Somedays...

So I am kind of frustrated. I got an email from my MIL saying that whenever we are interested in getting some Christmas gift ideas for their family, to let her know, because Adam didn't seem too receptive when she was trying to tell him the other day. Argh! Yes, I love Christmas, and I love getting gifts for people. But this year, it's a little difficult. With moving and everything, things are extremely tight. We went almost a month without a paycheck - finally got paid last Friday, inculding a moving bonus, which after taxes 1/3 of it is already gone. We had nothing in savings. Had to borrow from my parents just to make last months rent payment and have a little money for groceries and stuff. So half the moving bonus will be gone after paying my parents back, which means it will help for only the next 1 or 2 months making rent/mortgage payments. Unfortunately with his new job, Adam did not get an increase in pay. So he's making the same amount as before. Which we were getting by on, but there wasn't much left over. So now we have to survive on that same amount, but now we are paying a mortgage and rent, and utilities on 2 places. After just the mortgage, rent, car payment, and studetn loans, that leaves us with maybe $300-400, which is nowhere near enough to cover just the remaining bills (utitlities, cell phones, renters/homeowners/car insurance, etc), much less groceries, gas, unexpected expenses. I have my orientation this week for subbing in the Duluth district, but there are no guarantees that I will be workgin regularly. For awhile, I had been having major anxiety issues, just worrying about all of our money issues. Now I thought I had things under control with all of my anxiety, but all of the sudden we're like bombarded with Christmas ideas for the whole family. ARGH.... So Adam was trying to explain this again to his mom last night, and she was like, I know that's, why I'm giving you cheap ideas. Some of the ideas were somewhat low cost, others were not. But either way, they are all more than we can afford at the moment. And some of the family members would be very offended if we didnt' get them anything. It's so difficult sometimes. I would say I'd just make things for everyone, but I really don't have a stockpile of supplies laying around, so it would probably cost me more to get stuff to make anything than it would be to just go buy something cheap. At least my parents have already told us (over a month ago) to not even think about getting them anything - and that my grandparents would all understand too if we can't get them anything. So I guess that's a little bit of help. Although more than likely we'll get everybody something, just cuz I'd feel horrible getting all of Adam's family presents and oh too bad for my family. Frustrating. So I guess we could use some prayers - that our house would sell SOON, that I will be able to work and make some money to help, that we would be able to stretch what money we do have as much as possible.

On another note, there's a BX (military store - kind of a general store) right across the road from where Adam works. It's in an old kind of dumpy building and there are rarely cars in the lot, so I wasn't even sure if it was actually open, but last week, I got there a bit early to pick Adam up, so ran in there quick. It's pretty small and limited selection, but they do have some of everything. So that will be kind of nice. Tax free shopping. Whoo hoo! Especially since Duluth sales tax is 1% higher than the rest of MN, which I have never understood why... Oh well. It will be nice to shop there if we do end up building a house eventually - maybe see about getting some of our appliances and things there. Who knows though. A nice perk of Adam being in the reserves.

Well my cousin is in town (home from college for a long weekend) and is stopping by in a few minutes, so I should get a few things picked up around here. More later...

