What we are doing....

We had a busy and productive day today. Douglas didn’t have anything at the school so he was home with us all day and that was nice. I love having him here. It is nice to have the companionship and help with the kids. He usually lets me sleep in too, which is SO nice. I don’t know what it is though, when he is home, I feel like the house goes to shambles. I think it sort of throws my routine off so I don’t keep up on things like I normally do. Oh well, I would rather have him here and a messy house than away.

He spent a little time in the yard trimming some vines and edging. I don’t know how to use the edger yet so I asked him to do it. I think he is thrilled that I have been mowing the lawn so is willing to do anything to motivate me to continue with it ! He also put up some cupboards in my office. I think I will finally have enough room for all of my work, office stuff which is so exciting! My office is finally in order and it makes me excited to sit down and work again. I enjoy working, though the stress of fitting it into my life is hard. I don’t like to sit at the computer and leave the kids to fend for themselves too long, nor do I want them to remember me always being on my computer, so I really try to limit my daytime work. Unfortunately though, there is never enough time in the evening after they go to bed to get it all done. It has been a constant stress and worry for me, since I have had my photography business, to figure out where it fits into things. It will be even more challenging now that I am going to be the “bread winner” while Douglas is in school and instead of just using my earnings as “play money”, I will actually have to be responsible with it and use it for living.

That spells STRESS and ANXIETY for me. So, in an attempt to forget about it (haha) we will move on!

I have this really great pink, oversized, stuffed chair that I use as a photo prop. It is my favorite prop, I would say. I have hauled that thing all over the place. I love it. Sadly, though, it got pretty beat up on the trip out here. Something must have rubbed and rubbed it because when we got here there was a rather large hole in the back and one on the arm. I was very sad about it. I may have even shed a few tears over it. It seems so silly, but finding chairs and things for pictures is actually quite hard. You want it to be unique, yet not have to pay a ton for it. This chair fit the bill. Now, it is damaged to the point that it is really unusable. We went out to a shop to see what they would charge to recover it…$500-800. YIKES!!! I think I only paid around $150 for it in the first place! So, I have a dilemma as to what to do. I know there are many people out there who recover things themselves and claim it isn’t hard, but I don’t know. I guess at this point, what do I have to lose (except some of my sanity). Who knows, I may brave it. We will see.

The kids still love playing outside. We have a power line that runs between our the yards and every morning you will see squirrels walking across them. Without fail one of the kids will yell out “high wiring squirrel”. It is yet to get old to them. You see squirrels everywhere here. It is kind of fun. The weather has been awesome. There is little wind though so even with the windows open, the house won’t cool off. It is so strange. Last night I was so uncomfortable that I finally closed the windows back up and turned the AC on. It seems a shame to run the AC when it is only 75 or 80 degrees outside. Douglas says that all the trees kind of stop the wind, whereas in Santa Clara there is little to stop it so it just comes howling through. The kids found a bunch of ropes outside and occupy themselves for long period tying them up to things and making boobie traps. They will tie it to the porch swing and one of them will sit on it while the other goes half way across the yard and pull it back and forth to swing them.

I decided to make a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan for dinner. It is a Weight Watcher recipe that a friend posted online. It looked good and Douglas and I need to start eating healthy again. We had been out in the afternoon, but I figured I would just get home and whip it up…little did I realize that I had to salt the eggplant first, then precook it, than assemble the pan and then cook that. At 6:30pm I finally decided to just clean out the fridge and eat leftovers. The kids were starving and I was feeling ready to get them into bed. I went ahead and finished assembling it and put it in the fridge for tomorrow. I have to say that it doesn’t look very good, but I will stay open minded! It reminds me of a dinner I made for Douglas shortly after we were married. I found it in my Everyday Food magazine and who knows what possessed me to try it out. It was fairly simple…bowtie pasta, peas and ham. Not deli ham, large cubes of ham. Not knowing what type of ham to buy I bought some boiled ham at the deli counter. I went home and made this dinner for Douglas to have when he got home from work. It had kind of a cream sauce on top of it. Well, by the time I finished making it, it smelled so repugnant that I couldn’t will myself to try it. Douglas got home from work that night and, you know Douglas, he is good about eating anything. Well, he opened the Tupperware with the Bowties and peas and he couldn’t bring himself to try it either. It was that bad. I think it was the ham. We still laugh about how gross it was. I think that was my biggest cooking flop since we got married.

