Projects thus far

This is the little guy I made yesterday. His name is Toby. My sister in law went into labor Saturday night and she's still going at it this bright Monday morning, poor thing. She's locked at 3cm and it's not lookin' like she'll be havin' the baby naturally, but fingers are crossed!!

This is the blanket I made for my friend Andrea who had her cute little baby two weeks ago. :)

This is the blanket I made for my sis-in-law whose still dukin' it out in the San Diego hospital.

 This is the blanket I made for my best friend, Goose who had her baby last month (Holly will be 1 month on Thursday!!).

Aaaaand I made a bunch of flowers and hairclips yesterday cuz I was bored and Craft Sundays are always a hoot. Here's one of 'em.

And that's it for now. Ciao dudes.

I suck at the whole "blogging" thing

I have no idea when I have blogged last, but who cares? Lol. Nothing too new in the neighborhood. I started school a few weeks ago, but one is a self-paced internet class (computers. boring!) and I have done only like 5 assignments. I need to get crackin'. The next one that starts in a couple weeks is Intro to Multicuturalism and I am SOOOO not looking forward to that one, but it is a short class which is good.

My sister in law is gettin' ready to pop with the first grandbaby, and we'll all be headed to San Diego next week to see Brylie. Ma and Willie are headed out to today to spend the week there, then next week the rest of the gang will be riding up then. So EXCITED! I am trying to finish (well, actually start) crochetting the little lion I just saw on a website. Aah! I am so excited! It's so cute. Last night I meant to do homework and ended up crochetting flowers all night long for my next baby blanket. Oops! Tonight I need to go to the store and pick up some (lion-colored) yarn and such for the next project, and then Stace will be over to go for our walk with Penny and Molly. We're walkin' buddies now.

October is shaping up to be an awesome month. The first weekend, my husband and I will be driving up to Temeculah to see his cousin get married (Woot woot!) and he will be the wedding photographer so I get to sit by myself AGAIN at a wedding. Haha. Ah, well. It's for a good cause!
On the way home, I wanna go visit my little brother, Elyssa, and da baby, but we shall see.
Fast forward a week or so (my next class starts, yikes!) and Evan is taking me to see Beauty and the Beast on broadway at Gammage. OMG! I am soooooooo excited. (Been sayin' that a lot, huh?) and then two days after that, we jump in the car to rush back up to Anaheim to go to Disneyland and we get to go Trick-or-Treating at Disneyland!!! My mom is making my costume, which is already lookin' FAB. I'm going to be Zorro (Zorra?). Mom, Pops, Willie, and Lindsay are going to be pirates. I think Stace is too, and then Mark and Evan will be Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. Lol. Evan already has his costume. He's rarin' to go!

With November dawns the 2nd year Evan and I have been married (Yes, yes, thank you. Thank you). But we're not gonna be doing anything for that (Evan says the dland trip in October will have to be our "anniversary trip." Sucks to be poor, eh?) On Thanksgiving, we're gonna have family pictures done because Bob leaves on his tour the next week (?) I believe. They're also gonna dedicate baby Brylie that weekend too. Then Elyssa and Brylie are coming down here to live with me and Evan while Bob is out with the Navy for the next 7 months.

Lastly, my phone is broken. It went whacko after the "upgrade" Verizon sent 'round, poor thing. So I can't take pictures or anything, use the internet, or you know, do anything with it, but my new one just got here and I hope I have better luck with this one. And maybe I will be able to put up pics again. :)

Toodle pip!

Screaming into the wind...

Ever had one of those days where you need help and no one is listening? It's panic-inducing, irritating, and mostly obnoxious, but you just keep working through it and hope, somehow, that someday things will get fixed.

My Summer Thus Far in Pictures

Here's my summer thus far:

Seems like all my friends are havin' babies this summer so I have been really busy with gifts and while I still have to wait to put pictures up of the others I have made because I haven't given them to my friends just yet, I gave this one to my bestie who's havin her first little girl in just a few weeks. Here's the blanket I made for her:

I love baby ducks.

My dog is an alien.

We got a snazzy new car.

We painted the bathroom.

My sister made me a little desk buddy. His name is Frank.

This is George. He loves mirrors and running into things.

And this is my parents' tree. It decided to lose some weight and dropped a whole branch!

And that's about it for now. :) After the next few baby showers, I'll put up more pictures of my snazzy blankets.

I did it!

I finished my story! For real! I don't hate the ending anymore, which is awesome. Lol. I uploaded the whole thing onto my other blog, all the chapters, changes, everything. Any further changes will be minor, if any. Check it out, let me know what you think. Comments, concerns, anything will be appreciated. Thanks!! :D

http://shatteredplanet-lori.blogspot.com/

Let's see...

New stuff. Hmm... Not much really. Same o' same o'. My VW is falling apart. The window kit went kabluey so the window has to be taped up with painter's tape, and the bumper cover fell off a few weeks before. We are trying to get the darn thing fixed so we can sell it, but our VW guy won't call us back. So that's obnoxious...

I finished my book. Seriously! I would put the rest of it on my story blog 'cept I am rearranging the ending and adding stuff here and there. It's gonna take a while to get through it all and edit since in 8 point font it is over 60 pages long.... Took me over two years to get through it all, and it's still not quite there yet so that's.... yeah. That. I don't care if no one wants to publish it. I would just get it bound for me and put it with my other books in my library. Hahaha. I just like how books smell and feel. It's boring reading it off a computer screen. One of my dad's friends from bowling league recorded his "life story" on audio tapes and wants me to go through it and make it into a book, you know, ghost writer stuff. I think it would be so much fun! Putting it all together and making grammatically awesome sentences. I should be an editor rather than an author. I enjoy proofreading so much more than an ordinary person.... Lol. But yeah. being a ghost writer would be really fun.

I finished a baby blanket for my bestest friend last week. It's so cute! I wanna put up a picture, but I gotta wait until I surprise Goose with it so she'll be surprised. I will put one up after I mail it. Haha. I know you are just so excited to see, oh blog reader. Not.

