's Peanut's first trike ride. Notice his feet don't even touch the ground - hahahaha!

Helping mommy pick fabric for a new project. Peanut LOVES going through my fabric.

We've been busy. Business is going well. It's picked up and Mike's booked out for the next 2 weeks. That relieves a little stress for me since we go to our CPA tomorrow to get started on our taxes. I'm praying we break even, but a return would be suh-weet! Mike worked the last 2 Saturdays to help make up for taking 10 days off earlier this month, but it's picking up slowly. I'd prefer to see a few more jobs for him come in each week, but he keeps telling me busy season is just around the corner.

The weather has been beautiful lately. We had a couple cool days last week, 1 day only got to 61 burrr. Today was 75ish and tomorrow is suppose to be around that. It's time to break out the shorts.

This is all for now. Peanut and Mike are sleeping and my sewing machine is calling my name. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have a new project finished and posted.

TTFN ~ Crys

Happy Birthday

Happy 1st Birthday Peanut!

Well, really 1 year and 1 day today. We had a birthday party for Peanut on Sunday (along with superbowl, but I don't care about that). Mom, Dad, and our good friends Steve and Ronda from Washington/Oregon stayed here over the weekend. Mom and Dad are still here, but Steve and Ronda had to go home today. :( Mike's dad, stepmom, stepbrother, and grandma from Ohio were here for the day, too. It was lots of fun, lots of food, and very tiring for Peanut to be surrounded by so many people and so much stimulation. He napped halfway through the party and I think recovering yesterday still.

Here's a few pics from his big day.

Chocolate cake from Costco for the adults.

Peanut's very own Mommy-made vanilla cake.

Yummm! Frosting was good, cake wasn't too big of a hit, but he ate a few bites off of his spoon.
Our par-tay hats.

And this one, not on his birthday, but the first time he was in his carseat facing forward.
That's all for now. Just a quick update with some pics for Aunt Jen and the others who couldn't be here with us.

TTFN ~Crys

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.