wow

wow. it has been a long while since i have last posted.a good 2.5 months. and lots has changed in that time. adam has a new job. we have moved from one corner of the state to almsot the complete opposite one. although, i must say we are now in a much better part of the state. jackson was just way too flat with way too much corn. no trees or lakes. plus no stores or anything to do. duluth is a huge improvement. beautiful town. lots to do indoors and outdoors. we are less than a mile from lester park - so golfing, hiking trails, biking trails, ski trails in the winter, skating rink.
our duplex is starting to feel like home. we are about 90% unpacked. just a few more random things to find homes for. lots of our stuff is in the basement just beign stored for now. but we're starting to get pictures up on the walls and making it ours.
i haven't had a whole lot of free time so far. adam was home last week so we spend most of the time unpackign and stuff. then we had to take a second trip back to jackson with another trailer to get some more stuff.
adam started work on monday. i dropped him off so i could run some errands. kind of a pain though, cuz adam works a good 20 minutes from our house so to drop him off or pick up in takes almost an hour. oh well. hopefully we'll be able to buy a cheap car sometime soon. once i start subbing.... which could be a few more weeks.
hopefully doesn't take too long. i think i'm going to be having anxiety issues / attacks quite frequently until i get in to a routine and meet people. ugh. i hate it. i had been having some bad pain in my arm pit and my arm was like half asleep constantly, so i went in to an urgent care yesterday (all the regular clinics are accepting new patients, but you can't get in to be seen for at least a week or two) and the dr. was like yeah i really think it's just your anxiety issues. our minds can be the worst thing to us. so i was like, great. he thinks i'm psycho. but hopefully that is really all that it is. so he gave me a prescription, which i've actually used before, but not as much as he prescribed for me. so i started it last night and have been taking it since, but today have been totally out of it and naseous feeling. so yeah, not sure that i'm going to keep takign quite as much as he said to. maybe a half dose in the mornign and a whole at night. we'll see. that way it would last longer too. he only gave me 10 days worth and said to follow up with a primary care doctor if things aren't better in a couple days. yeah grea, seeing as i don't have a primary care dr here yet and i can' tget in to see any dr for at least a week. plus our insurance from adam's last job only lasts through the end of this month and his new insurance doesn't start until november. so i'm trying to get a hold of bcbs to arrange a 30 day coverage for the gap we're not covered. since i know i will have major anxiety issues if i'm not covered by something. blah. sometimes i hate my head. it's just so frustrating because i was finally adjusted in jackson and doing well. i think i could have even gotten a full time para job at the m iddle school if we hadn't been leaving. they had called me to schedule an interview and then i called them back to cancel it since we decided for sure to move, and she sounded a bit upset. (although, probably more upset that i waited so long to cancel the interview - but i know they have a tough time finding people willing to do those jobs) whatever thoguh. not sure i would have really wanted to do that job anyways.

let's see. beth came up a couple days ago. she has decided to have her wedding in duluth now - she wants a big wedding and doesn't want people to not be able to come due to location (instead of hawaii) so we went and looked at wedding dresses on tuesday. found a few she really liked. then on wednesday we went and looked at a couple of churches (didn't talk to anyone there - she just wanted to look at them cuz she doesn't want an "ugly" church) and then we went to superior shores and the decc to look at their reception spaces. superior shores was beautiful, but just looking through their paperwork, it looks like you have to guarantee that your guests will reserve at least 30 rooms at the resort, which seems a bit difficult. their prices are a little higher than a hotel would be, plus shanes family lives in cloquet so i doubt they would stay and who knows how many others would want to pay the money to stay there. so who knows. looks like probably the decc. except that their availabiltiy was somewhat limited for the timing beth is thinking. but anyways. it was fun doing wedding stuff. i love planning that stuff. and i got asked to be a bridesmaid for the wedding, so i'm super excited about that too.

grr. and now my arm is hurting again. i hate it. i mean i spose i could have pulled something whiel we were moving and lifting heavy boxes, but it seems like a really wierd spot to be sore from that. and it's such a pin-point pain. argh. frustrating. i think it's about time to take some drugs and get some sleep.
this weekend we're heading to my parents. erin's wedding is on saturday and i think it's gonna be a pretty long day, seeing as it takes a good hour to get there and the ceremony starts at 1, social hour at 4:30, dinner at 6 and dance at 8. yikes. but should be fun i hope.

ok. time for some medication and sleep.

The past month...

So I have been pretty busy lately and not really had a chance to post. Well I've actually had plenty of chances to post, I'd just rather do something else. But here I am, finally posting something. Nothing special.

