Happiness and Thankfullness

Happy Thanksgiving. So I'm a little late, what else is new?! I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Ours was good, different because it's the first one I've had away from home, but still good. We misjudged the freeway traffic to get to Phoenix and took a roundabout longer way to get there, but we got there and home safely and that's most important.

I've been sewing lately! Woo hoo! I've made 5 bags in the last month, sold 3, possibly 4, and kept the last one for myself. It was too cute to put into the selling pile.

On my trip back home a couple weeks ago, Mom, Peanut and I went shopping. Fabric and craft shopping of course because neither of us have enough fabric or sewing do-dads. I bought a cuddly quilt kit for Peanut and sewed it together this weekend. Total time was about 5 hours, including having to chase him away from the ironing board and keep him occupied playing with his toys and not my sewing chair. It turned out EXCELLENT! I love the corduroy on it but remembered why I don't sew with it after the first seam. It's a little more difficult than I'm used to. And, Peanut got a huge smile on his face when I gave it to him. He kept trying to grab the cowboys and cowgirls in the middle with his little pincher fingers.
Since I finished Peanut's cuddly quilt this afternoon, I had time after Peanut went to bed to keep on sewing. I whipped this up for a friend who's expecting a baby boy soon. I'll throw the backing in it tomorrow and he'll have his own cuddly quilt waiting for him to get here. The dark blue is a small plaid - not sure why my camera didn't pick that up better. Total time so far, 90 minutes! One of my personal best. Toot Toot on my own horn.
One of the most precious things my mom taught me when I was 5 or 6 was to sew. I remember making lots of barbie clothes, then bigger baby clothes, and then finally, my own clothes. I remember being a little girl and going to the fabric store and watching Mom touch fabric as she looked around. Always touching and petting bolts of fabric as she walked by, and now I do this too. If you don't sew or quilt, I don't think you understand this subconscience touching. It's like it's programmed into our brains that our hands must touch fabric of any kind, anywhere we are. The love of sewing, of cutting pieces of perfectly good fabric up, pinning it together, and then sewing into another creation is such a huge part of who I am that I could never repay Mom for instilling it into my soul. So, this Thanksgiving weekend, I give thanks once again to my Mom for being such a great influence in my life and for being my best friend.

And for my last photo, pure Happiness.


TTFN ~ Crystal

Almost...there...

Only 4 more days til Crystal and Elliot get back from visiting up north in Vancouver. Thats going to be the longest 4 days ever!!!!! I miss them way more than I can possibly describe in words, and I cant wait to go pick them up Monday at the airport, wonder how many land speed records I'll break on the way up there?

It's been pretty lonely and boring around here with out them. The cat was entertaining for awhile, now shes just annoying. Into everything and anything she can be.

I've managed to keep myself pretty busy while they've been gone. Haven't had a lot of new jobs come rolling in, but thats ok, it will pick up. I've had a couple different adjusters tell me its the start of the busy season now, so thats a good thing for me. Over the last week seems like all I've seen on the freeway are moving trucks coming into town. Several taking the Tangerine road exit here by our house and heading out into Oro Valley...its kinda like the Lake Oswego of Tucson for you portland metro area folk. Lots of big houses, lots of snooty people...and alot of new houses for all these old and rich people to move into :) GO OLD RICH PEOPLE!!!

I've had 4 tables and a chair in the garage for weeks now trying to get them finished and taken back to some customers. 2 of the items are for shipping claims, the other 3 items are from being at a shippers house, having them like my work, and then asking me if I can refinish a piece of furniture for them...well duh, of $ course $ I $ can $ silly $. :) For the right price, I will do just about anything, aside from wearing a skirt that is....panty hose ok, but no skirts.

One of the items was a Herman Miller Chair that started out with some huge scratches on the seat. At first I was leary on trying the repair cause the scratches were across the grain and those are hard to get rid of, but, all turned out well in the end. Here are some before and after pic's of the chair.





And now the after pic's.



The other item I finished today was an old hutch. The before pic isn't that great as I forgot to take a picture of the entire top. There were way more scratches on the top than these pics show, but you get the idea.


The after pic has some weird spots that showed up on it, not sure what that is, but still, the effective point is made, they are done.




I have 3 more tables to do, one of them has been sanded and stained, the other has been sanded. Tomorrow I'll get the other one stained, then the 2 of them will be ready for lacquer. The 3rd table is all done too, just needs a coat of wax on top of it and its ready to go back to the customer too. I'll get some pix of all those posted as soon as I'm done. I'm off to get some chow then its bed time. Have to get up early tomorrow and go take back this jerks speaker covers that I had to recover with new speaker fabric. He better be happy or he's going to look awfully funny with them crammed up his bum!

Punkin Pie

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Although by the time most of you read this, it will be November and you won't care about Halloween except to wonder how many pounds you put on when you philfered trick or treating candy out of the bowl by the door. A few photos for your viewing pleasure of Peanut's first Halloween. Note: Peanut was originally a M&M but that onesie was shipped up to my parents house so his costume changed. Isn't he the cutest!?

Punkin Pie costume.

My punkin sitting next to our punkins.

Our jack'o'lanterns. Mikes is the spider, Mine is the happy face, and Peanut's is the little one with 2 little bottom teeth cuz that's what he has. Mike carved Peanut's for him. Good job by us both, eh?

We decided to forget going to the city park for the Halloween Spooktacular festival they had and went trick or treating with my friend, Venna, her husband, and 2 of their kids. It was really fun and Mike and my friend's husband, Charlie, got to meet each other. I think Mike is in love with Charlie. He's a golfer and invited Mike to play in his company's golf tournament in December. It's weird to think of golf in December, but down here, it's fricking awesome. Peanut even went to the door a couple times with Venna and got 4 pieces of candy for Mommy. I did want to give out candy and even went to Walmart this morning for it, but realized we're on the end of our development, no one really lives next or near us and the houses around us are about 1/2 empty. So, the candy will be Mike's treat while we're gone for the next 13 days.

I'm off to bed. I'm all packed up, ready for my 5:30 alarm to get ready for our first trip home. Boy, am I going to freeze my butt off. Wonder if I can get enough shivers going to loose a few pounds?? Huge bummer Mike isn't going with Peanut and I, but someone's gotta make some money around here.


