Memory Space Low

I love taking pictures.  Don't think anyone here would doubt that.  However, I often get somewhere and realize I don't have my nice camera.  I guess the pictures / video on my cell phone are better than nothing, but so often I never even get them off the phone.  As I was running out of space on my phone (heaven forbid I'd be forced to delete significant applications like "Solitaire"!) I finally went through all these forgotten moments.  And here we have a catch up of low quality evidence of high quality memories.

 Kate at Ukulele Club.  She's in the middle of the front row with her pink ukulele.

Lizzie at Jump Club (jumproping).  She's the shortie in the middle there.

Walking between two cars Sabrina was watching her feet and ran her forehead into a side-view mirror!  Quite the painful goose-egg, poor girl.

Kate at the dentist office.  She's got the "elephant nose" on (it's the laughing gas) and she and Sabrina are watching "The Emperor's New Groove" while they wait for her novacaine to kick in the rest of the way before having her pulpotomy done (root canal on a baby tooth).

Springville Museum of Art field trip with the 1st grade.  Lizzie's in the front here of the group I was chaperoning.  The large portrait they're standing in front of is a part of the All-State High School Exhibit.  It's done in colored pencil by my cousin Kristen Brunson and earned the Education Director's Award!

As we continued through the museum we also found these two paintings by Lee Greene Richards, my great-great uncle!

At the end we walked through the sculpture garden.  This was a favorite perch for all the kids.

Now for some old video clips:

Grandpa Southern reading to a whole scad of grandkids 1/2010

Lizzie (in the purple shirt) in her kindergarten production at the end of that school year. 5/2010

1st grade (Lizzie) production of "The Little Engine That Could" in choral recitation.  Lizzie is one of the narrators at the top.  No, you really can't see her, but I promise she's there! 2/2010

The next few are little videos of Kate playing with ukulele club. 3/2011

This first one I recorded particularly for the girls' cousin Eliza Jane:

Finally, here's a clip of Lizzie learning Double Dutch at Jump Club. 3/2011

Aside from cleaning out the storage on my cell phone, I've also done tons of work in the family room this last week.  Here's the picture (taken by Lizzie) of our progress:

That was a BIG job!  Book shelves, craft things, tv stuff, computer stuff... phew!!!

Packing, week 1

Packing has begun!

I sat down with my calendar last week and sketched in a 6 week plan (since I had 6 weeks until Moving Day) to have our house ready to go.  Last week was a short week, but it was dedicated to packing and cleaning the girls' rooms upstairs.  Their bedroom is almost entirely ready to go.  The walls have been washed, nail holes filled, etc.  I have a short list on a post-it stuck to the door of what is left to do in that room (including pulling out the bunks to wash the walls and vacuum the floor behind/under them, replacing the smoke alarm batteries... a handful of things like that).  The other room upstairs is about halfway done.  It's a pretty light-weight room, but I didn't manage to get as far done as I was hoping.

The girls are VERY excited about the move.  Lizzie spent all of last week asking if we could please just move TODAY.  Since "today" wasn't an option, I handed over a few boxes, and eventually some rags, and put them to work.  They love helping.  Though yes, it is less helpful to me in the big picture.  Some of these boxes are going to be exciting to open up.  I let each of them label one of their boxes.

 

The labels on the boxes indicate which room they will end up in and whether it goes upstairs or downstairs so our moving monkeys (aka helpful family) can easily chuck stuff in the right rooms without needing to stop for directions.

This week's Herculean task is the Family Room (including my desktop computer and all my craft / sewing things!).   I have several boxes done already, but I'm also really looking forward to some help that has been offered this week.

Our main goal, in organizing the packing so carefully, is to keep me as healthy as possible during this crazy time.  Stress makes me sick.  More stress makes me more sick.  And this is stressful!  So I'm working very hard to keep things as simplified and under-control as possible.  I am actually starting this undertaking with over two weeks of a severe viral infection going on.  I saw the doctor near the beginning to rule out strep.  I saw the doctor again today and was given hefty antibiotics to battle a secondary sinus infection.  I can't wait for them to kick in so I can sleep and breathe again!

Breaking News!

Today we signed contracts agreeing to buy a house!  We've been working in earnest to buy a home for a few months now.  There have been ups and downs and lots of patience required (which is a rare commodity in this household!).  After dealing with a ridiculous bank agent for 3 months in an attempt to take a short-sale home off their hands we were pretty done with short sales.  Then we got to see three homes, all of which we liked, none of which were short-sales!
We were able to come to a concensus with the sellers of this home and are thrilled.  It is a beautiful home here in Springville.  It is up toward the canyon in a lovely part of town, yet still in the same school boundaries we're in right now (due to a funky boundary).  There are many things we like about the house, but here are a few highlights:

 

Ah, NOT COOKIE CUTTER!!!!  I have never cared for neighborhoods where every house looks the same.  This home is unique, and has some really nice architectural features (it even has a cupola with a weather vane!  Find *that* in a Salisbury subdivision ;))

 The yard is nicely landscaped.  We nicknamed this home the "water house" because there is a fountain in the side yard, this water feature in the back yard, and in their personal items they have an indoor waterfall thingy too.  I can't wait to sit on the patio on a summer evening with a friendly water burble nearby.