It wasn’t as messy as the time he made me a birthday cake and after changing his mind on the pan to cook it in, ended up cooking the entire thing in one 9” round cake pan. When I got home from school there was cake batter all over the counter and baked into the oven. It was such a mess. Since then I have kindly offered to make my own birthday cake. Haha!!

My neighbor Mary has brought us SO MANY tomatoes. And, before she brought them over I had bought some at Costco. So, tomorrow I will be making some black bean salsa and anything else I can think of. I may dehydrate some. We also picked a quart of raspberries off the bushes out back. Paige comes in with a handful of raspberries almost every time she comes in! There are also places you can go where you pay to pick raspberries. I promised the kids I will take them out there.

Tomorrow we go to the zoo (most likely) with a friend of my friend Staci Barlow. She connected us before we moved out here and we were in contact this week and she invited us to the zoo with her and some girls from her ward. It should be fun and I am sure the kids will love being with some other kids. So far we haven’t seen too many kids in the neighborhood and we are looking forward to meeting some.

That’s it I guess! I am feeling happier today, but feeling like I am coming down with a cold. I haven’t been sleeping well which is the pits. There is nothing worse than waking up a million times at night. Hope tonight is a better night.

I am posting some pictures I took of Jackson before we left St. George. I can’t believe how grown up he looks. I don’t know whether to be sad or happy about it. I love to watch him grow and learn, but it seems to pass so quickly!

So, I am feeling a little more love tonight. Little did I know, that when I turned “comment moderation” on, I actually had to moderate the comments. It was really only on to get emails to go private, but I forgot to change it after. I have to say I was feeling really sad for myself to come onto my blog and see that no one had commented. I just figured that I had already been forgotten.


Well, I have figured out how to get Paige to go to sleep at night. I have been reading Harry Potter to the kids each night and within minutes she is zonked. I guess it is lost on her, but really, it seems genius to me…read a good book and get my daughter to sleep at the same time? Win, win, if you ask me. There is nothing quite as nice as the quiet in the house after the kids go to sleep. So peaceful. Today was a day of little of that. The kids have been fighting non stop the last few days. We had “quiet time” a few times today just so I could separate them. Paige is a totally different girl when J isn’t around. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when they are the best of friends, but she is at her worst when he is around as well. When she is alone she will play and pretend forever. If I take just her out on errands she is pleasant and chatty and happy. I really think having J at school will be a good for her and their relationship. They will have time together when he gets home, but not so much that they are cut throat with each other.

(one of the moments where the actually are getting along.)

Well, the high today was 69*. This is how a summer should be J. I know come winter, I will be singing a different tune, but for now, I will enjoy each beautiful day!

Today was the first day at church that someone made an effort to talk to me. That being said, there was a new girl today and I made a big effort to talk to her and get to know her. It is so hard to be the new person (and since I am three weeks into it, I am the old timer??). This girl was nice, she came up to me after and we chatted for a good five minutes. It is just nice to know that someone may want to get to know me. I, of course, am not the type to just sit around and wait for it all to happen, I will make it happen (I have to much of a social need to not), but it takes a little while for me to feel the desire to do it. It really lifted my spirits, I must say. Isn’t that silly, one person talking to me making such a difference?

We taught our Sunday school class for the first time today. We teach the same lessons as the Gospel Doctrine class (a little more simplified, of course). Today was on Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. It was a nice class…16-18 year olds. It is nice because they know how to use their scriptures and are thoughtful. I had to pull quite a few of the answers out of them, but hopefully that will get easier with time. I once had someone tell me (not in a kind way) that I don’t know how to relate to teenagers, but I actually really enjoy working with teenagers and feel like I do relate well to them. Gosh, I still feel like one some days. We made some scotcheroos for after the lesson, so the truth is, it didn’t matter what I taught them…they would remember it as a good lesson because of the treat, right??

I got another calling as well as the Relief Society Meetings Leader (aka Enrichment Leader). Not quite sure why they had to rename it something so plain. I feel a little Anne Shirley-ish saying that, but really “Relief Society Meetings”. Can we not be any more boring in the naming process? I am really excited for this calling. I have always wanted to work in Enrichment (much quicker to type Enrichment too!!). I am not the type to stamp napkins and make everything completely cute and perfect, but I sort of feel like a party planner. Maybe that is the wrong take on it, but I get to plan get togethers for a bunch of women. I think the prospect is fun. We will see, I suppose.