TTFN ~ Crystal

Lions, Tigers and Bears Oh My!

Well, one big black widow spider anyway, found him hiding next to the garage door and decided to take a picture of him.














I was rather surprised to see him be so...aggresive. I taped him with my shoe to get him out of the corner and the little turd actually reared up on his hind legs and put his front legs in the air like he was ready to fight. Alas, a size 12 Nike was more than he could take on.















So that was our nature adventure. So far, thats the only nasty wildlife we have come across here at the house. Not to bad for being here for almost 2 months now.

Work is still going well, jobs arent coming in as fas as we would like them to be coming in, but still, they are coming. We are running very low on money now, so to help lighten the load alittle, I'm going to go and get a part time job working a couple nights a week, just until things steady out. Hopefully it wont take but a month or 2 for that to happen, then I can just focus on keeping the business going and getting jobs done.

I used Legalzoom to get my business forms done and filed w/ the state. They had a slight boo boo on their end and royally screwed things up. They got a letter back from the state of Arizona saying that they needed some additional letter to go along with my information, so did legalzoom bother to call or email or send me a letter indicating something was wrong? Of course not! So my account sat in limbo with no one working on it. It was getting close to the time for my paperwork to be coming in the mail so I got on their website and looked up my order to find it was "waiting for customer information"....called them up and found out no one was working on it. This was a service I paid 500 bucks for, and no one is working on it? Finally today I got someone on the phone that had a clue what was going on, and she refunded me back half my money. It's not free, but I'll take it. The only bad part is, the paperwork I'm waiting on from the state is the paperwork I need to be able to open a business account at the bank so I can cash the checks I have coming in....it sucks seeing money tacked up on the board that you cant use for things like....rent, bills, stuff like that. Hopefully it wont take that long and I can get my paperwork before the end of the month and get the money into the bank and get stuff paid. Our current bank says they dont take "3rd party checks", otherwise we could just sign them over to our personal account. Nightmare!

Anyway, Elliot has his first cold, poor guy has snot running out of his nose like a faucet was turned on in his head. Sounds like Crystal might be coming down with something too. I hope it goes away before their trip up north on the 1st. He is crawling around now so well, he can really get going when he see's something he wants across the room. It's fun to watch him play, he's such a good kid, he will just sit and play with his toys on his own for hours!

Last night wasnt so fun as far as sleep goes, he couldnt sleep good cause of his nose, so we didnt sleep well either. Crystal just went down for a nap, I think I'm going to go and join her. Soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm sure Elliot will wake up :)

Pictures and Stuff

Well, last post I made said something about being better at posting regularly. Well, I'm not. I've been sewing like mad getting some purse orders started, some blocks put together for the retreat I'm going to in 18 days, and chasing Peanut.

Excellent update on Peanut - he can now crawl! It's entertaining to watch because he only uses one leg to push himself forward and he's mastered getting to almost where he wants to go and then stretching forward on his stomach to reach the toy, the cat, the remote that fell on the floor, anything his little fingers can grab onto.

And now onto the photos ~

Peanut and I at Oktober fest.
Uber nice day, high 80s and very relaxing.

Going on an early morning walk and it was a chilly 65 and windy.

Damn paparazzi!

Harvest moon from earlier this week as the sun was setting.
My first dust storm. Thankfully we were all safely inside.
Oopsie! Left the flash on and took this through our front window.
Another of the dust storm after the solid wall of brown dust passed our house.
And finally, if you've seen Larry the Cable Guy's movie Health Inspector, you'd know why we think this is the most hilarious thing we've seen on the road!

Mike's out of the shower, Peanut is full of Mama milk, and we're off to the Pumpkin Patch.

TTFN ~Crys

Long time no blog...

It's been awhile since I've done an update, so figured now would be a good time.

I've spent the last month driving back and forth to Pheonix to work with my dad every day and continue training in my new craft...well, old craft really of wood working, only now I'm learing to do it and make money doing it. I think my love of the work is whats making it so fun for me right now. I like it so much, it doesnt really feel like work, the 3 hour drive, 1.5 each direction is what makes me not like the days so much.

Last week however, Kent Weathersby, the man that owns the National company and gives out the franchises, came out to certify me. It was a long day with him, and I was nervous that I was going to screw something up, but at the end of the day, I was "cut", and had his blessing to go out on my own. 2 days later, Dad and I left for Las Vegas for a conference. That was Saturday, as luck would have it, the day after Crystals Mom and Dad came down for a visit. So, needless to say, I only got to spend part of a day with them before I had to leave, it sucked not getting to spend sometime with them and really bummed me out. Hopefully we will still be able to go back up there for Christmas, then I can really annoy them for a few days :) I know they are looking forward to that part of the trip.

Monday, Micah, Kent's daughter sent out the email notification that Weathersby Guild Tucson was open for business and ready to recieve moving claims from adjusters...today is Wednesday, and the fax machine has gone nuts already. 6 total jobs have come in during the last 2 days, not a huge amount of work, but a pretty darn good start so far. I have them all scheduled to be done this week, 3 jobs Friday, 2 on Monday, up in Phx to help dad Tuesday, finishing up some previous jobs here in Tucson w/ Dad, then another big job by myself for Thursday...already shaping up to be a busy week, but thats what gets the bills paid :) Assuming the fax machine keeps going off on a regular basis, we will be happy campers for sure.

Elliot is growing so fast, he's already wearing 12 month old sizes of clothing, and tomorrow he is 8 months old. His bottom 2 front teeth that came in are really starting to get big, he looks so cute when he smiles...not that he didnt before, but you know what I mean. I missed him terrible while I was in Vegas, made me very very home sick. He is very proficient at sitting himself up on his own now, very fun to watch him become more aware of what he can and cant do with his body. He likes to prop himself up on his hands and knees now, it should only be a few more days before he figures out how to walk, then we are in big big trouble.

It feels good to be open for business on our own now, things can only get better from here on out. I love working with my dad, but I'm ready to be done with the drive up and down to Phx on a daily basis. Lots to do tomorrow so I'm off to bed, I'll try to be better about updating this thing more often than I have been lately.