 The family room is very important to us.  We like to have enough space for my craft stuff, the tv stuff, and the computer stuff all in the same room.  We like to be in the same place doing things.  My craft table goes by the fireplace.  That way Michael can do that crazy frigid-basement thing he likes and I can turn on the gas fireplace to not become a Tilly-cicle.

 Purty, i'nt it?  Look at the LIGHT!  This house makes such wonderful use of natural light with windows and openness.  I just like it.  A lot.

 This is one problem with the house.  Only one bedroom looks like *this*, and ALL the girls want *this* room.  Who wouldn't?!  It has the most beautiful murals on the walls and even the clouds on the ceiling.  See that little yellow door on the right side of the room?  Well lookie at the secret playroom hidden under the eaves --

it's small, but adorable.

Anybody who knows me knows how important this room is to me.  Look at the size of this tub!  And you'll notice again what a light room it is.  The only draw back is that there's no "poop-room".  I wish the toilet had its own little closet.  But that's okay.  I can deal with that ;)

The closing date is set for April 18th.  We're going to miss the neighborhood here so much!  We've loved where we're living, but it is beyond time for us to have our own house.  Now I just need to find boxes and put our life in them.  That's not my favorite part.

March Marches On

It seems I've been hiding in my shell quite a lot lately.  I have had problems getting my pictures from my camera on to the laptop I use 99.9% of the time.  I also had some things to deal with that weren't for the blogging world, so I waited.  Now, back on track...  Life isn't "normal", but we can pretend.  :)

Back in January we took an opportunity to finally go to the circus.  None of us (including Michael or myself) have ever seen the actual circus before, and we had a GREAT time. 

My favorite acts were the elephants and the 'lyrical chiffon' (or whatever it was called).  We accidentally sat in not the best place.  I mean, it was great and all, but not so great for photos.  Stupid light stands :P 

Well, this is as far as I'm going to make it tonight.  I've been quite sick for about a week and a half and I'm still pretty wiped out.  Time for bed. 

Goals, update 5

Oh, right.  It's the 6th again already?!  Time flies.  Looks like most of this month was a lot of churning in the same place.  

Any new notes I've added this month are bold.  

Completed goals are red.

1- Sew at least one new item of clothing for me.

2- Make living room curtains (hopefully for our own home) -- No decisions made yet.
 
3- Go one mile (run/walk) in 12 minutes or less --  This month (March) I am going to set a goal to walk twice around the park behind our house two times a week.  Let's see how that goes.

4- Clean out and sort jewelry boxes

5- Catch up one year of scrapbooks -- No more progress made this month.

6- Read the entire Book of Mormon -- In the process
 
7- Get a new family picture taken
 
8- Clean out my bedroom closet
 
9- Sort my craft type items (including sewing) -- In the process.  I was hoping to do this as I packed, but now I don't know exactly what's happening there.  I'm still heading that way for now.

10- Make a new temple dress (does not fulfill goal #1) -- Not done yet, but I have been to the temple again which always helps encourage me to make my own dress when I have to rent one.
 
11- Be involved in at least one PTA project at the elementary school
 
12- Get last year's blog book printed and bound -- Almost done with edits.
 
13- Make some nice hair pretties for MY daughters --  I just boxed up all my ribbon, but I could pull it out easily enough if I reclaimed my craft table (as per goal #9)
 
14- Read some classic literature
   
15- Plant something and keep it alive -- I have three miniature roses in my kitchen window.  We also were successful with a holiday poinsettia, so there is hope yet!
 
16- Improve dysphonia to be able to sing again with less pain -- Still in progress.
 
17- Learn two new hymns on the piano --
 
18- Plan and enjoy a family vacation (even if it has to be in Utah County)
 
19- Back up all digital photos on new DVDs (or other storage device) and store safely -- ongoing
 
20- Participate in fruit and vegetable co-op when possible and learn new ways to enjoy produce -- we have an order in to pick up Saturday morning.
 
21- Create a 7 generation pedigree chart

22- Finish quilts for the girls' beds

23- Take a class through the community programs
 
24- Follow FlyLady principles to get/keep the house in a happy state.  -- I'm still making adjustments for what I'm able to do without overextending myself.  My routines are improving, though.
 
25- Read a book by a church leader -- Almost done with "The Coming of the Lord".  I got distracted for a bit there, but am still interested in reading the rest.
 