So it's been a month since I last posted. I've been up to the cities 2 weekends since then. The first weekend we were up was my neighbor's grad party and my cousin's son's first birthday party. The grad party was on Saturday. We went over around 1:30 and were there until after midnight. Well actually, I was kind of back and forth between there and my parent's house, since I was decorating a cake for the birthday party off and on all day. Then on Sunday, we headed up to my cousin's house in East Bethel for the big birthday bash. I got the cake all set up there. It was the biggest party I've been too in quite a while. But that's what you get when the first great grandchild (of both sides) has a birthday. It was fun though. They had a ton of munchies. My one aunt brought ladder golf (or whatever the heck it is called - I swear I've heard at least 3 different names for it). Then later, they had subway sandwiches and Chanticlear pizzas (my favorite!). Opened presents - Eric got so much stuff. He has the best godmother in the world - she got him this HUGE wooden swing set (it's so big it has 2 forts - one on each side). It was so cute - they had laid the slide on the ground until they get it set up, but Eric absolutely loved it - he just craweled back and forth all over it. It was funny. We were goign to get a big softball game going since they live across the street from a school with some fields, but it was so dang hot out. So we had water balloon tosses instead. After that we had cake, but by that time, Eric was napping, so he didn't get any cake that day. After that, Adam and I had to hit the road for our trip back to Jackson.

The last time we were in the cities, we met up with Gina and Coen for dinner at Rosedale. That was fun. Coen is so cute. A lot more alert then then the last time I saw him. On Saturday, we ran a bunch of errands and went to my cousin's grad party. That night we helped our neighbors setup their pool (so awesome - it's like 5 feet deep and 20 feet across - can't wait till i go up there next) and then we had a bonfire over there. On Sunday, we went golfing with Carly and my dad and a couple of neighbors. We went up and played the executive course at Majestic, which was pretty nice - especially since Carly works there and her family can golf with her for free. We weren't sure if they would let Adam qualify as family, but they did, so it was awesome. Then that afternoon, we hooked up the boat that Adam got from my grandpa and headed out. We stopped at a few places on the way home to check things out for the boat. We ended up buying everything we needed at Fleet Farm. I love that place.

On the 3rd of July, we headed out to Fox Lake (about 30 minutes from here) and met up with some friends. I ended up driving our car back with Michelle to her house, where we got dinner ready and just hung out. Once the guys all got back we had dinner and then set up our tents in the yard. We had a bonfire and made smores and pies. Pies are my favorite. Around 4 the next morning, there dog started barking like crazy. Barked for a good 15-20 minutes, until Adam and I decided to go in and use the bathroom. Plus, I was in charge of making breakfast so I had to take the egg bake out of the cooler, wh ich was in the house. But thankfully, when we got back to our tent, we must have scared off whatever was buggin the dog, cuz he was quiet for the rest of the morning. We got up a few hours later and had breakfast, the took down our tents, and headed back out the lake. Adam took his boat out fishing. I hung out at the park where we set up camp for the day, then later went to another park that had a little sandy beach, where we floated in the water for a while. Went back and grilled for lunch, then headed out on the boat for some skiing and tubing. Unfortunately, there's somethign wrong with my eyes ( i forget the name of it), so i can't wear my contacts for awhile. I attempted to tube, but there were quite a few boats out, so the water was pretty rough, and I couldn't handle the bumps - especially since i couldn't see the waves coming at me to prepare myself. Then later we headed back to Kevin and Michelle's and made frozen pizzas for supper. Soon after, we headed home and pretty much went straight to bed. I slept until 11:30 the next day.... oops. I guess I was a bit tired.

This past weekend, Carly and Heather came down for a visit. They got here about 9:30 Friday night. We made some homemade pizzas and hung out. Then Saturday, we made a big breakfast, then loaded up adn headed to the beach. This time, we went to a beach on Spirit Lake. It was absolutley gorgoeus. The beach was nice and sandy, and the water was the perfect temperature - cool enough to be refreshing, but warm enough that you could stay in for a long time before feeling chilled. We packed up and left around 4:30 or 5, then headed to Walmart to pick up a few things. Carly needed contact solution (she uses some special kind, i forget what, so she couldn't use mine). Then we came back and grilled some lemon pepper chicken, made corn on the cob, garlic bread and a big salad. Heather was very proud of herself - it was her first time making a salad from a head of lettuce (not from a bag)- she had a lot of fun tearing the leaves. After dinner, we set up Settlers of Catan and broke out the wine. I strongly dislike wine, so I didn't drink with them, but between Carly, Heather and Adam, they went through almost 4 bottles of wine. I must say, it was the longest game of Settlers I have ever played. We ended staying up until almost 4 in the morning, so on Sunday, we slept in a bit. Then made cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs and then Carly and Heather took off. Later that afternoon, I decided to finish tearing off wallpaper in the kitchen, so I spent the rest of the day doing that.