As we say down here by the border, adios!

The Latest

We haven't been very good at updating our blog like we used to. Mike has been very busy working, having an hour and 15-30 minute commute each way is making for some very long days and too short nights. The Plan has changed again. Sigh, you'd think I'd be used to the plan changing all the damn time, but I'm not. The latest was Mike's branch here in Tucson was going to up and opened yesterday, the 18th. Turns out that really isn't the plan. And we didn't find that out until the 16th. Now the new plan is we have to wait until he gets back from Vegas (Oct. 4th) for some convention thing and then he's suppose to be certified or whatever it's called by the man who owns the whole company and then we're on our own.....maybe, I guess. Keep your fingers crossed that whenever the opening day comes, work comes smoking in off our fax and Mike can quit having to drive way too far to start his work day. Can you tell I'm fed up too? Just a little. Not knowing is starting to take its toll on me as well. Maybe I should be the one in charge of the damn Plan?!

On a good note, we got a package the other day from Jen and the kids. Peanut has some new sandals and they are mighty cute. Bright green thongs. At first he kept scrunching up his toes and trying to eat them, but once he realized they aren't like socks and can't be simply pulled off, he moved on to a different thing to chew on. Big thank you to Jen for the present and the beautiful pictures of Peanut. All of the photographs she takes are photos to treasure. And thank you for the clothes and toy you got Peanut. Between drool, spit up milk, baby food, and rolling around on the floor, he's never able to wear his clothes the next day without a washing.

Some great and exciting news....Peanut's very first tooth popped through last Friday, the 15th (Happy 34 anniversary day for my folks!). The night before was pure torture for all of us. We got about 3 good hours of sleep, the rest of the time, we all were up and down since his poor little gums were so swollen and sore. Tylenol just wasn't kicking in fast enough for us all. I was too exhausted to try to think that sleeping on the couch propped up on me would of given us both a little more sleep. But it's here, and the very brief glimpses I get of it show it to be uber cute. Like I expected anything else out of my child. It's the bottom right tooth, and the bottom left is going to come through in the next couple of days.

Peanut will also sit up all by himself and play. He isn't able to push himself up to a sitting position yet, but if he's placed in one, he's now staying. Before, he could hold himself up but just didn't. Now it's no problem. And he can push himself up to a crawl position, but not strong enough to hold it for any length of time and doesn't know what to do once he's there. Some very slight rocking is going on which ends up into a nice face plant into the carpet or blanket and some screaming and Mommy flying to the rescue.

I've been experimenting with making Peanut's baby food and have had some success. Bananas, sweet potatoes, and avacadoes are easy, quick and some of his favorites. Squash didn't turn out quite like I wanted the first time and neither did my first attempt at sweet potatoes. Did ya know sweet potatoes in the US really aren't sweet potatoes at all, but are yams? No, I didn't either. But being the US, we had to mix things up and confuse poor baby food making moms like me into searching for the "real" sweet potatoes when the yams at the first grocery store were exactly what I needed. Ok, I'm over it now and Peanut has some real sweet potato in the fridge when he gets a little bigger and it's ok to give him that stuff.

Unpacking is *almost* done. Now we have the chore of finding spots to put all our stuff. Or moving it around again because the first spot just isn't good enough. More would be accomplished this week but my back went out again over the weekend so I'm on limited movement for the next week or so. It did force me to find a new chirportactor and she seems nice and can get my back adjusted. I go back on Thursday, and then hopefully once a week after that since it adds up expense wise in a hurry.

Ummm, not much more than that has been going on. Only 7 working days left until Mom and Dad come visit us. Woo hoo. And only a month and half until Peanut and I go home for the quilt retreat and a visit. My poor sewing machine(s) sit lonely and quiet since I don't have much time to organize all my stuff and get going on a new project or one of the many I have started. And school takes up most of my "spare" time. Almost done with this term and then I get a week break from school.

This is all for now. I gotta go jump in the shower. If Mike gets home in time tonight, I'm going to a fellowship meeting with a new friend. It's called After the Boxes and is for women who have recently moved to this area. Three good points about it: I get to meet some potential friends; I get time out of the house without Peanut where I can just be Crystal, I don't have to be Mommy; and it gives Mike good bonding time with Elliot.

Peanut is screaming at me and then smiles his uber cuteness at me when I look at him. I am now deaf. He has a very strong set of lungs and to listen to him now, you'd never think when he was born, his lung development was a worry for us all.

TTFN ~Crystal

3 Day weekend

Dad and Mom decided to take a trip up to the Grand Canyon this weekend, so I spent the last 2 days (Wednesday and Thursday) working by myself. Had 2 small jobs here in the Tucson area Wednesday and 4 jobs up in Pheonix yesterday. Both days were short and it felt good getting home at a decent hour and being able to spend some time with Crystal and Elliot for a change. Several times lately I've gotten home just in time to either help give Elliot a bath, or just take him out of Crystals arms and put him in bed...I dont much like those nights.

I asked my dad not to schedule anything for me today (Friday) so that we could all have a long weekend, and he obliged. So, today we are going to just sit back and relax alittle. We still have lots to do here around the house, including putting up some new ceiling fans we got yesterday at the Home Depot. I think they were maybe mislabeled or something cause they are the bigger 52" fans and have a nice brushed nickle housing, they were only labeled at 37.86 each, then they were having a fan sale and we got another 20% off of that price. In the end, we paid less for 2 than we thought we were going to pay for 1...I love shopping trips like that!

We drove the car up to the DMV yesterday to get it registered and to get our Drivers license numbers, turns out we have to have a notorized "power of attorney" from VW saying that we are allowed to register the car....lame. I cant wait to get pulled over for not having Arizona tags, thats going to be alot of fun. Crystal forgot her Birth Certificate so we couldnt get our licenses either, so we might go back up and do that today, havnt decided yet.

I think tomorrow we are going to take a drive out to the Suagaro National Park and check it out, then depending on how Elliot is doing in his car seat, we might hit the Air and Space Museum too. Then Sunday I think we will likely get more house work done, unpack a couple more odds and ends boxes, get some things hung up on the walls, stuff like that.