They have the most awesome ribbons at Michaels' and I have a ton of ideas for the 50 billion other blankets I gotta make for other friends hatchin' babies, including my sister in law's. Luckily they don't take too long, and they look super awesome when I aka the Master am done with them. I am just so humble. I may be the world's most humble person! Haha. Yeah, that was supposed to be a joke. You know cuz... Nevermind.

Evan is totally digging his new job at Intel. I guess they film a lot of stuff that gets shown on the Discovery Channel. Evan will get sent all over the place to shoots like China. The next shoot is in the Cayman Islands, and they wanted Evan to come, but since he's still in training. he has to stay behind on this one. Unless they change their minds at the last second... Who knows? But Evan is totally thrilled with the outrageously expensive cameras and sets and lighting and green screen stuff they have, you know, film nerd guy stuff. He likes to tell me how much the toys are while I gag in shock, usually muttering, "Holy moly," half a second after that.

Currently, it's hotter than the surface of the sun outside, my house is still trashed from our "not unpacking" after we got home from the funeral last weekend, and Evan is out grocery shopping. The fact that tomorrow is Monday sickens me, but hey, I have my random day off on Tuesday, so that lessens the blow a bit. It's always important to have something to look forward to in order to survive the drudgery that is "work" so my current fixation would be getting a new car as soon as the blasted VW dude gets his bum in gear. My other car guy is already looking for my Equinox. *Happy dance. But yeah, that's about it.

I leave you with this parting thought:

"I don't know what to say, so I'll just say what's in my heart... Baboom, Baboom, Baboom.
Mel Brooks

Productive Weekends

I woke up early this morning and cleaned my entire hour in 3 1/2 hours. So proud of me! I love having a spic and span abode. I even hung up all our clothes in one sitting. That NEVER happens. Lol. I tend to believe that closet floors are just shelves. ;) My family finally all woke up a little before 3 (slackers) and called us so we could all meet up and see Toy Story 3. It was really cute, definitely different feeling than the first two, but that's what usually happens when there's a different director. This lady starting choking in front of me, like serious "I-need-the-Heimlich-maneuver" choking and I thought she was going to die or something. But her husband/boyfriend/thing managed to help her out. We just got back from wandering around San Tan (thought my feet were gonna fall off) and now the boys are at Wally World picking up stuff to make chicken alfredo. Woot. Evan is finally starting his job at Intel on the 28th, FOR SURE. Lol. He's been contracting for another company so that definitely saved us from a world of hurt. That's about it on our end at the moment. We "might" be going swimming later tonight. Molly tried to eat the next door neighbor's dog (or the neighbor thought that she was, I knew she wouldn't, but I am still mad at her for scaring the poor little dog). I got my 8-hour days back at work so I don't have to get up so early anymore (haven't gotten my 40-hours back, but.... here's hopin.). Oh, and I'm getting to the end of my story. It's almost a hundred pages, which means if I am able to score a publisher, it should be a regular-sized novel, so that's cool. I just gotta figure out how to go about getting published... Well, if no one wants it, I'll just pay to get a copy made up for me. Lol. Gettin' published sounds like it's as easy an winning the lottery. Haha. Ah, well. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and see what happens.

So, yay

My husband got the job! Took 3 interviews, but he got it. Lol. He is now doing editing/video archiving at Intel (*Ba bum ba bum!) and he starts in a couple weeks, so thank God. Seriously. Idk how we would have been able to make it much longer, you know, mortgage and all that. So that's all good. Now I just need my hours back from work and it'll be peachy again. Lol. This weekend was a good one. Went to church yesterday morning, went out to lunch with friends, went home and took a nap, went shopping with my sister and got a cute dress, friends came back over, and we watched Finding Nemo (always a classic), and then today we're going ice skating. Short post, I know, but at least I finally got a post up. Toodles!

Permanent Nail Polish

What is it with dark nail polish and never actually coming ALL the way off? I guess that's what I get for attempting to paint my own nails. I suck at it. Lol. Now I have these dark purple rings around my nails. Hey, it could be the new trend!

This weekend went by pretty fast. Friday night there was a mass gathering at my parents' house and we had some yummy burgers and watched Surrogates which was basically I Robot. Went to church on Saturday and spent the rest of the day snuggled with my husband watching SG1. We went over to my parents' house and watched Young Victoria, much to Evan's dismay. Lol. He does not like period pieces, but then, most guys don't. It was a pretty good flick. It's always nice to see historical stuff end happily. They're usually so depressing! Evan's snide comments through the "chick flick" made it funny. On Sunday we went to my uncle's house for my cousin's birthday party/Mother's Day and he rented one of those blow-up slip and slides and I didn't have my bathing suit, but I didn't care. Lol. I went in my clothes. Man, am I sore today! One of the nurses asked if I hurt myself on it, and I was like, "Um, no. I repeated a motion over and over again that I never do....?" Lol. Yeah, I totally run and slide on my stomach on a regular basis on the carpet/cement.

Evan got a call back from a prospective job. He had a phone interview with them last week and now they wanna have him come in and do a second interview with them. I'm so excited! Man, I hope he gets it. I'm so tired. We've been on edge for over a month. Evan says that he's still going to try and get out to California, but it's nice to have him with me a little longer. :) Blaaaaah, this summer is going to be INTERESTING.

Ciao, dudes.

Update, UPdate, UPDATE

So I know all of you were just PINING to know what's been going on with our APRIL problems, so here's the sitch.