26- Spend $1,000 to improve financial outlook (pay off debt faster, put in savings, etc.) -- We have this set aside for earnest money.  We'll see how that goes, though.
 
27- Look at the stars more -- I love that it's getting to be not so frigid at night now.  The girls are fascinated by the stars and we love looking for constellations via Google Sky Map.  Haven't spent much time doing it, but as it gets warmer we'll enjoy it more.
 
28- Clean the Sharpie "artwork" off the playroom walls  Oh, right.  That.

29- Update our family's emergency preparedness -- I need to do the rest of the shopping to fix up our 72 hour packs.  Alas, I think this month we'll have to first re-buy all the stuff we just lost from our fridge and freezer! 

30- Learn to use the lenses and settings on my camera -- I decided to work on RAW photos now.  Should make the editing process more interesting all right. 
 
31- Return and report progress on my goals

Unloading

I'm a disaster today, so I'm going to unload:

- we finally heard back from the bank about the house we put an offer on 3 months ago.  They want a LOT more than we offered.  They want a lot more than it was listed for even.  I don't know what they've been smokin', but it's just not gonna happen.  (It's been on the market for over a YEAR and we're the only offer they have at any price!)  We're working on some things to see if we can still make it work, but they're insane.  The house is scheduled to go to auction in 5 days.
- in the mean time interest rates have gone up, and thanks to FHA being killed by bailing out idiots who overextended themselves or took on risky loans, they're hiking up PMI.  It has already gone up a LOT and is going to go up again in a month.  Everything was working out perfectly for us to finally own a home and now it's becoming a mess again.  I'm extremely frustrated.
- on Saturday Kate lost another tooth!  kinda.  The tooth was rotten clear through and most of it broke right off.  The tooth fairy came... and we made a dentist appointment.  She (Kate, not the Tooth Fairy) had the rest of the tooth extracted this afternoon and a spacer put in until the permanent tooth can come in.  She has to have one big filling and two more extractions (bad set of teeth).  Fortunately she loves the dentist, does FABULOUS there, and the dentist hasn't complained about how much we owe him and how much more we'll be adding on to our tab with him.
- our dishwasher has been dead for a couple of months.  We've done everything we can, but it's just plain OLD and needs to be replaced.  So I've been slowly working on reclaiming the kitchen one or two batches of dishes a day.
- I can only manage one or two loads of dishes and laundry each day before something gets too irritated to finish.  I'm grateful I am able to live without pain medication every day, but I am only able to do that as long as I'm careful about what I eat, drink, and do.  I'm able to keep up our house, but improving things is slow.
- apparently our fridge quit working two days ago.  Unfortuantely we noticed the freezer after a day and had to chuck most of the freezer food.  Double unfortunately we thought the door had been not closed all the way so we left the things that were still okay in there.  Triple unfortunately it was another full day before we noticed the actual problem.  Out of a whole fridge/freezer full of food we have three scant grocery bags and 3 gallons of milk.  And they're all at Michael's work which makes grabbing a glass of milk a bit complicated.
- we have to get the landlord to decide what he's willing to do about the fridge and dishwasher issues.  (We're not even going to hope he'll fix the broken faucet too.)  To have him come over, though, I needed the kitchen to be more caught up than it was going to be by today.  So I overdid it last night and this morning and I'm paying for it now.
- we're tired of renting.  We're tired of our living situation being so dependent on what a landlord feels like doing or not doing.  I want to be more in control of our surroundings.  I want to care about the house because it's ours, not because someone else may care.

DEEEEEEEEP BREATH

Okay, that feels a bit better to get a few things off my chest.  Now on a more positive note:

+ The girls seem to be healthy again!  After fevers for 3 weeks then pink eye and coughs it's nice to have them back to "normal" for a bit. (picture above of Sabrina sleeping on the floor one afternoon when she was sick).
+ Kate actually looked forward to her dentist appointment.  She is just fine with making another two appointments for more work.  She had multiple shots today and did great with them all (even that pesky shot in the roof of the mouth).
+ We are looking forward to an exciting (though very busy) weekend including a baptism, baby blessing, family sealing, then another baby blessing.  Big deals in each of our extended families!  We can't wait to celebrate these events with them all.
+ Lizzie is doing much better at sleeping in her own bed.  I got her a puppy calendar at the store (for $2 since it's well into the year) and some puppy stickers.  Every night she stays in her bed all night she gets to put a sticker on the calendar.  She asked if she could earn $1 if she gets a sticker every day for a month.  Fine by me!!! 
+ We've hit out deductible already this year (well, that part is more on the "-" side since that's $3,000 out of our pockets already) Now doctor's appointments and medications are more reasonably priced.  I like being past the deductible period so I feel less guilty about needing more meds or a doc appointment. 
+ My kitchen is pretty dang clean now!  It's not perfect yet, but by tomorrow it may be.  Then as long as I can keep doing my bit each day it will be easier to keep in clean than having to keep chipping away at the things that need taking care of.
+ The girls and I are having a great time with the local library.  It's roughly the size of a good high school library, but we've been reading lots of fun books.  A new library is finally being built across the street from the current one so then the library can put out all the books they have to keep in storage now.  Kate and I particularly liked listening to the Eragon series on audiobook together.