Crystals Mom and Dad come to visit in just 15 days! Then I leave the day after they get here for Vegas....kinda lame on their part to schedule a visit for when I'm leaving, just goes to show they hate me :) Just kiddin'...you dont really hate me do you? Come on! I'm so loveable!

Elliot is just days away from crawling, last night he finally got it all together, up on his knees, and up on his hands...just cant quite figure out what to do from there, so he moves both knees forward and falls down on his face. Then he gets mad cause it didnt turn out the way he wanted it to and starts to grunt. Hilarious! He's also making these new panting dog sounding noises, so I call him Dog boy, probably shouldnt do that much longer or he will develop some kind of a complex.

Crystal just got him to go back down for a nap, so I think I'm going to go in and try to "rest" my eyes too.

Moved into the new house...kinda

We moved into the new house last Friday, here its been almost a week and things are almost unpacked...I use the term "almost" very loosly. We still have a butt load of boxes to unpack, but hey..they arent going anywhere :)

Soon as we get things unpacked and organized, I'll get some pix up of the inside of the place. For now, you get other things to look at (sorry Ronda, no nudity in these).

Some of you may still be thinking we are crazy for moving to the surface of the sun...and you may be right..but thats not the point I'm trying to make here. The weather down here in Tucson (we are actually 25 miles north of Tucson) is actually alot more....tollerable....than it is up in Pheonix. Yes its still hot, but its a dry heat after all :) On most days, its about 10 degrees cooler here than it is up there. Which doesnt sound like a lot, but when its the difference between 107 and 97...trust me, its huge! I'm out in it every day working so I've become alot more used to it than Crystal is, after all, her day is filled with sitting and watching Oprah and eating bon bon's all day...soon as she reads that I'm going to get popped in the mouth, but its funny and sometimes you have to pay a price for good comedy :) (love ya honey!) Actually, my day is alot easier than her day is, she has to watch after a fussy 7 month old allllll dayyyyyy long. I'll take the heat! Its not that I dont love him, or want to be around him, its just alot of work..and I'm lazy...or it just seems alot harder after working all day then coming home to take over for awhile so mom can get her wits about her again.

The Monsoon rains have been sticking around alittle longer than they usually do, or at least the weather doofus on TV makes it sound that way. The other day it rained harder than I think I've ever seen rain fall before. Big huge drops of rain, and not just for a few minutes...I'm talking hours of heavy hard rain. It was actually kinda cool...in a weird, wet kind of way. For those of you that dont think water can fall on the surface of the sun...I have proof.

Thankfully, the rain stopped, and the sun came out. Not only did it come out, but it went down with a pretty good show that night. Once the rain stopped, we decided to go out and check out the area, so walking we went. Dont think we realized what good views we had til we were actually out walking around....here's some teaser's (see, the surface of the sun can be pretty at times!)




Well, thats all for now. I have to get up early...again. It's an hour drive to Dads house in the morning for work...then an hour back at the end of the day...ok I'm done complaining..gosh!

Peanut's new adventure

After feeding Peanut his dinner using the Bumbo during the last few weeks, we decided he needs a highchair. His new thing in the bumbo is to use his foot and try to push himself out of it or try to scoot along the counter to get to the sink. Trying to stop him creates a very large mess when I'm holding the bowl of baby food and forget to set it down in my panic that he's going to fall off the counter.

So, while Mike took a baby free nap today, Peanut and I hit Walmart to see what they had. We found one and it was cheap, so it's now assembled and in our very tiny apartment kitchen. The score between the highchair and not stubbing our toes is 2-0. Peanut wasn't too sure what to think about it at first, but when the food came shoveling into his mouth, he started loving it. He looks so tiny in it and his face barely clears the bottom of the tray. It's not the nice, wood chair that I wanted to get, but that has to be ordered online and it's a little more expensive than the $25 I paid at Walmart. Once we have a steady inflow of money, I'll get the one I want and sell this on cragis list or give it away to someone who needs it. Only 3 days until we move (again) and I can start unpacking and settling into our new home. It's very large, about 400 more square feet than our house in Vancouver, and I'll need to go shopping for furniture once I get the green light from Mike that it's ok to shop like I want to.

The weather has been HOT! Not a day below 102 and averaging 104-106. I hate having to put Peanut into the hot car and waiting for the a/c to cool off the backseat area for him. Usually he protests very loudly until he's taken back out again or falls asleep. Although, I'm hoping the crying-the-whole-way-home days are over. Peanut now has a cadillac version of a car seat. It's so soft, I want to sit in it. And it's a discontinued color so we got it for $60 less than it normally retails for. Britax seats come very highly recommended, are extremely safe, and my baby deserves the best, so he now has it. It has kept him cooler than his infant carrier, too.

Another good thing about a new carseat is I have to sew. Since Elliot is no longer in his infant car seat and can't be carried into stores and restaurants in it, he needs a basket cover for shopping carts and a cover for restaurant high chairs. I have the shopping cart one all cut out, and the Kenmore sewing machine Mom gave me is all set up and ready to begin. It looks fairly easy and I should have it done in the next couple of nights after Peanut goes to bed.

The quilt retreat I go to with my Mom and some online quilter friends of hers is the first weekend of November. My plane tickets were bought, car reservation made, and check for the retreat in the mail for Sonya all were done today. Now, I have no excuse to not make the retreat this year despite living 1,100 miles away from it. So for all our Washington/Oregon friends, Peanut and I will be visiting the rainy Pacific Northwest the first 2 weeks in November, so get your calendars ready for our lunch and dinner dates.

For now, I'm off to get some school reading finished. Did I mention only 3 days to move? Woot! I really miss having my stuff around me. I think that is a big part of why I still feel like this is a vacation with boxes instead of suitcases and not a permanent life change. On a good note, I have successfully ventured out into this strange city. I can navigate to Walmart, JoAnn Fabrics, Target, the post office, the cutest little quilt shop with a snooty owner, and a new hair salon. AND, I can make it back to our itsy bitsy apartment again. I am brave, just like the magnet on my fridge says I am.