Today, I am scrubbing the walls in the kitchen to get the paste off. Then I need to patch and sand. And then I get to prime the walls and paint! Hooray! We are planning on doing our tile backsplash this weekend too, so by this time next week, our kitchen will be completely transformed, and hopefully almost done. The only thing is, is that we are painting the ceiling too, which I put Adam in charge of, because he has some cool, but ambitious idea for it. But I think it's best to paint ceilings before the walls, cuz it's really easy to splatter paint on the walls when you're doing the ceiling. The same is true for the opposite, but I think it's a little easier to control paint rollers against a wall as opposed to the ceiling. So who knows. It will be a few days before I'm ready to paint anyways.

So yeah. Between all that, and my bible study and scrapbooking with some friends once a week, I've been keeping pretty busy. And it looks like it's going to stay that way until at least September. We have like 3 open weekends for the next 2 months, which will most likely be taken up by something or other by the time tehy get here. Oh well though. It's fun to do things and go places.

been awhile...

so yeah, it's been a while since i've posted. i'll just hit on some of the highlights of what's happened recently i think. although who knows what i'll actually end up with.
this past weekend, adam and i drove out to chicago to see my sister in law. on saturday, we had lunch out at a pizza place. but their "pizzas" aren't standard pizzas, they are more like a pot pie or something. the filling is in a bowl, the crust is over it, then they flip in out of the bowl at your table. the place has actually been on food network before. it was pretty good. although i was in the mood for a regular old pizza. oh well. we did a lot of walking around the rest of the day. that evening adam and i went and saw "wicked" (an early anniversary gift from his parents). it was awesome. then sunday we went to anne sathers for breakfast (also has been on the food network) and holy cow, you get a ton of food. i ordered a breakfast wrap, which was huge - at least 3 eggs in it - plus you also got 2 sides to go with it. i ordered cinnamon rolls and toast - and quite honestly the cinnamon rolls (which were huge) would have been plenty to eat on their own. and the nice thing was, it only cost $8. then we walked a while up to Graceland Cemetary, where their family has a masoleum (sp?). it was a huge cemetary, and quite beautiful. after that, we headed back to erin's and then hit the road.

2 of adam's friends came up for memorial weekend. that was fun. we went and saw pirates 3, went golfing. they went out fishing, and we ate a ton of food.

i've been golfing a lot. i'm in a league that plays every wednesday. that's been fun. it's nice to golf with people other than adam sometimes.

i also joined a bible study at the church we've been going to. the bible study just started yesterday, and it is for mom's of all ages. i know i'm not a mom yet, but i know i want to be soon, so thought it would be a great way to get involved at the church and to meet people. we're reading a book called "the mission of motherhood". pretty good so far.

not a whole lot else that i can remember in the last couple of weeks really.

today i had a cleaning marathon. i can't believe how much i got done. i dusted, vacuumed, mopped, cleaned windows, cleaned all 3 bathrooms, changed rex's litter box, did dishes, did like 6 loads of laundry (including folding! which i rarely do). i never ever do that much in one day. rarely even in one week. so i was pretty impressed with myself. i just hope it stays clean for a few days....

hooray!!!

i am finally going to buy a sewing machine! hopefully today! i am so excited. i have been researching online for weeks. and i think i found a good one. at walmart of all places. but i was looking on joann, they have the same one for almost twice the price. so i figured i could drive 30-45 minutes to walmart and try that out, instead of driving 75+ minutse to joann and paying more. so hopefully it works well. it has a lot of great looking features and super reviews on joanns website. so hopefully it is as wonderful as i want it to be. otherwise, i'll probably end up getting a husqvarna/viking for $100 more, which wouldn't be the end of the world either. plust they offer classes to get to know your machine, which would be nice. but right now, if i can get a decent machine for $100 less, i'm all for trying that out first.