Evan is still unemployed. Poor boy has applied everywhere, and the only callback he received was from Fry's Electronics. :P He had an interview there today where, come to find out, Fry's has this new policy thingymabob that states no hiring people who have worked there before. Evan worked there briefly when he first moved to AZ. I guess the guy who interviewed Evan liked him so much that he's going to try and bypass the new policy and see if they can hire Evan, but we'll see. Evan is a little depressed to say the least. He got the callback, from Fry's of all the places he hoped to here from, on the day of his graduation. "Here's your Bachelor's Degree and now go work at Fry's." I would've cried, personally, but that's me. I am so unbelievably proud of Evan. It just plain sucks that useless ol’ me gets to keep a job when the talented one gets tanked. Anyway, regardless of whether he gets the job there or not, Evan is now working to get a new demo reel together so he can find a job in LA. Yep, you heard me. Los Angeles. His friend is working on Justified right now and says Evan has a good chance of getting hired on any project he applies for. I guess the TV show V is hiring a lot so Evan's gonna try for there first. So there's a good chance I'll be stuck here alone for quite some time. The plan is for Evan to stay at his cousins' for a bit and later maybe get an apartment with some friends in Burbank. It's gonna suck so bad living by myself. We discussed the possibility of renting out a room in the house, but I don't know anyone looking for a place to stay for awhile. I do NOT want a stranger in my house, thanks. If Evan makes it out there in a permanent position (TV jobs are temporary), then I will make the journey out there, but I gotta make sure that I can find a job with my not-so impressive marketable skills. I have a lot of medical office experience, but so do a lot of other people, and a lot of people are vying for those jobs. I have a lesser chance of getting hired over others who are older, damn me for being in my early 20s. But yeah, that is the mess I call, "APRIL." Hopefully May will bring something good. It's already doing a pretty good job ending my classes for me. I could do with less stuff to STRESS over. Bah. Toodles, readers!

Unfailing Unfairness

So my husband was laid off yesterday. Yep. No warning or anything. That was it. Shall I break it down a bit?

My husband has been working for this company for over a year. He was so talented with what he can do; they opened a whole video department with him as the head. He was bringing in business himself and wowing his bosses like crazy. He was being paid CRAP because the company was just starting out, but for months he was promised a raise come his yearly review. It was a long wait, but we were optimistic that we would get that raise and everything would be okay when we had to begin paying off Evan's school loans. For a year, Evan has not received any PTO or any overtime. And they made him work A LOT of overtime. 15 hour days. Those are always fun. This past weekend with the start of the Phoenix Film Festival, for which Evan did the logo/opening to every screening being shown there, he was there ALL weekend. Thursday night, after having worked all day at his office, he was sent to North Scottsdale for the Festival from 4:30 - 10:30PM, came home, went to bed, got up the next morning for work at the office, went to Scottsdale, came home Friday night about midnight. Saturday, got up at 8AM, shot another gig at 10AM for some BBQ thing, went to the Festival, and came home at 10:30PM. Went back on Sunday and worked at the Festival from 10AM-5PM. All. For. FREE. You betcha. He went in Monday morning to work, worked all day, and was brought in by his boss and his sister and told that there was no more work for him. They couldn't afford the pittance salary to keep him on staff. Evan asked if they could just keep him on for a week or two to give him time to find a new job. NOPE. Is he getting payment for all the overtime this weekend alone? NOPE. Is he getting reimbursed for the gas we spent getting him to North Scottsdale from Gilbert for the past four days? NOPE. You know what he's getting? A recommendation letter. No warning, completely caught off guard, not even allowed to finish out this week. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. NADA.

This post is a little all over the place, so sorry about that, but you can tell it's mostly cuz I'm upset. There's no harder worker than Evan. He's one of those talented, dedicated workers that could go so far and yet keeps getting screwed over by everyone. It makes my heart hurt. But anyway, I thought I would share and get it out of my system. You can see how amazing Evan is on his website: evansprague.com. Hope everyone else's luck holds in this crappy economy. It always sucks when you get to be a statistic on the news......

Death of a Crockpot

Being angry at Mondays is a good thing. It's like some sort of voodoo karma thing that bites you in the butt if you happen to be in a good mood on a Monday. And there I was yesterday, happy as can be, on my way home from work looking forward to some scrumptious chicken cacciatore I had made that morning in my crock-pot. My mood was so fine that I failed to notice my dog slink under the table as soon as I came through the door, my thoughts wholly centered on the fact that I have class on Monday nights and I get home long enough to eat really quick before diving out the door for the next three hours at COM100 so using my crock-pot on Mondays and Tuesdays works quite well. As I put down my purse and started to turn towards the stove to start boiling some water, that's when I saw it; this horrible thing. Shattered glass everywhere, the remains of my crock-pot flung about in disarray, tomato sauce all over the counters and floor, and the horrid lack of chicken cacciatore. I quietly let my dog out into the back, who escaped outside with a sigh of relief, and I turned back to the mess. I could physically feel the seconds counting down to when I had to rush back out the door again. Let's just say that for the rest of the time I was at home, I was pretty angry, and Molly was scared for her life. My crock-pot had been a wedding gift and I just wanted to sit down and have a good cry. Dratted dog! But anyway, I thought I would share my little movie with you all. Someday I will have a movie on how exactly she gets on the counters and knocks stuff off, so there's that to look forward to.

Furniture?? YES!

My in-laws are coming down at the end of April so we have been madly scrambling for bedroom furniture for our third room. Beds are expensive. While the frames are not too bad, buying a mattress for cheap is close to, how should I put it . . . ? IMPOSSIBLE! And that's where my friend helped us out. She just moved here from Michigan and has a lot of her stuff in storage and needs to get rid of some stuff, and when she started listing off what she needed to get rid of, I shouted, "SCORE!" So thanks to her, we are getting a bed, a MATTRESS!, a dresser, and a night stand for a GREAT price. The only downside is figuring out how to get everything over to Gilbert from NORTH Scottsdale in the back of our truck. Lol. Yay puzzles!

Anyway, I'm super dooper excited about getting to decorate yet another room in my house and it's going to be super sweet, and YES I will be putting up before and after pictures up on here, so do not fret my loyal blog readers. Stay tuned!

Conservative Moment

Today is a historic day for America. Today President Obama signed the healthcare bill, this bill that goes completely against what America stands for. Today another freedom was signed away to the roar of applause, and this is the day that every American will remember and know the name Obama as the one who took our nation farther away from greatness and closer to socialism. Closer to communism.

“You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We’ll so weaken your economy until you’ll fall like overripe fruit into our hands." Nikita Kruschev, Russian Dictator, 1959

"For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether collectively we can afford everything and a...nything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around. Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is NOT ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only ONCE to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, HAVE NEVER KNOWN IT AGAIN." ~Ronald Reagan

Scared yet?