TTFN ~Crys

Long over due

Ok, so I haven't posted in awhile, come down and sue me.

It's been a busy week and a half, so sit back and get ready to do some reading.

Work is still going well, learning something new each and every day. I have a book that I'm supposed to be reading and its very dry reading at best so its taking me a little longer than it should, hopefully I'm just in a section that doesn't flow that well and things will pick up. Otherwise, I love it! The work itself is a lot of fun, taking something that's all broken and beat up, and making it look like new again is just awesome. I think the best part about it is showing the people their finished product and hearing "geez, I cant even tell where the damage was"...good, that's what we like to hear. It's even more satisfying when you go into some of the houses that cost upwards of 750K plus and hear the snotty people that live there say that too :) Not that I have anything against snotty people, they are usually the ones w/ the money to be able to afford to move and therefore get their furniture damaged to put food on my families table, so...viva la snotty people!

In anticipation of having Tucson open for business soon, I decided it was time to go out and get myself a work truck. I originally wanted an F-150, mostly for selfish reasons (I love the look of them), but in the end, economically it just didn't make any sense to pay that much money for something I would only be using for work, so I ended up with a Dodge Ram Crew Cab. I took longer for the dealership to wash it and fill it with gas than it did to do the paperwork part, apparently they only have like 2 guys that do the detailing work...no where near enough, especially when your the busiest Dodge dealership in town. Anyway, while I was waiting for the truck to get washed, they were having a drawing for some prizes, so I decided to throw my name in the box to try and win something....I was totally expecting to get something like a free oil change or something, boy was I surprised 20 minutes later when they called my name and asked for me to come up to the front desk to collect my "prize". Turns out I won a 5.1 Megapixel Digital Camera (Samsung s500) and a 256 MB memory card to go with it, also, they threw in a free car wash, and the oil change! I couldn't believe it, works out great cause now I don't have to worry about getting a new camera for work! So, using the new camera, I took these pictures of the truck.















Last Saturday we went to Elliots first ever Major League baseball game. The Arizona Diamondbacks were hosting the Los Angeles Dodgers. Not even thinking (big shock) I figured it would be ok to take Elliot. The game started at 6:40 pm. Not such a bad time really, but when you consider he usually starts his bedtime routine around 7:30, it wasn't the best move I've ever made. He got tired and cranky towards the end, in fact, we decided to leave after the 9th inning when it was tied at 3 all. The night before they had gone 15 innings, not something we figured would be good to do w/ Elliot there. He fell asleep at the end of the game, but everytime the crowd cheered, it woke him up and startled him. So off we went, worked out great really cause just as we hit the sidewalk to head back to the truck, we heard them announce that the Dodgers had scored a run, turned out to be the game winner so we didn't miss much. Got out of the parking lot well ahead of everyone else and were on our way home, which was a screaming match for most of it.

We had some good seats though, Fridays has a restaurant out in left field, and they have seats you can get out on their balcony. Its a pretty good deal really, the seats were 65 bucks each, but then they give you 50% of that cost towards the purchase of food. So, we each got 32.50 to spend on food, more than enough for appetizer, dinner, and dessert. So that's what we did. This was our view of the field from our seats:














Elliot and his poppa at his first baseball game:














The bullpen right below our seats, not once during the game did anyone actually warm up...wonder if that had anything to do with them losing?














Uncle Mike and Elliot:














Grandma and Grandpa Grimm fighting over who

gets to hold Elliot:















Grandma won:















It was a fun weekend, long, but fun. Dad had some off the wall jobs scheduled for today and tomorrow, so no worky worky for me. We took today to run some errands and open a new bank account. Tomorrow morning I'm going to get the windows tinted on the truck, after getting the Jetta done, its a necessity, makes it so much more tolerable to get into the hot car when the windows are tinted, its amazing how much difference it makes. Tomorrow I'll be running some picture frames back to a customer and that will pretty much be the end of my day. That's enough typing for now, Elliot is down for a nap, so its peace and quiet time now....for the next 15 minutes anyway :) Friday is moving day, so as soon as we have internet back up, I'll get some pictures of the new house posted, inside and out, cant wait to get moved in!!!!!

Golden Jubilee!!!!!!!

Crystal and Elliot made it into town late Friday...actually...it was early Saturday morning, their flight was delayed 45 minutes. Crystal is still alittle (ok alot) sad that she had to leave her family behind, and that makes it hard on me too cause I feel like a total dirt bag for making her move, no matter how many times she says "you didnt make me"...like I dont know who wears the pants around here, sheesh.

Anyway, Saturday we got up and got going alot earlier than we normally do, not sure how that happened, but it was nice to get going early, now that I'm back on a "day shift" schedule, I enjoy getting up early and getting the day going.

We took off and got some breakfast, and then we stopped by Grandma and Grandpa Grimms house, Grandma Joy has some friends from Ohio in town and they were anxious to meet Elliot. So we stopped there for almost an hour and visited alittle. Then we left to head down to the Tucson area and look at some houses we saw for rent on Craigslist. One of the houses has been on there for a couple weeks, so I wasnt thinking it would still be available, but I emailed the poster last week and asked, and she said that it was still available, so we had an appointment to meet them at 2pm and look at the house. We had another one to look at that we were going to go alittle earlier to and check it out too. We were supposed to pull off the road at a certain intersection and meet the gal showing us the 2pm house, at 1:30 we rounded the corner and a car pulled over just as we did...so much for looking at the other one first. So we followed this gal to the house and were really surprised to see it was in a brand new housing development, houses across the street are still being built! So, we went in and looked around, the floor plan is awesome, its laid out in such a way that the living area's are all on one side of the house, and the bedrooms are on the other. The master bedroom is huge, plenty of room for our king size bed and all our bedroom furniture (cause we have alot you know!) then theres another bedroom just off the master, that will become Elliots room, once we move in he is going to start sleeping in his own bedroom. Then there is a bathroom that has connecting doors, one comes out near the master, and the other end comes out near the other 2 bedrooms, yup, we got a 4 bedroom house, woot! So, one of the other rooms is going to become a spare room for when family and friends come to visit, and the other is going to be our home office. The garage is a 2 and a half car (I'll wait while you scratch your head on that one) garage, so there will be plenty of room for Crystal to be able to park the car in the garage, and leave me with lots of room to have a shop area for working on the occasional piece of take home work I'll have. There is a seperate living room and family room in the house, so, we think the living room at the front of the house is going to become the sewing "den" for crystal to take over and do some mad sewing in there. Plus, its the only room, other than the bedrooms that has carpet in it, and since Elliot will be crawling soon, that will be a good area for them to hang out in. Heres a couple pix of the house, will post more once we move in. Oh, and as for the title of this entry..thats the name of the street our new home is on :) Oh, and here is the "development" we are in. http://www.gladdenfarms.com/

Just one more day!