dreams

i hate when i have dreams that are so real, i wake up and am not quite sure if it really happened or was a dream. i often have dreams like this. sometimes i will dream that i have had an argument with a friend or someone and wake up the next morning in a very bad mood and very angry at that person. i really don't like that. usually i figure out pretty quickly that it was a dream, but sometimes it takes me a day or two to really believe that it was just a dream and stop being angry at that person.
last night, i had a dream that my mom has cancer and only has a month to live. it was a horrible dream. i woke up at like 5 a.m. crying. i almost called my mom right then, i was so worried. took me a good 15 minutes to calm down, stop crying, and realize that is was just a dream.
and then sometimes there are the good dreams. dreams that make me so happy while i'm dreaming. then when i wake up and realize it was only a dream, i get so disappointed. sometimes these are almost worse than the other dreams. sometimes i will spend days just reviewing these dreams and wishing there was a way they could be true. it's like a big game of "what if?"

it's funny though. i've always been fascinated by dreams. in our first year or two of dating, adam got me a dream journal. i've forgotten about that. i should dig it out and start using it more often.... we'll see. sometimes i don't want to tell anyone what the bad dreams were about, fearing they may come true. and sometimes i just can't put the dreams in to words to share. and the good dreams.... well i need to remember they are just dreams. better left that way. the more i ponder over them, the more i wish that parts of them were real....

stitches itch!

yup, that's right. stitches itch. and i don't like it. i've never really had stitches before. just once when i had my wisdom teeth removed, but those were dissolvable and did not itch. but this time, they itch. quite annoying. i had some moles removed and 4 of them needed stitches. 3 in 3 of them and 7 in the 4th. so 16 lovely stitches in various locations of my body. lovely. let's hope they heal fast, and that removing them is not too painful... can't be any worse than the numbing shots they used before removing them...

small town

so far small town life seems pretty good. especially since we are only about a half mile from the main street / downtown area. if we wer further, it might not be so good. especially since we only have one car now. which has been working out just fine. adam works close enough that i can drop him off if i need the car for the day. but most of the time i don't think i will unless i need to go grocery shopping or just want to go to another town around here. but for just going to the library or coffee shop or even the clinic, it's close enough to just walk everywhere. which will be very good for me, cuz i am lazy. i've already decided that once i get my library card i'm only going to let myself check out one or two books at a time so that i am forced to walk down there when i want a new book (which could be daily). it's also nice because adam gets an hour for lunch, which is plenty of time for him to come home to eat, or even for me to [pick him up and go out for lunch occassionally. fun fun.

bleh...

so i haven't been feeling very well for the past week. sore throat (kinda like something is stuck in there and stabbing me) and wierd chest (congestion?). and i had thought it was starting to get a little better, but then today, it's just been awful. and of course we don't have health insurance until march 1st. great. but it was just too much for me, so i decided to go to the dr. so yeah, he's not totally sure, but said my throat is definitely infected - very very red. since i don't have insurance yet, he skipped the throat culture and other tests he could have done, and gave me some sample meds that will cover strep if that is what it is. so hopefully it is actually strep and that the meds start helping me to feel better. cuz if i don't feel better by monday i'm supposed to go back and then he will do a throat culture and who knows what else, which will cost who knows how much. so yeah. what a great day this has been. hopefully it doesn't end up costing too much - they will send me the bill, so i have no idea at the moment what it will cost...

painting

so i've been painting a lot lately. first we painted the office - which turned out super cool - i will post pictures soon. and then yesterday i was sick of unpacking stuff, so decided to paint the basement bathroom. i am super happy with it. well except for the nasty cabinets. but i might strip those and paint them sometime too. so here are some before and after pictures of the bathroom.
it worked perfectly because we had just enough of the blue paint left over from painting the office to paint the bathroom - and it was the perfect color and matched our shower curtain and soap dishes and stuff.

everybody is pregnant!