Wedding Madness

This weekend was wholly dedicated to our friends' wedding on Saturday. Friday was the rehearsal dinner which was held at Dave and Busters at Tempe Market Place, a location which I LOATHE. I hate driving there, I don't like parking, and getting out of there is a mess. But since we're awesome friends, we went. I left my purse in the car and ended up having to go ALL the way back to get it so the dork at the entrance could card me. Umm, I don't drink, moron. *Rolls eyes. Anyway, we ended up staying for almost a couple hours before we left. I was suffering from "woman woes" so it's amazing I lasted that long. On Saturday, the groom hung out at our house for awhile and went driving with Evan. I finally was motivated enough to actually get ready and came downstairs about an hour before the ceremony to find both men at the table talking. I asked, "Weren't you guys supposed to be at the golf club at 3:30?" To which they replied, "Crap, what time is it?" Lol. I shooed both men out and got them there and into their tuxes and found my seat. Let me just say, there's nothing more awkward than attending a wedding where you only know the bride and groom and your husband is a groomsman. I had to sit all by myself for most of the night. I finally found some people to socialize while I waited for Evan to be free from duties and they were funny. We stayed til about 9:30 before goin outside. We were posing as "the ride" to the hotel because the groom wanted to surprise his wife with a really nice SUV he had rented to take them. Well, the car was late and so I tried stalling at the curb with the bride while the boys lingered around the car, trying in vain to figure out where the car was. About a half an hour later, we finally loaded both into the back of our VW and set out. Luckily, we spotted the car and turned back to the club because we "forgot something" and unloaded the newlyweds. Lol. After settling them in their car, we went home. On the way, a horrible headache started and got worse until it reached full-blown migraine so I went to bed pretty early. That was a pretty terrible night. Then we woke up, rushed out to get a wedding present that we had forgotten to get before, and went to the after-party(?) at the newlyweds' home. We spent a few hours there before my migraine came back. Eeek! It took about 6 hours to go away and luckily, it was early enough to catch a movie, Bounty Hunter, which was fun.

It sucks that it is Monday and school is back in session, plus another class started and I managed to get my homework done, but I don't want to go to class tonight or tomorrow. Lol. UGH! I hate school. I don't want to deal with it anymore, but I'm almost done so I will keep pushing. This weekend we'll finally have time to finish painting and hopefully get our ceiling fan installed in our room. Yay! Keepin' my fingers crossed...

1 for the Penny, 2 for the Show . . .

It's so much fun reading everyone's statuses on FB about sleeping in, going to the movies, laying in bed all day because they're all on Spring Break, including me who still has to go to work 8-5 every day. The only difference this week is that I don't have to rush home, make dinner, and dash out the door again to class. Yay. Thanks guys. Lol.

Things are growing, Growing, GROWING. My little lavenders are sprouting like mad. And so are the weeds in my backyard. Little devils. But they won't be flourishing for long. Those bad boys are gonna be ousted tonight since I don't have choir to go to. I need myself some Round Up! Gitty up!

Next week we'll finally get the chance to finish painting the downstairs. I finally decided on a color. YELLOW! It's going to be amazing. It's not going to be an icky yellow like street paint or whatever. It's pale almost cream and it matches the cute little yellow flowers in my curtains so it will bring that out and with all the windows in my living room it will be TOTALLY sweet. That's the secret to yellow walls by the way. Lots of windows. Makes it look GOOOOOOOD. I'm not really sure if I want to do an accent wall or trying to paint all four "walls" in the living room, so that's still up in the air. I also don't know if I wanna do a different color in the entry way. Lol. Man this is tough!

Speaking of yellow, I got the cutest little sailor shirt this weekend at that boutique store my mom took me to, and I look darn fine in yellow. ;) I wanted to buy more, but unfortunately that takes more money. Lol. So I will be back! I also got to go to a cute little salon down the street where they also sell clothes and jewelry and got a really cute flower necklace for 9 bucks. I love reasonable prices for jewelry! Lol.

This weekend I watched the Rifftrax for Star Trek and Drag Me to Hell and laughed so friggin’ hard. I love those guys. Anyone who used to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 should definitely download a rifftrax to listen to during a movie of your choice. Well actually, anyone with a sense of humor should download one. Lol. We started the one for Transformers 2 last night, and it is quickly becoming my favorite one thus far. "Some movies just have it coming."

Toodles!

Week, week, go away.....

Seems like this week has been longer than most since I finished with February paperwork last week and my desk is empty now. My work computer decided to have a meltdown on Monday and got infected so that was a fun two hours of doing absolutely NOTHING while the antivirus program scanned everything. It's back to normal now, which means that it's still slow, glitchy, and obnoxious, but virus free.

Nothing too excited has happened since my last post. We didn't get to paint this past weekend because it was BUSY BUSY BUSY. Friday night was nice and quiet and we both went to bed early. Saturday, we went to church (I was exalting in just getting to sit in the pew and not having to be nervously anticipating when to play the piano) and then we had to rush home, pick up choral attire (long black sleeves, skirt to the floor, black tights, and closed toe shoes. I felt like Death Incarnate. Lol. All I needed was a scythe and a hood.) and then we had to rush to my parents' house to let out Abby for a bit before my Dad got home so we could go to Grandma's house for yum yums. I got a recipe for this kind of banana pie stuff. Vanilla pudding, bananas, cool whip, and these Italian wafer things from the 99c store (a place I never go because they're usually scary. lol.) Take the wafers and line the bottom of the pan, next layer is the vanilla pudding, then sliced bananas, another layer of pudding, more bananas, and then top layer of cool whip! It's so easy and yet SOOO GOOD. We had a good time sitting around the table chit-chatting with Grandma, and then left Willie there to spend the night, and set off to our part of the valley. We detoured to Stacey and Mark's house to watch them paint. I got to see my niece-puppy Penny who is friggin adorable. Lol. And we watched two of the best TV shows Archer and Tosh.0, laughing until our stomachs hurt. We got back to our house around 2AM. On Sunday, I got up early and spent a couple hours working on my 6-page paper due this week, practiced for my choir concert, made myself all pretty, got in my "death" get-up, and rushed off to MCC Red Mountain for the concert. It went really well, 'cept for 3 measures that I will pretend were SUPPOSED to be a solo ;), and a lot of people showed up which surprised me. After that, we fought through the rain and hail to go eat at Chile's. We left there right as the rain started pouring down so hard that the road disappeared and managed to get to Safeway okay to pick up dessert and fill-up the gas tank in the VW. We finally reached my parents' house and watched Law Abiding Citizen (which we now refer to as PS I Kill You. Gerry RULES!) and feasted on our banana cream pie. :) So overall a good weekend.