Tomorrow night at this time, Crystal and my little man will be on a plane heading south to join me in the ovens of hell, er...I mean Arizona. I've missed them so much and cant wait to see them both. Being woken up in the middle of the night, smelly diapers, upchucking breakfast, a warm body to sleep next to, hugs and kisses from them both, its going to kick so much ass having them here with me. I still feel like somewhat of a dirt bag, I know its going to be hard on Crystal to be down here and away from her family, hopefully she can adopt mine and make some new friends quickly and that should help, that and the fact that plane fare back to portland really isnt that expensive to do on a somewhat regular basis :)

I'm going to miss her family too, they have all been very wonderful to me right from the start and thats not something that always happens now adays. I'll be looking forward to seeing them all this Christmas. Hopefully things will be going well and we can afford to bring them down once or twice a year too, that would thill me to no end and I know it would make Crystal happy too.

No work tomorrow, so going to go and get the windows tinted on the car to help keep Elliot out of the sun, then my uncle stu is coming up from Tucson and he,my dad and I are going to go and play a round of golf, same place Dad and I played at last week, its a good course and super cheap for only 15 bucks! With any luck (and it will take alot) I can beat them both. Off to bed and dreams of holding my babies.

**New cool thing seen today: Coyote crossing the freeway onramp in front of our van...didnt even flinch, and jumped up an 8' wall like it was a sidewalk curb, cool!**

Desert Gold!!!!!

No, not the precious metal type of gold, I'm talking about the crusty dust boogers you get from living in the desert. Yes, thats right, I'm talking about the usual greenish brown colored gems you usually get when you live in the pacific northwest, well down here in the southwest, its nothing but GOLD!!!! It's almost enough to start up a brand new modern day gold rush, except for the fact that they are kind of gross and no one likes to watch people dig for them in public...not that that stops people from doing it...I'm just saying.

Today marks my one week aniversary of arriving in hell, guess what? It's still HOT! It's actually not that bad anymore, I think I'm adjusting well, just not drinking enough water during the day, but I plan on stopping that, no more soda while I'm at work, from now on, just water. Speaking of water, saw another river today that runs thru town...or at least at one time it was a river, or it looks like it was maybe...now its just a dry desert area...slightly lower than the dry desert area around it. Oh well, its not like rivers dont dry up in other parts of the world...

It's been a good week at work so far, I'm enjoying learning all the different ways to fix the same problem, and learning the in's and out's of this industry, each and every day I feel better and better knowing it was the right decision. Dad says we should be able to open up Tucson the middle of September then its all down hill and lots of hard work from there out. I'm worrying about the money part, but I think thats just cause I'm not seeing a steady flow of it yet, I see my Dad getting money coming in, so I know its out there to be made, its just a matter of waiting for companies to pay you once you've gone out and fixed their boo boo's. From the looks of it, theres alot of it to be made too.

It was a long day, so I'm going to eat dinner and try to relax a little before bed. I'll end with some cool things I've seen so far during the last week.

1. On the drive here, saw a Mayflower moving truck flipped over on its side, with alot of furniture and boxes sprawled out on the freeway behind....can you say "cha ching!"

2. Lighting storms, darn near a daily occurance, for the most part they stay well on the other side of town from where we are, always fun to watch from a distance.

3. Prairie dogs, while I'm sure the golf course doesnt like them digging up the ground all the time, at least they stay to the dry barren dirt and dont mess w/ the grass too much. They leave big enough holes in the ground its hard for the kid in me to not rush out and buy some big fireworks and come back and toss them down their little holes :)

4. Black widow spider, ok, that really wasnt cool, but stepping on it was :)

5. A road runner. It didnt make the same noises as the one in the cartoons, nor did it have a coyote follwing it around...but still, not every day you see one of those.

6. The temperature gauge in the car hit 109...it rapidly went down to a cool 100 after I got it out from being parked in the sun however, so really wasnt that hot.

7. My dad royally botch up a piano that was built before the turn of the century, (the 1900 one, not the last one you boob), then work his magic and make it look brand new again.

8. 6 lane freeways stopped bumper to bumper..thankfully, we were going the other way :)

1,420 miles and one big left turn...

I've arrived, been here a couple days now but just got internet today.

What a long, and at most times boring drive. The scenery was nice enough, but not having anyone to talk to for that long was annoying at best...I wouldnt do well stranded on a desserted island. Nothing really exciting happened on the trip, mostly uneventful. Only really interesting thing I saw was a windmill farm between L.A. and Palm springs, those things are huge, and there were literally hundreds of them. This picture does it no justice, but its all I got.













I took some pictures with my camera phone, but none of them turned out good enough to post :(
It's hot..duh. 106 is the highest its been since I've been here, but adjusting to it pretty good so far...I think. My Dad and I went and played golf yesterday at a pretty sweet course that he's seen from the freeway and wanted to try out. I hadnt played in almost a year, but didnt do to badly considering...especially since he only beat me by 3 strokes, I can live with that. Got to see some cool wildlife out on the course, prairie dogs and a roadrunner. Along with a hawk that was flying low overhead waiting for one of the furry little prairie dogs to lower its gaurd just a touch. So far the only ugly thing I've seen was a black widow spider over at my Dads house out on the back porch, but...a size 12 nike was more than it could handle, so it now resides on the underside of my shoe.