So Douglas was gone most of the week. It was a little depressing to be here alone, especially in the evening. We get the network stations on the TV without having to pay for cable, but do you know what was on EVERY night after the kids went to bed?? Murder shows, crime shows, etc. Not exactly what I want to watch in the evenings, alone, in a new house. Why can’t their be good, light hearted shows on anymore.

Which reminds me, in relief society today we talked about the things we do in our lives that aren’t great…I think the term was “marginal (can’t remember the second word)”. You know, the things that aren’t bad, per se, but also don’t invite the Spirit into our lives. TV and movies were talked about as some good examples…the ones that have a scene or two that are less than stellar. It made me think a bit about what I watch. There are so few things that don’t have a questionable scene or things in it that are against what we stand for. Sometimes I think it is so hard to know where to draw the line. Do we just turn the TV off all together? Do we allow one negative thing? I really don’t know. I know there are some shows that I like that are entertaining, but really show worldly things. The reality is that I probably shouldn’t watch them. Am I that good that I can just commit not to? Just fodder for thought, I guess. I need to decide where I stand on some of these things.

Douglas will unofficially start school tomorrow. His official class work doesn’t start until the 7th of September, but he has a math type of course that he will take tomorrow and Tuesday to get him up to speed on some things and then orientation, get to know you, leadership meetings until the official day. Am I ready to have him gone? Not at all. I think it will be a hard transition. Luckily, the house is really starting to some together. My office and studio are still in shambles, but I think I can get the office done if I just set my mind to it. The studio will be easy too, once Douglas cleans his stuff up. We bought some simple pine chairs to go around the kitchen table that came in the house and I spent Friday painting those. I did each a different color…red, green, blue and yellow. Not primary colors…more muted, but they look really cute. I found some fabric at Joann’s and will make some chair covers and I think they will add a lot of personality to the kitchen. I am excited. What really overwhelms me in the house is decorating! I have so many things I love, but I don’t know where to begin. I have about a hundred great pictures to put up, but it is so hard to decide where. Ahhh…Once they are up, it will really start feeling like my home.

I finally did my big grocery store run yesterday. It is nice to finally feel like I have a stocked house. They have a great farmers market where you can buy all sorts of good produce. We went on Wednesday and bought an eggplant. I have never cooked with it, but I was interested in trying a “light” eggplant parmesan recipe a friend posted on Facebook. We will see if it is worth it!

(only a portion of the loot...I made another run later to get meat, produce and dairy! Nice to have a stocked fridge again!)

Paige just woke crying. I hurried in to take her potty since that is usually why she starts crying at night. I got her as far as the bathroom door and she started peed all over me. Yuck. She did this same thing the other night except she just got up and peed all over her new rug. Sometimes I just scratch my head with my kids. Who knows why they do what they do. This is very unlike Miss P! So, a load of wash with the bathroom rugs is running. Good thing they needed to be cleaned anyway. I am actually perplexed because I have unpacked all the boxes and I am missing my bathroom rugs. I guess I must have decided to get rid of them when I was packing. Who knows what I was thinking!!

The realtor who manages the house finally sent out an electrician to fix the plugs and lights that didn’t work in the house. I was using a flashlight to navigate around the portion of the storage room that I turned into a “pantry”. It was kind of tricky to say the least. The washer also gave me problems while Douglas was gone. It worked great until the “cold” rinse came on and then only a small trickle of water would come into the wash. It would take two hours to fill enough for the cycle to finish! I didn’t feel like waiting until Douglas got back in town, so I just got a pair of pliers out of his tool box, turned the water off, unscrewed the water tube, cleaned it out, reattached it and it worked like a charm again. I was pretty proud of myself! I also mowed the lawn this week…first time ever in my life. Don’t tell Douglas, but I kind of enjoyed it! All his complaining about mowing, and it really is no big deal!! I think I will mow it again tomorrow. It makes such a difference in how the yard looks.

Douglas had a great trip and interview in St. Louis. He won’t hear anything for a few weeks, but he felt really good about things. He said all the people there interviewing were really sharp though, so we will see. I have learned through life experience that things happen as they should do I won’t hold my breath. If it is right for our family, it will happen.

I made a yummy dinner tonight…shrimp and grits…a recipe Douglas’ sister shared with me. It was delicious. We had it with fresh, local corn and a local watermelon variety which has yellow meat inside. Douglas’ school friend Hassan came for dinner. It was fun to have company. Cooking for people is so much more fun than just my family. Douglas is always very appreciative, but it is definitely lost on the kids!! They usually just complain.