We'll prolly not be able to paint this weekend either since Evan got invited to go shooting in Casa Grande and then has a bachelor party to go to right after that. My mom and sister wanna go check out a cute little "boutique" on Main Street so I'm sure I won't be left at home all alone on Saturday. Lol. I'm not sure what else we're doing yet. Last weekend was busy and it wasn't even planned that way! Well the choir concert was, but nothing else. Haha. I love having a busy life so it works for me.

Evan signed up for Krav Maga classes which he attends three times a week so he won't get home until almost 8 tonight. I haven't decided whether I am up to cleaning the upstairs, making cupcakes, or passing out on the couch. I AM SO TIRED! I'm basically counting down the hours ‘til Friday night. I am excited to sleep in (thank goodness sleeping in is 9 o clock so I can sleep in AND go to church! Lol). I have like fifty billion crafts going on right now. I just wish I could choose one and work on it til I was done, but I get distracted so easily! I have my cross-stitch, my blanket, my bunny, and now my embroidery to finish. If only my hands didn't hurt so bad all the time I could get them finished in a timely manner! Ah, well. Some advice to my dearly beloved blog readers, "Life sucks and then you die." Lol. And on that OPTIMISTIC note, I bid you adieu! ;)

House Makeover Part 1! :)

This weekend was amazingly busy. We went to Buca di Beppo's for my birthday family dinner and everyone was there. We were seated in the "Pope Room." It was hilarious. There were all these pictures of different popes on the walls and naked angels on the ceiling. The table was round and had a lazy susan in the middle with a pope bust in the middle! He was kinda scary so everyone kept spinning him around when no one noticed so he wouldn't be staring at us. The waiter was in and out at awkward times and did not like us very much. He was pushy and would just interrupt whoever was talking and would stalk back out again. It was weird! But this chef guy kept coming in to check on us and I think that he thought we were hilarious. One of the times he came in, my dad happened to be telling the story of when my oldest sister was born (it was a pretty horrendous birthing. lol) and when he got to the part about the forceps, the guy walks in as dad is recounting "the blood on the floor and the doc pulls out giant salad tongs," and we all started laughing at the guy's face. He joked around with us about coming in at the wrong time. After making sure that we were doing okay, he left, so Dad started the story up again and ANOTHER waiter comes in right as he said, "Forceps." The waiter gave us a weird look, dropped off his load, and left quickly, and then Dad started the story again and ANOTHER waiter came in (all of 'em different people). By this time we were all laughing too hard that Dad couldn't finish the story. Ma said that it kept happening because you're not supposed to talk about stuff like that at the dinner table. We all had a good time. Stace got me more Moonlight Path (I am not running out any time soon!) and the bottles were stuffed in a cute flower pot which also came with lavender seeds. There won't be any sprouts for a month! I made sure to plant them so we can get the party started. Lol. These little flower sticks came with the pot and my sister put little pictures of everyone in the flowers. So cute! I didn't want them to get wet when I put the lavender pot outside so I stuck 'em in my other pot on the counter in the kitchen. That pot has little wildflower sprouts comin' up outta the dirt. I'm so excited! :D My little brother Bobby and his wife Elyssa got me a funny card and 10 bucks (SWEET!). After dinner, Evan had to run to our house to grab our tax stuff and try finding some deductions WHICH HE DID!! and we are getting back around 500 bucks now because of his school stuff. I never imagined being grateful that his school tuition was so high!

While he was working on that, I practiced the piano for church the next morning. I have really bad joint pain all the time now and when I finally got to church on Saturday morning, my hands hurt so bad that it was hard to play the chords and I messed up a few times. Luckily, not many noticed, and boy am I happy when I got done with the closing hymn. My hands were shaking so bad during closing prayer because I was in so much pain, but I received a lot of compliments after the service though which made the pain worth it.

After church, we decided that we wanted to a) go to the snow or b) go quadding, so we packed the car full of snow gear and quads and headed out to Four Peaks. We ended up just staying at Four Peaks and not going further up to Payson, but we had a great time with our friends and family out there racing around. My puppy, Molly, got to come and she was SO happy. She did really well and I am so proud of her for not scaring anybody. Lol. She finally killed her pink star ball so she was very sad when I threw it away last night. She ran around the entire time so her paw is pretty torn up, and she likes to baby it up to get attention so she limps around the house. I call her my little gimp and I hug her. She loves attention! Lol. I never went very fast on the quad because I didn't feel like dying, and Evan made sure I always had my helmet on (such a caring husband!) and Evan decided by the end of the trip that WE have to go get quads. I told him that he got his TV, but he said that didn't count. Lol. So apparently he's looking into that. We went back to Mom and Dad's house and had some yummy steak and green beans, and then watched awful Sci-Fi Channel movies the rest of the night. They're the best to make fun of.

Sunday morning, Evan woke me up around 9:30 and after I figured out that I didn't actually wanna waste the last day of my weekend on school, we decided that we wanted to try and paint the wall in the kitchen to get an idea of how much paint we would need and whether or not we needed to prime the walls. Red is such a pain to get on the walls! The guy at Walmart told us that it took him 5 or 6 coats to paint his daughter's room, and I was like, NO WAY JOSE! But we got some high quality paint and only needed one can and 1.5-2 coats to do our dining room and it looks fantastic! Here's some Before and After shots:

BEFORE:

After:


The kitchen:


I want to get either a mirror or that cute metal Eiffel Tower wall hanging I saw to go in the kitchen in the blank space. This weekend we might be installing the crown molding in the kitchen and dining room and living room. We're painting the living room this weekend. We're going to get couch covers for the three couches and ottoman and I want to do them in shades of dark brown and beige with cutey pillows I saw at World Market on 'em. So I will make sure to get my Before and After pictures for that too this weekend. I'm excited! :)