Dad of course put me to work the very next day after I got here. Its good for me in the long run, but I think the drive and the heat is finally catching up to me, I dont think I'm doing anything tomorrow, other than sitting in the apartment and maybe...a very big maybe, unpacking a box or 2. I've pretty much made the decision that we are going to start looking for a house ASAP, I think Crystal will to once she sees how small the apartment is. Its hard going from your own home back to apartment living, I havnt heard a neighbor yet really, but I can tell you I wont like them when I do.

My dad, Joy (from now on I'm just going to call her Mom) and I all went to a Diamondbacks game tonight, thats baseball for those of you who dont know. It's easily been over 20 years since I've been to a major league baseball game, was pretty cool. I didnt know who the players were cause I dont follow it that much, but I think thats going to change, now that I'm going to have nights and weekends off, I'd love to get back to watching and following more major league sports, Baseball, Football, Basketball...all of which there are teams for here in the Phoenix area, so will be fun to go and watch them in person too, especially when Elliot gets older, that will be alot of fun. To top it off, they won tonight after a very shaky start, they almost looked like our softball team haha.

The work schedule this week looks pretty busy, but I'm hoping that will keep my mind busy too and not let me dwell on the fact that I keep coming home to an empty house, I hate that. I even miss getting woken up in the middle of the night by Elliot, now I just wake up thinking something is wrong cause I dont hear him..ugh, only 6 more days and they will be down here suffering in hell with me...err, I mean enjoying the sunshine :)

I'm exhausted, so I'm going to bed now. With any luck, I can get caught up on some sleep tonight. I may not even climb out of bed to go to the bathroom, and might not get up til after noon...yeah right, see you at 6 am.

Moving update

Quick update before I go to bed. Talked to Mike a little after 8 tonight and he had taken the freeway exit in Phoenix to get to his dad's house. He drove to Stockton, CA yesterday before finding a hotel for the night, then was back on the road at 6:30 this morning. The moving truck will be parked at his dad's for the night and Blackjack and Mike will be in another hotel. Joy's cat doesn't play well with others so they're getting their own room. Hopefully the hotel has a hot tub and Mike can try to ease the backache he has after driving for 12+ hours for 2 days. His plan is to work with his dad in the morning, hopefully get done quickly, go to the apartment and get our keys, go pick up the moving truck, back to the apartment and unload. Sometime in the unloading stage, he'll go back to the hotel and pick up Blackjack. Poor kitty has had a traumatic 3 days. Monday had way too many people in her house for her comfort plus all her cool hiding spots inbetween boxes and stuff in the living room were taken out, stayed the night at a strange house, then on the road for 2 very long days. That had to add about 20 kitty years to her life.

Peanut is doing well. I think he can tell Mike hasn't been here. Tonight when my dad got home and started talking, Peanut perked up and was looking around. And when I talk to Mike on the phone, Peanut looks around trying to find his dad. It's cute but in a sad way. We both really miss him. 8 days and 1 1/2 hour then we'll see him again.

Peanut now has a 2nd food added to his diet. In addition of his rice cereal, he now loves to eat squash. And squash really does make poop turn a uber nasty color of yellowish-green that I haven't seen before. I personally thing it needs some seasoning, but Peanut doesn't know that so he's loving it. One or 2 more days of squash then we'll add something new in. Could be peaches, bananas, or green beans. I'm not sure which yet. Hell, I'm still figuring out how much to give him and am wondering if there's a spot he doesn't get it no matter how hard I try to keep his hands away from his face while eating.

No pictures today. :( I don't have my camera usb cord and Mom doesn't have a memory stick drive thingy on her computer. I'm off to bed. I've quickly learned babies don't sleep as well in a new place as they do at home so I'm exhausted.....still.

TTFN ~Crystal

Zero Hour

It's time!

The boxes are packed, the walls are bare, the rooms are empty.

Getting up at the crack of dawn to take one more load of garbage and stuff we dont want anymore to the dump and goodwill. Then home to do alittle more organizing before its time to go get the truck. Pick up time for the truck is 0930, then people are showing up to help load at 1030. Hope to be done and out of the house by noon, take everyone to pizza, then back here one last time to take a shower. Supposed to call the new owners sometime in the afternoon to arrange dropping off the key with them. Then up early Tuesday morning to hit the road. Woot!!! I'm going to try like hell to do the drive in 2 days, means long driving, but what else do I have to do?

Will try and take some pix along the way and update Saturday, internet getting installed that morning at 0800, going off the grid til then.

Family reunion, it's HOT, and 1 word

HAPPY 6Month BIRTHDAY BIG BOY PEANUT! Yes, so hard to believe 6 months has flown by, but my wimpy white boy is now a whopping 16 lbs 5 ounces and getting heavier by the hour. We had a busy day today and I forgot my camera (bad mommy) so here' s a new picture from last week at my parents. Soon green green grass like this will be a distant, fond memory as brown becomes the new color of choice in my landscaping. Tomorrow 6month photos will be taken and added to the gajillion on my computer that I already have.

Today was my mom's family reunion. I haven't been for 3 years because of the crappy work schedule I had and since we're unemployed, we finally made it to one. Lots of people I don't know and a few that I do. The few that I do make these functions worth it since I rarely see them and most are getting up on the years. 70's and beyond (I think). Grandpa and some great aunts and a great uncle who I only see at the reunions got to see/meet Elliot and Mike. That seemed important to me this year since we pack up the moving truck in 2 days and I don't know when we'll be able to see them again. It was fun - good potluck food, warm weather, long walk with Mike, Peanut in his stroller, and my niece Taylor. And I did a horrible mom thing and forgot my camera. Thankfully, Mom brought hers so we got some pictures out of the day. I have to burn them to a disc since she's in the boonies and still has dial-up. Oh boy, dial-up. Slow as molasses loading pages is what I get to subject myself to over the next 14 days as Peanut and I live at home for a little while before making our move to Arizona.

And what is with everyone exclaiming like we didn't know that Arizona is hot when we tell them that will be our new home?! We know, seriously, we do. Yes it's hot, but so is California, Texas, the south, the east, the midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and Haiwaii in the summer time, but only Arizona get's the "Didcha know it's hot?!" Umm, yes. And yes, everywhere has a/c so quit looking at me like I hate my baby and going to make him play outside when it's 120.