(Paige wanted a picture taken...I got this first until I told her not to make a scary face...then I got this...I think she got the pose from her friend Ally.)


cute little girl!

It was a melancholy sort of day. Douglas has been gone a lot more for school things the last few days and I have been left in a disorganized house with two whirlwind of children. They are fighting plenty, but also enjoying each other. They like to tie a rope to the swing or their bikes and pull each other around.
They will be laughing and having a great time and the next second they are beating on each other. They are little stinkers. We cleaned up the basement which is nice now. I vacuumed, but the carpet is pretty junky (as is my vacuum...I think) and I had to empty lint out of it about 4 times...YUCK!! It is nice to have it cleaned up. I am not sure how to organize it all yet, but that will come.

Douglas got the desk in my office put together.

It will work out perfectly. It gives me a lot of space to work. Now, I need to empty all the boxes. Douglas leaves tomorrow for St. Louis. I am not ready to be home alone. I will have to make a sweet treat and eat away my loneliness ;).

We have a great neighbor who brings us things throughout the day. She brought me an enormous basket of basil yesterday:

so today I made 5 batches of pesto and froze it. I was so sick of pulling leaves off basil stems! I made a yummy dinner of chicken, peppers, pasta and pesto with some of it. She also brought over corn, huge jalapeno peppers (that I think I will stuff...never tried, but sounds interesting), a HUGE cantaloupe, watermelon and another variety of melon. Oh yes, and seeds. When she comes over she just chats away. Sometimes you have things to get done and she will go on and on. Good thing she is such a kind person! She is very thoughtful and aware of us. She even sent Jackson home yesterday when he decided to run away.

That is that folks...nothing else of interest to tell. We are surviving and I am enjoying the cooler summer days. I have the windows open to let in the cool breeze as we speak! Be jealous west coasters!

So, after a long, but fairly uneventful flight from Vegas to Detroit, Douglas picked me up and brought me home to this:


kitchen looking into the dining/living room

one half of basement

other half

kitchen

master bedroom

and a little more of this:

entry way

living room

kitchen looking to the backyard

To say that I was a little overwhelmed would be the understatement of the century. I didn't even know where to begin. But, slowly we have unpacked and found homes for everything. It has required a boatload in shelving, but we are getting things organized and sort of enjoying the process. Douglas made us a bed platform last week that allows him to store his clothes under the bed (the closet is TINY in the spare room). His hanging clothing is in the closet downstairs (how is that for a nice hubby?). The platform puts our bed about 4.5 feet off the floor, but who doesn't love having to climb a ladder to get into bed? (Pictures are forthcoming...once I unpack the camera charger).

Luckily, we have this in the backyard...

They LOVE it...and having a yard to play in and a place to ride bikes and swings.

The only bad part is the it is SO humid here. I never thought it made that much of a difference, but it does. It is only in the high 80's but go outside and you are soaked. I went running Saturday and though the temperature didn't bother me, I was sweatier than I think I have ever been in my life.

We got creative though and created a table out of a box and some seats out of #10 cans. Water bottles worked great as cups too...it took us a while to find those.

We have come a long way since Saturday. It is pricey to move!! But, we have almost all the boxes emptied minus my office. Not everything has a home yet, or is completely organized, but it is definitely coming along. We will put my office furniture (thank you IKEA) together tomorrow and when Douglas leaves town on Wednesday (interview in St. Louis) I will tackle that beast.

We are enjoying the area though. It is green and lush. We went to one of the many parks today that consists of bridges crossing the Huron River (rivers are a much different thing out here...they are huge). There were huge patches of lilly pads, geese, swans, ducks, and arbors of trees. The kids loved running across the bridges and looking for turtles and fish in the water. It was a lot of fun. We want to rent a canoe soon. We are going to try and enjoy the area.

Well, there is a little update on our lives...we have been doing a lot of unpacking, insurance, etc.

Good times.

Missing home, but trying to embrace this area. Sundays are the hardest day of the week...that is when I really am aware that something isn't quite right. I go to church and the building is filled with a bunch of strange people. We got callings today...we teach one of the youth sunday school classes and Douglas is a cub scout leader. It will be nice to have a purpose and especially to get out of Gospel Doctine.

I will attach a letter that I wrote to my Grandma last week...read it if you really want to, but no hard feelings if you don't ;). Until next time...I will read my People magazine and unpack some more.