The Glory of Friday

My brother and sister-in-law made a another trip down here from CA this weekend. Hopefully we can finally get a family picture while we're all together since it happens so rarely. Lol. Tonight we'll all be going to Buca di Beppo's, a late-birthday family dinner for me since we didn't all have the same nights free, but I like to just say it's a family get-together. Lol. I don't wanna be the center of attention anymore. If ever I was. Haha. But it's pretty sweet because my mom and dad-in law got me a gift card there for my birthday. Sweet! The tiramisu there rocks. It has a pretty strong alcohol taste compared to CA Pizza Kitchen and Olive Garden because its basically drowned in rum (lol), but I like it anyway which is a surprise since I HATE the taste of alcohol. CA Pizza Kitchen's tiramisu has more of an espresso taste to it, while Olive Garden's is more lacking in both and is sweeter. Ain't I just the tiramisu expert! Lol.
Evan got me two books for my "big" birthday present. I'm so excited for them to come! One is a book about the history of Beauty and the Beast. How cool is that??! And it's full of different renderings of the story. Pretty pictures! And the other book I got (also Disney) is a collection of artists who did all their own versions of Disney Princess. I can't wait to look at 'em.
Tomorrow I am playing the piano for opening/closing hymns and both offertories at church. I am so nervous!!! I feel nauseated and shaky, and it's weird because if I mess up, it's not like I am going to be excommunicated/ de-fellowshipped or whatever. Lol. But I figure I can at least help out once a year. My heart can't take more than that. I don't have any time to practice the piano anymore being a full-time employee and student. I've only gotten to run-through the hymns once, so tomorrow will be interesting. (Yikes!)

Birthday Fun

First of all, let me say that I got the swellest text from my Disneyland hook up Ali. She sent me a birthday song which I set for my ringtone for today. I played it for my friends who went ahead and danced for me.

When I got home after work, I practiced my choir music until I had to leave for class. Unfortunately my voice left, so choir was .... interesting to say the least. Haha. My mom surprised me with pretty pink roses and a chocolate bar (the roses matched my outfit! lol). When I got home tonight, I walked in and my cutey husband had set up a candle lit dinner, having gotten take out from CA Pizza Kitchen AND tiramisu. Evan knows me so well. He also got me red roses and Moonlight Path Bubble Bath! I have been looking everywhere for this stuff! He said that's not even my big present. :) So now, stuffed beyond fathoming, I am watching Dragnet with my baby, while Molly is being funny at my feet, rolling around to get attention. In all, a perfect birthday.

Birthday Bonanza!

So today is my 22nd birthday. A nurse at work told me that she didn't want to hear it if I was in my twenties so I told her I was really 32. Lol.

I came into work and one of my besties at work tied a bunch of balloons to my chair and she and Tanya wrote all over the white board above my desk all their birthday wishes for me. So I had a good laugh when I came into work. My other friend got me a sweet little journal with bible verses on each page and a cute puppy card. They love me. Lol. I also got to go out to lunch today. Usually I just brown bag it, but today was a good excuse. We all went out to Port of Subs for lunch, meeting my other bestie there for some yum yums. So far the day has been great, and Evan told me that he has something planned for after choir practice tonight so I'm super dooper excited.

I started up my story blog again. I think I'm up to 6 chapters on the darn thing, but I am rearranging sections a little bit to make it sound better. Hopefully I can get some followers on it that will tell me if my changes are hit or miss. Lol. I desperately need feedback on the sucker. Anywho, if you're bored enough, dear friend who is reading this captivating blog, the link is http://shatteredplanet-lori.blogspot.com/. Follow it. Rip it to shreds.

Lori out.
Up, up, and away!

Friday Eve

It was been a looooooong week. Seems every week has been long lately. When we got home last night, we ate spaghetti and watched Zombieland (not the most appetizing duo) and then when the movie ended, it was about 7:30 and I felt confused. I'm not used to getting to just go home and chill. Usually I have to rush home to change into jeans and then fly out the door again. Molly was super excited that we were home for the first time this week, so I played with her. I love that she plays by batting me with her HUGE paws. She's such a puppy. I got bored pretty fast after that movie ended and so I put on Drop Dead Fred, worked on my baby blanket, and then after the movie ended I decided to play "Lava!" and climbed on the couches and made a bridge using couch pillows to get around my living room. Evan was on the floor so I used his "flaming body" to get to my bridge, bemoaning the fact that I just lost my husband and puppy to the lava, before I fell off my "bridge" and died too. So maybe I didn't feel like being a grown-up last night. Lol. Evan didn't appreciate my "saving" him with my throwing water on him. Then I topped off the night with spinning really fast and then falling down and closing my eyes to feel the floor tilt. After several sessions of this, my dearest grown-up husband told me to knock it off and go to bed. In revenge, I made him do the dishes and I ran cackling up the stairs. I love my marriage. Haha.

And now on to grown-up issues. We owe a crap-ton to the government this year for taxes, and by crap-ton, I mean 2 thousand buckaroos. You know, cuz I totally have that to just spend. It always makes so much sense to have a ton taken from every paycheck and then get blessed with forking more money over to the gov'ment at tax time. My husband is pretty sure that he might be able to find some deductions, and I told him that I will believe it when I see it. I told my husband that I felt like the little bunny from Robin Hood who got a gold coin for his birthday only to have the Sheriff of Nottingham take it away from him. Therefore I vow to ever after refer to Obama as Prince John, the phony king of England [America]. According to the good Prince, we just make TOO much damn money. Oh really? If I were rich, I'm pretty sure I would have a working car with less than 130K miles on it as opposed to over. I would have clothes that I didn't have to patch myself and hold up with safety pins. Interesting.....

I like my classes thus far. Well, who can really like communications? It's easy and there's no homework so it works for me. My world religions class is another story though. I hate these classes and philosophy classes because it always attracts crackpots, and the teacher is usually the craziest one. I'm just taking it to graduate. So I had a quiz this week, and I couldn't get into the dang thing, so I email the teach to unlock the quiz for me, since it's now the next day, but she emails back, "I made provisions for this happening and so I only count 4 quizzes outta 5 towards your grade." Umm, so what happens if it does it again?? *Rolling eyes* Gee, thanks for the help, teach.