I have several things I'm been meaning to post (such as our trip to the circus, Valentine's Day, President's Day, Dr. Seuss' Birthday at school, etc.) but haven't managed yet.  I'll try to get them done soon.  Life is really just fine.  I'm just overwhelmed today and am trying SO hard to figure out what the best things are for us to do.  I realize there are many people, even among those who may read this, who are having a much tougher time than us.  I'm not trying to compare to anyone or anything.  I just needed to vent. 

Goals, update 4

Any new notes I've added this month are bold.  

Completed goals are red.

1- Sew at least one new item of clothing for me. -- This is why I made these goals.  I get a project part way done, then let it sit!

2- Make living room curtains (hopefully for our own home) -- Still waiting on news on "our" house.  Well, the house we wish was ours at least.
 
3- Go one mile (run/walk) in 12 minutes or less --  Mumble, grumble.  And it turns out running may not be a recommended exercise for people with IC (interstitial cystitis).  I just might not be imagining feeling worse when I try it!  I'm doing some more research, then I may have to alter this goal somewhat.

4- Clean out and sort jewelry boxes -- I did it! 

5- Catch up one year of scrapbooks -- January and February of last year done!


6- Read the entire Book of Mormon -- In the process
 
7- Get a new family picture taken -- Done!
 
8- Clean out my bedroom closet
 
9- Sort my craft type items (including sewing)
 
10- Make a new temple dress (does not fulfill goal #1)
 
11- Be involved in at least one PTA project at the elementary school
 
12- Get last year's blog book printed and bound -- I am making some fixes in the formatting of the book, but it's coming along.
 
13- Make some nice hair pretties for MY daughters --  I did make a new one for each for picture day, but I really should make some basics for them still.
 
14- Read some classic literature -- I plan to do more of this, but I have technically accomplished this goal.
   
15- Plant something and keep it alive -- We've got live plants in our fish tank.  We've killed off several fish (oopsie) but we've done some good research and improved things.  We even have one plant that's growing all the way from seed, and doing quite well in there.
 
16- Improve dysphonia to be able to sing again with less pain -- Still in progress, and frustrating.
 
17- Learn two new hymns on the piano -- I've learned a handful on the ukulele!  But I gotta get back to the piano.
 
18- Plan and enjoy a family vacation (even if it has to be in Utah County)
 
19- Back up all digital photos on new DVDs (or other storage device) and store safely -- my laptop is backed up.  Still need to do my desktop.
 
20- Participate in fruit and vegetable co-op when possible and learn new ways to enjoy produce
 
21- Create a 7 generation pedigree chart -- I did it! 

22- Finish quilts for the girls' beds -- Or maybe just buy some.  Really depends on where we're living and how the girls' rooms are arranged / decorated.
 
23- Take a class through the community programs
 
24- Follow FlyLady principles to get/keep the house in a happy state.  -- Working on it.
 
25- Read a book by a church leader -- I'm most of the way through "The Coming of the Lord" by Gerald Lund.  He wasn't a general authority when he wrote it, but he is now.  The book is about the end of days and the Second Coming.  He wrote it entirely based on scripture and latter-day doctrine.  This is not a supposition and assumptions day which I really like. 
 
26- Spend $1,000 to improve financial outlook (pay off debt faster, put in savings, etc.) -- This might end up being earnest money on a home.  I'd consider that money well spent.
 
27- Look at the stars more -- It's awfully cold outside right now, but keeping this goal in the back of my mind has helped lift up my eyes when I am in a position to enjoy the stars.  So: work in progress.  I just downloaded an app on my phone "Google Sky Map".  Makes looking at the stars really fun.  I recognize constellations now!  (As long as they're drawn out for me :))
 
28- Clean the Sharpie "artwork" off the playroom walls 

29- Update our family's emergency preparedness -- we worked on some of this for Family Home Evening last week.  We went through our 72 hour kits.  We removed everything that was out of date or otherwise "wrong" and made a new list of things to add to them.  

30- Learn to use the lenses and settings on my camera -- My nephew has been using an awesome camera since Christmas.  He's taken a photography class and is now working things out on their new camera.  I read and follow his blog which has at least given me some new ideas.  But I haven't done all I want here yet.
 
31- Return and report progress on my goals -- I've been setting the updates as an auto-post.  I update this copy/pasted document throughout the month and on the 6th it will automatically post for me.