Well, we made it. Phew. It is crazy traveling alone with two kids. We got to the airport in just enough time to walk right on the place. We waited in line to go through security FOREVER. I had wanted to stop and get the kids some breakfast and drinks, but there was no time. I was glad I had made peanut butter sandwiches before I left! We had lots of snacks and candy too, so they didn't complain. This was the first time I had flown on "Spirit Air" and is was kind of lame. You have to pay for everything, including drinks on the plane...nothing is complimentary. So, I got each of the kids an apple juice and they drank that through the trip. They kept themselves pretty busy watching movies and playing on their "Leapsters" which are little educational, handheld video game machines. Really, they were really good for having to sit in a seat for three and a half hours and being my kids! Douglas and George met us at baggage claim and helped us out with all the gear we had. By the way, I was SO glad my mom took us out there. I don't know how I would have gotten everything in on my own!! We took George straight to his flight after we got loaded up. It was nice to see him for a minute before he went back to GA. The drive from the Detroit airport to Ann Arbor is only about 20 minutes. I was STARVING when we got to Ann Arbor. The kind of hungry where you don't want to eat or make a decision as to what to eat because you are so hungy. And I was thirsty because I was too cheap to buy another drink on the plane. Actually, it was principle...I think it is ridiculous to get charged $3.00 for a drink on a plane. I wasn't going to make the kids suffer for my "principles" though so they were okay. We came to the house which is PACKED with boxes and stuff. Yikes!! We went to the back patio to eat because there was no where in the house. The kids had no interest in eating though...they just wanted to run around and play on the jungle jim.We met our neighbors as well. The fence between the yards is low so you can see into each others yards. The woman is a little older and very thoughtful and nice. Her name is Mary and she has brought us veges, newspapers, bug spray, etc. She is the kind of neighbor you see in movies...always knows what is going on. Okay, I will call it what it is...she is a busybody...but a nice one, so I think she will be great to live by. There are some kids we heard playing in the yard behind us (can't see over that fence) and I am hopeful to find some friends for the kiddos. Our first goal was to get the kids a place to feel comfortable and at home. We unpacked their room fairly quickly. It was tricky trying to find the sheets and necessary stuff, but we did! We need to go buy P a simple bedframe. Here we got her a bunk bed and we won't even use it at this house. There is a built in loft bed that J is sleeping on and Paige will be on a bed underneath coming out in an L shape. I have most of their clothing hung up and put away and we filled the built in shelves with books. The kids have been happy and having fun which makes me happy. I try really hard to stay upbeat and positive for them. We need to add another hanging rod in their closet tomorrow (the closets are TINY) and I want to put a few rugs down so they can comfortable sit and play in their room. The whole main floor is hardwood so it needs a little warming up to make it feel homey. We are going to go to a carpet store and see about buying a remnant and having the edge bound to put in the family room. A lot of our things got banged up along the way. That was kind of discouraging. We thought we had packed everything really well, but I guess it needed more. Live and learn. I will just make the best of it. I went with Paige to Target last night to get some essentials that we needed...cleaning supplies, shampoo for the kids, some food. It is about a mile away which I will love!! Paige looked like a little orphan girl...I forgot her shoes and she was dirty from playing outside. I at least wiped her face before we went in :)! We have been unpacking a ton. We work so hard and it seems to take forever to see progress!! I worked hard on the kitchen and it is starting to take shape. The stairs to the basement are right of the kitchen and then the door to the storage room is right off the stairs so we got some shelve to make a pantry down there. The kitchen is too small to even attempt to keep the food in there. I think it will work out nicely. I got all the food I brought (yes, I was crazy enough to haul food across the country...but glad to have it and not have to buy it!) organized on the shelves. We also got a shelf to put my extra cooking supplies...pans I don't use all the time, china, etc. We have to get creative to make it all fit!! Once again, not an ideal set up, but I think it will work great for the two years we are here! There are also some cut out shelves in the kitchen that are meant for decor, I think, but I am going to make some cute curtains to cover them and put more kitchen stuff in them. I have a lot of kitchen stuff! I use all of it though so, we brought it. Good thing I love to cook! I can't wait to put the kitchen to use! I have eaten out so much in the last month and am ready to have a healthier diet!! I miss cooking too. Our ward meets at 9am. I am happy and sad about this...no more sleeping in on Sunday morning! It came early today though! I am still on Utah time so 7am is 5am to me...and considering that I slept only four hours the night before, I was tired.