Thank goodness its Friday tomorrow or I would go crrrrrrazy. I need a break!

Two weeks 'til my birthday!

I get to work today and there's a card on my desk. Wow, guys. You don't even know when my birthday is? Or are you just doing everyone's Feb. birthdays at once? Lazy! Lol. Oh well. At least I got one.

Next week, we're headin' to DISNEYLAND! for my birthday. Well, our annual passes expire next weekend so it works. My sister and brother-in-law are coming too so it will be SO much fun. We're staying in a nice hotel too! Yay for off-season hotel rates!

We dropped off our VW at the shop last night. Or Evan did. I was trapped in my communications class til nine. But the shop was all the way in Glendale, so they had to rent a tow trailer to drag the car behind the suburban. It works though since the guy is fixing it for cheap. He says we should get it tomorrow. I'm so excited! Then we're selling the sucker. It's all fixed and stuff, but all cars break. ALL of them, especially when you need the car the most. I want to get another chevy. My dad can fix WHATEVER goes wrong, and we won't have to drive our car to GLENDALE to get it fixed because dad doesn't have the tool. I want an Equinox, but I gotta wait for that one. I don't feel like being broke every month.

Valentine's Day is comin' up, and while I think it's a retarded holiday, I'm going to go out and get a bunch of paper hearts and pink table cloths, and just decorate the crap out of my house just to see the look on Evan's face. Haha.

Tonight is choir so I'm lookin' forward to 5PM. Work is CRAZY CRAZY, but it is month's end after all. Gotta get all the Jan. packets into the system. If only it were Friday.....

Monday, Monday, Monday . . . .

This weekend went pretty well. We went to church Saturday morning; I paid my tithe, stayed for potluck with Mom and Pops, and then chilled at my house for a few hours working on my cross-stitch, before returning to the church for the spaghetti dinner/talent show put on by the Mesa Wildcats Pathfinder Club. It was really cute. They put together a series of their own skits and performed them in front of everyone during the dinner, all relating stories from the Bible. They were so cute! They did a really good job and I am proud of them. I wish more people from the church had come out to support them, but we had a pretty good sized crowd overall. I left before they could tally the rest of the donations, but last I heard they were over $100. My mom sweet-talked me into playing the piano at the end of the program, so that was fun. After the dinner, everyone came back to my place. I went with my friend Allison and my sister Stace to Michaels to go pick up some yarn for a baby blanket I am working on for my brother and sister-in-law. Then we watched The Couch Trip when the rest of my family showed up. Hilarious! I love Dan Akroyd and Walter Matthau! Molly had a good time playing with Abby who came over to visit too. Abby was being so cute on the stairs. She would go down a few steps at a time and then poke her head over the side, before disappearing again to go down a little further, and poking her head back over the wall. She eventually went upstairs to lay down next to my little brother who was playing computer games in our office.

Yesterday, Evan and I had a good time being lazy. We watched the Blues Brothers and Parenthood while he worked on his production blog and me on my baby blanket and cross-stitch projects. Then we got ready and went out for a date night to Olive Garden. There weren't any movies in the theater that we were hip on seein' so we decided to go rent the worst movie of 2008 (aka Twilight) so we could put on the Rifftrax and listen to the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 rip into it. So we set off to Blockbuster to rent a copy, and they inform us that they never got a movie back and we now owe 21 bucks. I told them that we had taken it back because I remember. But he stated once more, "Nope, never got it!" Evan went ahead and paid it before I could say otherwise, and I was livid to say the least. I just paid over 20 bucks for a movie that I do not have in my hot little hands. I DON'T THINK SO! So I made Evan take me to the other Blockbuster (they said we dropped it off there instead of the right store) and once we got there, I politely asked for MY movie. The man looks and looks and looks. It's not there. "We already sent it to the other store." Oh, really? I told him that the other guy said they didn't have it and to please call that store for me. So he did. And guess what? They DID have it. Oh boy! Another roadtrip! We drive ALLLL the way back and the guy tries to give it to me, and I said, "I want my money back." He waited until he was done with his customer so he could "explain to me why he couldn't." I told him he could try. He gave me some BS about it being waaaaay late and that it was protocol to charge me for the movie. I told him that I am not paying for a movie that I did not like, much less, TWENTY ONE DOLLARS! I have NEVER paid that much for a DVD. So I quietly told him that I had driven all the way to the other store to get it, and then came ALL the way back, and I would like a FULL refund. He obliged and I thanked him profusely. I don't mind paying a "restocking fee" or whatever they call their late charges, but don't you dare try to charge me THAT much. We happily exited the store free of any charges and our money back and went home.

We bought the Rifftrax for Twilight and put it on our ipod to listen to while we watched the movie. It was pretty easy to sync up to the movie and we laughed our butts off for the next 2 hours. GOOD stuff. Evan and I decided that we need to get a Rifftrax for every movie we hate. Lol. I am thinking the next one we get should be for the new Star Wars or Kingdom of the Crystal Suck. We'll see!

New Crafts!! :)

I finally found a cross stitch project and it's going to take FOREVER cuz it's huge, but I am excited. Not to mention, I wanna try my hand at making the little crochet animals in my sister's book.

Walmart has a bunch of FREAKIN' adorable plant pots so I am already planning my backyard. It's all rocks so there's not a lot I can do with it, but the pots will be cute back there and I wanna get my hands on some rose bushes, the old fashioned ones that have the strongest smelling flowers and plant them along the wall in the backyard and get one of those wooden, not lattice, but close, structures to put over my patio since I don't have a porch and trail some ivy and jacob's ladder roses up on top for shade. It's going to be fun! Now if I can get a break.... Lol.

Someone to talk to....

Interesting to note my complete and utter lack of excitement for the weekend, being Friday and all, but these last couple of days have left me in a kind of funk. It's a strange feeling, blank and apathetic. I'd like to think that the real cause is my exhaustion from work and school, but I don't have it that bad. I'm just tired of people lying to me for months and excusing themselves with, "I have my reasons." I'm tired of being screwed out of my money. I'm tired of having no friends. I'm tired of my job. I'm tired of the loneliness that threatens to rise up and choke me whenever I go onto FB and see everyone else making plans with their friends for the weekend, while I have to sit home alone for two days.