well not me. not that i'm ready quite yet. well i guess more adam's not ready. but i swear, anyone i talk to lately is like, did you hear so and so's pregnat? holy moly man. gina and beth are. a girl at work is. a good friend of mine here in ohio just told me she is pregnant and that 2 other couples announced they were pregnant yesterday at church, plus there is at least 1 other couple (that i remember) at church is too. wowza.

i'm sick. i hate being sick. especially in the summer. and least in any other season, you can kind of blame it on the weather. but no, it has been gorgeous out. so i can't blame it on that. and i dont' feel good and am extra tired, so i haven't gotten outside much lately either. i actually think that i got sick from jake - the little boy i babysat this spring. they came with us for a weekend at rick and dee's and jake was pretty sick - mostly just an awful cough with lots of crud in his throat. but yeah, that's pretty much what i have, so pretty sure i got it from him. oh well though. i think he also gave it to hsi baby bro too. so me and danny are in it together. bummer.

on another note, we got a new car. i'm still in shock about it. we probably can't really afford it. and we ended up trading in adam's car instead of mine, which we had always thought we'd trade in my old escort. so i think that's what has me in shock the most, because we hadn't even considered trading in the pontiac until adam's coworker suggested it, and the next day that's what we did. eeks. rather impulsive. i mean we've been looking into buying a new car for months, but just the whole trading in the pontiac instead has got me. oh well. what's done is done. but i totally love the new car! it's so exciting!

memorial weekend

well, it's been awhile since i've posted. what's new with me. well still working at the scrapbook store, and still love it!!! my family got back last week and i babysat thursday, but the mom has decided to quit her job, so i'm done with that now i guess. for the weekend, we went to adam's parents. on saturday they had a party for erin - graduation/birthday/new job/new apt in chicago. so that was fun. lots of people were over. and it was a gorgeous day. spent most of the day by the pool. sunday the relatives came over again and hung out at the pool and listened to indy 500 (it's not on tv around indy until after the race is over) on the radio, and ate lots of course. monday, adam, erin and i went out for breakfast with rick & dee, then erin left for chicago. we went back to the house and hung out at thepool. then adam's college friend and his girlfriend stopped over for a bit. we hung around until about 3:30 or so then drove back to dayton. we arrived to a starving cat (oops, we forgot to feed him before we left...). but he could stand to lose a few pounds anyways. tuesday i had a meeting at church about mops / moppets coordinator for next year. i think that will wokr out great for me. then i ran a bunch of errands. today i worked all day and will hopefully get to some scrapbooking tonight.... we'll see about that. so my exciting news is that gina is coming to visit in august!!!! i'm super excited! and it's perfect timing too, because i will just have been home like a week before, so it will give me something to look forward to when i come back. ok. well not a whole lot els enew at the moment. better go so i can try to find my desk and do some scrapping!
(the pic is of adam's parents' house - backyard)

i love my job!

so yeah, i love my job. the scrapbook store is awesome. i only work like 10-20 hours a week there, but it's super! definitley not difficult or strenuous work. and it's great to see all the new products and techniques. www.livelovescrap.com hooray!
so this past weekend we went to indiana for my sister in laws graduation. nice to see people. typical long graduation. and like always we ate way too much all weekend. on sunday, adam's family was moving erin up to chicago, so we were on our own for the day and ended up drivign down to a newer shopping area and met up with adam's friend. there was the coolest organic grocery store there! it was HUGE! thankfully we don't have one closer to us, or we'd go completely broke. i love those stores. especially how you can buy spices and flour and stuff in bulk for pretty cheap. we stocked up on a few things.
this week i worked today and again on wednesday. on thursday i have a meeting with a lady from church about our VBS crafts. so i have to go do some price checking and buy a few things for that tomorrow. i also need to get groceries and do lots and lots of laundry and cleaning. hooray. not a whole lot else going on.

hooray!!!

