Wednesday, April 23, 2014

April 23rd

This month has absolutely flown by.  Glad that it has been so busy and full of life.  We're doing good things.

First of all, we jumped on the 'let's buy a house' train, once again.  This time in a much serious way.  We had our loan pre-approved and had an offer on a house all within a week.  That offer ended up being outbid, which was a blessing because A) I pushed Steven into and offered more than he wanted to and B) It wasn't in the ward we are currently in.  A week after that another house came on the market.  Steven seriously took way too long thinking about it and by the time we had seen the inside of it and decided to put an offer on it, it was sold.  It went on the market on Thursday and was sold by Saturday.  The houses in our range are seriously going like hotcakes.  Just two weeks ago there were 5 that we looked at and all but one are sold now.  It seems like house buying is such an emergency affair.  Our realtor sends me an address of a new listing, I beg Steven to come look at it with me when he gets off work and then we decide if we want to see the inside and then decide if we want to put an offer on it.  It happens so quick!

This time around it was so easy to get our paperwork in for the loan, too.  The guy had it all set up for us in just a matter of days and I had Steven step into high gear to get it all in.  I ended up putting 90% of the paperwork in, but it was nice to know that it was all there and not have to get frustrated with Steven for forgetting to ask for papers and stuff from work.  I just took care of it myself and it was super empowering.  It's really not that hard.

Right now we're just waiting for the next house to come on the market.  I am going to be in Utah next week and I really hope something comes on before then or after.  Not during.  Steven is such a stickler for rules and I know he would refuse to sign my name on an offer.  Which means we would have to wait and by then the house could be gone.  It's been an exciting process and has made this month go by so super fast.

Friday, April 4, 2014

March 21 - April 4th

March 21  - Friday
Chilled at home

March 22  - Saturday
Shopping in the morning for stuff to make our Sunday picnic a hit
Adult session of stake conference.  12 years-old and up invited for the first time that I can remember.

March 23  - Sunday
Stake Conference.
There's a grandma in our ward that sometimes has her granddaughter with her that is the same age.  They love playing together so we to help her out with Mihayla sitting quiet and still for two hours we sat together.  Stacked in the side pews.  It was awesome and I can totally rock having two kids, but you do listen a considerable amount less to the speakers.
Family dinner at the river/park.
Pulled pork sandwiches, a new green bean and potato salad with chips and soda.

March 24  - Monday
First day of spring break and the only day that it was sunny and warm.
Skipped music class and went on a hike with my family instead.
Went to Portland with John and Mommy to get him some new running shoes

March 25 - Tuesday
Music class and found the nearest Winco to music class.
Got lost on the way back home and ended up over by the airport.

March 26  - Wednesday
Glucose test.  Had to stay at the doctors for two hours while they did all the tests.  Was definitely kind of sick for the rest of the day.

March 27th - Thursday
Thrift shopping for frames to craft with

March 28th - Friday
Brittany came over and we made a few pinterest treats and watched The Book Thief.
Went to a Mary Kay party and got ordered some coral lip-stick.  Really excited to wear it at women's conference.

March 29th - Saturday
Feeling really worn out.
General Women's meeting and I couldn't get the energy together to get dressed or do makeup or get Alaska done up.  She stayed in jambes the whole day.  My mom came over and we watched it online.

March 30th -
Fifth Sunday
The yw went in with the primary and helped teach the song that they are all going to sing for Easter while the teachers went to Relief Society.
Stayed home.  Steve had a lot of scout stuff to talk to people about so he wasn't home until 5.  I put Alaska down for a nap and ate dinner by myself.

March 31st
Music class.
Swim lessons were supposed to start but I couldn't find the energy to shave my legs.  I haven't shaved since December.  We didn't go.  And we didn't go on Tuesday, either.  We'll have to catch the next session.

April 1st
Most boring day ever in a long time.

April 2nd
Spent the morning at the gym
Spent the afternoon talking to Dorian and cleaning.
Combined activity was a total bust.  Was supposed to be about leadership and they had one activity planned.  Boys were in charge and the men didn't step in until one group left the gym because no one knew what was going on.  Ironic that it was about leadership and there was not good leadership that put it together.

April 3rd - Thursday
Morning at the gym, came home and did laundry and ran up to my mom's house to dry it.  Our dryer is busted right now.  Ran back down to spend some time with Michelle.  Her and Dorian went on a few dates and he kind of left her hanging.  She looked like she needed someone to talk to last night but it was so busy that I made a date with her for the next day

April 4th - Today.  And I already said how that was going.  The youth have a temple trip this evening and somehow today I need to get Alaska to my mom for her to watch her.  Steven is going, too.  I absolutely love my dress that I have, but I know I am going to have to rent one this time around because my belly is much too big to fit.