Our house is no longer ours. :( It's almost tramatic for me. I look around as see the day we moved in, the day we put Peanut's furniture together in the nursery he never slept in, the ugly carpet we ripped out as soon as we could, the work Mike has busted his arse to get done, even the stupid fracking dog behind us who barks at nothing and everything. Then I think that we'll have the luxury of raising our perfect child without the help of daycare and we can't do that here so Arizona - here we come and a/c please please I beg of you, work strong and keep my family comfortable when it's hot.

And now here's something for your reading pleasure (not that kind of pleasure you sickos)

One Word for -
1. Yourself: stressed
2. Your partner: dependable
3. Your hair: bobbish
4. Your Mother: quilty
5. Your Father: strong
6. Your favorite item: fabric
7. Your dream last night: weird
8. Your favorite drink: pepsi
9. Your dream home: log cabin
10. The room you are in: living room aka moving headquarters
11. Your pleasure: Peanut
12. Your fear: separation
13. Where you want to be in ten years: mountains
14. Who you hung out with last night: Mike
15. What you're not: toned
16. Your best friend: Mike
17. One of your wish list items: health
18. Your gender: female
19. The last thing you did: put Peanut to bed
20. What you are wearing: old tshirt and underroos
21. Your favorite weather: Autumn
22. Your favorite book: Little House on the Prairie
23. Last thing you ate: yogurt
24. Your life: frantic
25. Your mood: exhausted
26. The last person you talked to on the phone: Mom
27. Who you are thinking about right now: family

Mike just got back with Subway for dinner so TTFN ~ Crys

Cha Ching!!!!

We need to sell houses more often, picking up checks with 5 digits before the decimal point is awesome!!!!

I wont state a number, cause that just doesn't seem cool to do, but believe me when I say, it was a good number. Will be able to support us down in Arizona for about 4 months (maybe a hair longer) if we really needed it, with any luck, we will be able to get set up in Tucson and get some steady income rolling in and use some of the house money to pay off some bills, or buy me some new toys, whichever :)

Crystal bought her plane ticket down today, her and Elliot will be coming down to meet me in Arizona the 18th, so anyone that's here in town that wants to see her and the baby before she leaves, call her and make it happen.

Dad and I, and maybe Joy (last I heard she was still on the fence about going) have a conference to go to in October. Means I will miss Crystals bday, but I have a gift in mind that will hopefully sooth her over :) Much to my disgust (ha, yeah right!) the conference is in Las Vegas (WOOT!!!!) so I used my timeshare to get us a room down there, 2 bedrooms, no view (not that there is much of a view from the resort anyway) but doesn't cost us anything for the 4 nights we are there, god I love that thing, once its paid off it will be soooooo nice to have that thing around. There's even a resort just outside of Tucson, so anyone that wants to come down, get in touch w/ me and I'll see if I can get you a room.

Our good friend Ronda has posted a poem on her blog in our...honor? She is talented beyond belief, and I'm not even considering the fact that she can belch the alphabet in 3 different languages :) just kidding, I think its really only one language, but who's counting?

EDIT: I have been informed that she can also do it backwards, while I'm still waiting for visual and audible verification, I'm going to take her word for it.

You can see her handy work here :

http://rolandaandstuart.blogspot.com/2006/08/ode-to-odor.html

Thank goodness her and Steven are coming down for the Superbowl/Elliots 1st Bday. They are really going to be missed, not to say Crystals family and my lil' bro and his family and big mike or anyone else wont be missed, its just that these 2 hold some very special spots in our hearts...now I need a tissue...great.

Off to do "MORE" packing, good grief, when does it all end! I don't remember buying half the crap we have packed already! Going to need another midnight run to Walmart for boxes I think, oh goodie, as if that place wasn't crawling with freaks in the middle of the day, midnight is even worse, "the night time, is the right time" as my cult used to chant...oh well, that's a different blog entry all together :) 3 days to go!

Last time I do that crap!

Mowing the lawn that is. With any luck, today was my last lawn mowing experience. With only 3 more full days in the house (wow, thats not many) I dont care if some weeds grow now, the buyers can mow it...after all, we are leaving them the lawn mower. And good ridance if you ask me, long time ago I ran over a good sized rock with that thing, and its never been the same since. It has a wicked shimmy to it, I think the shaft going up into the engine is bent, not good...oh well. Its free, so they can like it til it dies...which probably wont be long, hehe.

Got up to the title company today and got our paperwork filled out. Let me just say this about selling a house...doing the paper work when selling is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy easier than doing it when you buy! I think we had a total of 10 pieces of paper that had to be signed, initialed or what have you. By far out weighs the cajillion you do when you buy. Our final number on the house was pretty good, not as high as we would have like (is it ever?) but its enough to get us down to Arizona and have a couple of months where we dont have to worry about money coming in really. Its going to be tight, but I think we can do it. Since it wont take as long as initially thought for me to finish my training, that will help. We can get down into the Tucson area and get our own franchise up and running faster than first thought, then we can get some steady income coming in.

Crystal got a good amount of packing done today, I did a little, but nothing like she did. I just wasnt feeling up to it today, the last 2 days have been brutal allergy wise. Tomorrow, allergy attack or not, I'll be working on getting things into the garage for monday, I figure if everything, or almost everything is in the garage, will make it alot easier to load the truck when the time comes. Only thing we should have to deal with Monday morning, is our computers and the bed. If I have my way, it will only be the bed. I might as well stay up alittle late and get the computers taken down and packed up before bed, wont really need them in the morning anyway. It will be all business that morning, load load load! Looks like a couple people have bagged out on helping me load the truck, doesnt really surprise me...lets you know who your real friends are, they figure I'm leaving the state so what do they care if they dont come thru for me? Oh well, piss on em. It will get done anyway, Steve and Ronda will be here, and those two are the best friends anyone could ask for anyway. John and Lara will be here too, also good friends, wish we would have had the time to get closer to them, but just didnt happen. Oh well, we will be back up here to visit in the future, so we will just have to get together with them then.

Off to bed, my eyes are burning, and for the first time today, I dont think its allergy related.