i got a part time job at a scrapbooking store!!!!! i am so excited! it's kinda funny - i was going to the grocery store the other day on my way home from babysitting, and i saw a sign and i was like, what? a scrapbooking store!? so of course i had to go check it out. and i knew it was a fairly new store cuz i hadn't seen them there before, and i go over there once a week or so. so i went in, and asked if they were hiring, and she was like, maybe.... we're looking for someone to work days. and i was like, that's exactly what i want! so i got an application and also had to scrapbook my resume and then brought it back the next day and had a very short, informal interview. and i start tomorrow! hooray! i can't wait. the store is called live.love.scrap. it's really cute store. and the people seem super friendly. it doesn't pay a ton, but hey, it's a job. plus i get a discount. starts at only 5% but works up to 30% by 6 months of working there. so yeah, i'll be working 2-3 days a week. they're pretty flexible and willing to work around my babysitting job (with notice of course) so hopefully i will now be working 4-5 days a week! yay!

moppets!

so i have been asked to be the mopppets coordinator for the mops (mothers of preschoolers) group at our church. and i'm pretty sure that i am going to do it. (moppets is a daycare/preschool type thing for the kids while the moms are at their mops meeting). i would be in charge of making sure there are enough nursery workers and teachers in each classroom, keeping supplies organized, planning the curriculum for the 2-5 year old groups, training the teachers and workers, etc. i think it sounds like a lot of fun. i went to their meeting today just to kind of meet people and talk with the girl who is currently doing it - and some people said oh my gosh, what a ton of work, and the girl who is doing it, said it's no big deal. but she hasn' tbeen doing any lesson planning this year because she kind of got the job dumped on her when someone else moved. but i don't think it should be too difficult with all my experience in lesson pllanning and that kind of stuff. and it will be a good experience to put on my resume whenever i get around to finding ateaching job (dumb ohio licensure....). oh well. this will also give me a chance to get more involved in our church and meet more people. i've met some people through our adult bible fellowship, but not a ton. and i'm also going to work at the vacation bible school this summer and am excited for that.

the influence of toddlers...

so i've realized that i've been treating the cat differently since i've been babysitting more. it's kind of funny. last night, rex (the cat) was getting in to some of my yarn, and i was like "rex, no, no!" and shook my finger at him. and then i was like, holy crap the cat is not going to respond to that - i am a total dork. (heck, half the time jake doesn't even respond to that) i think i've done some other stuff like this too, i just don't remember any specific examples. at least regarding the cat. so sometimes, i like walk my fingers along and "chase" jake until i get him and then tickle him. so i've been doing this to adam sometimes too now. and as soon as i start, i'm like, oh my gosh, he is not a toddler, why am i doing this?
anyways on another note, not a whole lot new with me. (as anyone could probably tell from the above paragraph). babysitting is going well. i've been working pretty regularly lately. and danny is adorable! unfortunately, they are going to texas for most of may, so that stinks. i'll ahve to really try to get some subbing jobs. although, i dont' know what else i can do that i'm not already doing. oh well. today i'm going to plant some more flowers i think and work on a sewing project for adam (he needs a bag for his airplane wings....)

cake

so yeah...for the past month, i have been taking a cake decorating class with missy (the mom of the boy i'm babysitting). and tonight was the last night of class. so this is a pic of my final cake. kinda dorky with the yellow dots on it, but i wanted to use up some mroe of the frosting. it was a lot of fun to do, and i think i'm going to try to take at least the next level. i'm kinda bummed that this class is over. but oh well i guess. it was a lot of fun - which is good, since i went overboard and bought the big expensive kit with everything instead of just the class kit. but i'm glad i did. i really think i'll use the stuff in the future. maybe not often, but as often as i can. so if anyone needs a cake, just give me a call! i'm glad i took the actual class too - because really you could probably teach yourself the stuff just with the books, which i semi-did anyways, but the instructor was really cool and had a lot of other good tips and techniques. i wish she was teaching the 2nd level right away, but she's not, and i'd like to take the class with missy, who needs to take it asap since she's having a baby in march and won't have time after that really. so i think we're going to try to take it at another store, which will actually be better for me, because it's only 5 minutes away instead of 20. cool cool. cake is good.