I mostly feel like kicking myself when these thoughts pass through my head. I have a wonderful husband, my best friend, who takes care of me, but I miss hanging out with girl friends. It'd be so much easier to make friends if I drank, not that I wanna change now. Alcohol smells awful and tastes worse, and one sip gives me a massive headache, so no thanks, but because I don't drink, I'm immediately treated like I cannot handle some people I know who enjoy drinking. They clam up around me when talking about their parties as if I were going to condemn them for drinking. My favorite is when they try and badger me about my choice not to. Why is it so important that I drink? It's like asking, "Why do you like vanilla more than chocolate?" It was so easy to make friends in school. One just needed to ask, "Wanna be friends?" and that was that. Inseparable ever after. It's interesting how fast everyone disappeared as soon as I got married. Apparently NOW I have cooties. Pfft.

Some guy is coming to take the cats tonight and I'm trying not to think to hard about it. I love Sesmu and Bagheera and I'm going to miss the brats. But not the cat boxes. I got to come home last night to the contents of the downstairs cat box strewn over my landing and covering the bathroom floor, but the idiots still went to the bathroom in the now empty-of-litter catbox, so that smell was pleasant. With so many things goin' to crap right now, being a prisoner in my own home is obnoxious. I want to be able to leave doors open and not worry about the cats getting into the rooms and tearing things up or pooping/peeing/puking all over the place. I want the smell out of my house. Ug, but I'm sad that the boys are leaving.

Tomorrow I will read this and laugh, since I'm probably suffering from "pre-woman woes" or something. Blogs are funny. It's like running around and shoving your journal under people's noses and begging them to read it. I don't care that no one reads my blogs. It's purpose is for me to ramble and feel better, so thank you blog. My only friend. :)

2010 thus far . . . .

Today heralds the second week of forced-carpooling with Evan since the oil pump in our Passat blew last week. My dad researched how to do it, so all set with mailed-in car parts, dad and Evan set off yesterday to get the car fixed. Unfortunately, turns out that to get to the oil pump and replace everything, you have to take a lot of stuff out, including lifting the engine which my dad lacks the tools (or should I say, LIFT thingamabob) to do. Talk about hopes dashed on not having to take it into a shop. We are hoping my sister's VW repair man can help us out for a few pennies instead of a pretty one. Thank goodness my truck is running perfectly (*knock on wood).

I started my second(?) to last semester this past week. I am taking World Religions (UGH) and a political science class online and COM100 and Choir on Monday and Tuesday nights. After this semester I should maybe have an elective left to do this summer and I will be set. I wish I could take another class this semester, but HOLY EXPENSIVE, BATMAN! For my four classes, I am paying eight hundred bucks, and with tax time and Evan's school payments looming ever nearer, I did not think it would be a good idea to break the budget. Oy.

Evan and I decided that it was time to attempt to find a new home for the cats. They chew up EVERYTHING, poop EVERYWHERE, and tear up my new carpet. I don't have a lot of say in the matter since Evan is the one in charge of cleaning the terror-inspiring catboxes and the messes EVERY night since I have to stay away from it due to my asthma and allergies, not to mention my newly developed gag reflex (and I always thought I was pretty hard stomach-ed). We're so busy and short of time every night that it is putting a lot of stress on Evan. I love them so much though! They are so cute and sweet, but I am going along with Evan in this. We already specified that we want the cats to go together in the ad on craigslist since it will help them adapt better to a different house, but I still feel pretty badly. Hopefully we can find a good home for them soon.

My goals for this month are: 1) Keep A's in all my classes (which should be easy), 2) Lose 20 pounds (I've already lost ten! *happy dance*), and 3) have a car to drive to Disneyland in a couple weeks for my birthday.

Christmas 2009

I had to fix the tree because the cats like to play Jungle Kitty and knock it all down.

Molly looked so cute by the tree that I just had to hug her!

Evan loves his new leather jacket I got him. :D

Molly liked the Christmas kitty treats. Lol.

Molly was helping me open my presents

They are piggies!

Family photo!

Evan is so cutey in his jacket. :)

Mom and Dad's tree

Pettin Abby while we wait for the others to wake up.

Abby likes to lick Mom's feet. Lol.

Dad opening the first present.

Mom is so cute.

Stacey and Mark arrive just in time to open their presents.


And since Evan's camera likes to be evil, this is basically it for Christmas pictures. Next year I am going to get a camera that works. :)

January Madness

New year, new changes. For the better methinks. My mother recently found that she has a high chance of heart attack/stroke and has to redo her entire diet. I was pretty freaked out (of course) and decided that I needed to help her stick with her new restrictions and so I became her weight-loss buddy. I am her diet nazi and she is mine. Now is the time that my metabolism is the highest it will ever be and once I reach the point where I want to start a family, I want to be a healthy incubator for my kid-lets. I hesitate to say New Year's Resolution since I started the diet a week before Christmas, but my goal for this year is to get healthy. I weighed in the first day at 211 a couple weeks ago, and this week I reached the robust weight of 205 GO ME. So hopefully the numbers keep falling for both Mommy and me. If there is something to blog about, I figure keeping a record on here will keep me motivated. My first weight goal is 180, at which time I will do a HIP HIP HOORAY posting on here (aren't you all so excited??). There's a "magic" mirror at the weigh-in place that shows you how you will look twenty pounds lighter, and lets just say I'm going to look pretty damn sexy. ;) Lol. JK. My doc says that 150lb should be where I stop unless I feel I should lose a little more. Since I am big-boned and tall, I doubt I will be able to get below that number and stay healthy. Lol.

Hopefully in all this I achieve my most important goal of reversing my asthma. It kicks my butt in the winter time, let me tell you, and I miss being able to run around like I used to. Ever since I changed from Flovent to Advair (maintenance drugs) my asthma attacks are fewer, yes, but more severe. I don't know if any of you have ever tried to breathe through a straw? It's very uncomfortable to say the least. This past month I have had to use my nebulizer more than once since my emergency inhalers have failed to stop the attacks, so that's a little scary.

Here's to motivation and everything this new year brings. Happy New Year's!