April 4th

I am so sick of March.  Tired of thinking about it, tired of looking at the calendar, trying to remember what we did each day so that I can record it on here with a few other thoughts and mostly tired of looking at the green border around the calendar part.  I never get to see the pictures on the calendar anymore because I always have it folded in half.  All I see is the color that the calendar people thought was fitting for that month.  I would prefer some plain black and white.  I really need to get one of those desk calendars that teachers have.  Write stuff on that and keep that as a journal.  And I am also tired of April slipping past because I keep have to keep buggering my mind about journaling about March.

That being said, I woke up today and couldn't get back to sleep.  It was one of those mornings where I even went in a checked on Alaska, just to watch her sleep.  Usually I am not so sentimental.  It is definitely Steven who is more all about bed time and tucking in.  I am so tired and done by the end of the day the last thing I want to do is play goodnight games and talk about the day.  I hope that will change as she gets older because I do know the value of a tuck-in, it's just really hard for me right now to hang around any longer than I have to after a full day.

Plan A right now is to just pound out the last week of March so that I can start in on our adventures in April.  Perhaps right now I need to resort to bullet points and not try to fill in any stories.  Even though I feel like that's the whole point of blogging and journaling.  Is to tell a story and learn and examine what I am feeling because of the situation.  Maybe just for one week I can let that go and just get the facts down and leave the story-telling for another time.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

March 20

March 20th

Spent the first part of the day cleaning up the house hard-core style and put in a couple of maintenance requests that didn't necessarily have to be done, but it would be nice just to have the house updated.  I read some good advice from a blog.  If you keep your house up to par like you are about to move, you will love your house that much more.  I totally agree.  There's something satisfying about having clean walls and having everything working and the lights matching and all that.

Steven had the day off and after Alaska's nap we went to Washington Square to get ourselves an apple computer.  We opted for the 13" laptop and it has been absolutely perfect!  We even got to use my sub ID to get an educator's discount.  All that schooling is starting to pay off.  So glad I chose the major that I did.

While Steven was doing all the paperwork Alaska was trailing a stink aura and I had to make an emergency exit to get her to a bathroom.  Only, you wouldn't suppose who had forgotten the diaper bag, hu?  Diapers and wipes are the only thing we need to carry our diaper backpack around for and most times I forget it.  Luckily poops lately have been pebbles so I dumped them in the toilet and put the soggy thing back on.

We weren't going to be out much later, anyways.  Just dinner and be on our way home.  Just dinner turned into swinging by deseret book and looking around a little bit at the new art and new books.  Which then turned into swinging by the visitor's center.  A hour and a half later we're just barely deciding as to where to eat and her soggy bum has turned into 10 lbs of saturated diaper.  It wasn't even soggy anymore.  It was rock hard from so much pressure pushing against the lining.

Steven turned left and we searched and searched for a grocery store or a gas station or anything that might carry a diaper.  Passing through residential streets and admiring the huge houses was fun but didn't distract us from the possibility of an explosive diaper riding in the back seat.  10 minutes of driving dumped us out by a high school and around the corner a stripmall and gas station.  And what do you know.  The stripmall housed a store boasting, "The friendliest store in town" named Earth Friendly Grocery.  I took one look at that and new we were going to be getting some organic diapers that would cost a fortune.

And I am not even kidding when I say, everyone in there was friendly.  Both customers and employees were super nice and everything was presented in the most appeasing fashion.  It was absolutely adorable.  It was a store no larger than a safeway, perhaps just a tad bit smaller, but they had a whole half-isle with bulk granolas and flours.  We found our diapers.  All chlorine free and brands we knew nothing about.  We grabbed the smallest, most economic package we could find and Steven opened it in the isle, sending me to the bathroom with Alaska while he went to the register and payed.

I might also add that even the store brands were happy, most literally.  A whole line of baby food titled Happy Tummies.

We went to Applebees for dinner afterwards and Alaska was absolutely exhausted.  But she's too awesome to cry when she's tired.  Especially when there's so much to look at.  Her sleepy eyes watched the basketball game on the t.v. and when she just couldn't anymore she laid her head in my lap since we were at a booth.  She ate her fair share of the onion ring appetizer and even managed to eat a few bites of her own dinner.  Which never happens.  She was pleasant and laughed and smiled and I couldn't stop telling Steven how lucky we are to have such an awesome person as part of our family.

We weren't even out of the parking lot before Alaska was asleep in her carseat and we drove home with our awesome family.