long day

so today i had a subbing job. which i have known about for a month. but it never showed up in the computer system, so i was like, am i actually supposed to go? or did they make a mistake. so i called yesterday to check, and the lady was like i don't see you in the computer. so i'm like, ok, so what do i do? still show up in the morning in case, or not at all? she's like call tomorrow at 7. ok. great. so i'm assuming that i don't have to work since i'm not in the computer. so i stayed up later than i should have. so get up and call this morning, and i'm needed. still not in the computer but i'm supposed to be there. so i'm like, crap. haven't showered or anything and don't have time to. so hurriedly get ready and get to the school. and the day went fine and all (actually quite well) i was just so tired and not prepared to be there. plus i'm babysitting 9 hours for each of the next 3 days and monday. so it's goign to continue to be a long week. but oh well. i'm finally making some money! hooray! now if i can actuaally start paying off some of my debt....

but anyways, most likely will try to post again soon while babysitting, since the boy takes 2 - 2 hour naps a day.

hooray!

so it's been a pretty good weekend so far! we cleaned up all our christmas stuff yesterday and then did some other house cleaning. ok not the most fun. but the rest of the weekend has been much better! nick and jesse came over yesterday and we watched football and ate tacos. this morning adam and i made french toast and bacon (my favorite breakfast!) then made some homemade crackers and spinach artichoke dip, which we brought over to nick and jesse's to watch some more football. unfortunately all the teams we watned to win this weekend lost. tonight, adam and i watched shrek, and figured out all the extra excursions we're going to do on our cruise. i'm super excited! in st. thomas, we're going to do a scenic drive and mountain top tour, and then in the afternoon sail to turtle cove for some snorkeling. in st. maarten, we're going on a catamaran out to some beach where we can swim, snorkel, whatever. then in the afternoon we're going to do a tour of the island. the last port we stop in, is an island in the bahamas owned by the cruiseline, and is kind of a beach day. so we're reserving a transparent hull 2 person kayak. they also have some shops and markets that we'll probably go check out. fun fun!

oh, so i lied... the weekend hasn't been all totally good. jenean called me yesterday and one of our friends dad's died from injuries in a car accident. super sad. i had only met him a few times at cross country events mostly, but he was always so nice and supportive.

so last wednesday i started a cake decorating class. holy cow. it should be fun, but it would have been nice if they had mentioned beforehand how much extra stuff you have to buy. yikes. not a cheap class. and of course, me being me, i have to go all out and get the bigger kit that has more than i really need for this class. but my logic is, that if i take the other 2 or 3 levels of the class, i should already have the stuff i need and not have to get any more tools or anything. plus it was maybe $30 more than what i would have spent anyways, and i've gotten tired of worrying so much about money. so i just went with it. no changing my mind now. the box has been thrown away and i've been experimenting with stuff already. but i'm excited for the rest of the class. there are 3 more nights. and we have to bake a cake to bring in each week. holy cow we're going to be eating alot of cake. i think i'll send most of it with adam to work. it should disappear quickly there.

let's see. since i haven't written in a long time... christmas was good. i got to spend about 2 weeks in minnesota. i got to see all of my family and lots of friends. that was fun. got some good presents. lots of scrapbooking stuff(hooray for my sizzix!) and a sewing machine were probably the highlights. i was pretty bummed that it was so warm up there, cuz i had gotten adam ice skates for christmas, and we didn't get a chance to use them. bummer. we went to ikea one day and spent our last wedding gift card. we got a great desk for me to use for scrapbooking (and sewing). i love it - it has tons of storage on the shelves avbove it and so much work surface. it's great! i finally am able to have everything all in one location. my birthday was fairly uneventful. went out to eat with my family and my aunt, uncle and cousin. that was cool.

so yeah, like i said the other day in a post - jenean is coming to visit me! i'm so excited! she's coming the second to last weekend of february (and we leave the last weekend for our cruise) so that will be an exciting time. unfortunately the way the flights worked, jenean won't get here till saturday around 6pm, and has to leave mon around 6 pm, but hey, a visitor is a visitor and i will take what i can get and i will enjoy every minute! i can't wait! unfortuanetly despite living here for almost 7 months, i still don't know of anything really interesting or fun to do around the area. but i'll have to come up with some options before she comes.

so yeah. i really think that about sums things up for the moment.