Love Free Stuff

I just found out about a promotion Shutterfly is doing for people who write a short blog on their site.  I just have to talk about one of my favorite online vendors and I get 50 free holiday cards, woo hoo!  Not that I didn't just spend 3 hours the other day designing my own...but did I mention these are free?  And our friend, the very talented Natalie Cannon Malan has designed some of this year's new cards.  I've always been super happy with all of my Shutterfly products, so I'm sure I'll love my free cards (and you will too, if you're one of the lucky 50 to get one :).  And I know I'll love the new photo book I'm going to have printed soon.  I just love their quality and their prices are great!  So, if you're looking for a place to have some prints done or have a memory book printed, check them out!

A Working Woman

As you know, I left my job as a speech therapist for Nebo School District at the end of last school year.  I've really enjoyed being a homemaker but we decided it would be nice to have a little more money coming in to the house, so I am now working from home as the scheduler for Pioneer Appliance, Heating and Air here in Utah Valley.  Jeremiah has worked with the company for years and they are great at what they do.  So, if you live between Saratoga Springs and Santaquin and need any appliance, heating or air repair, give me a call at 801-373-0249.

Good-bye, Mac.

No, not my computer.  My beloved Toyota Corolla was demolished by an evil BMW two weeks ago.  Here's a plea to all drivers (but especially those on construction-choked I-15 in Utah County) PLEASE look in front of you when you are driving!!  I had stopped to avoid an accident that occurred directly in front of me but apparently the driver behind me was paying more attention to the lanes next to him than the one he was in.  If I sound a little bitter, I am.  Not only was I not ready to get a new car for at least 2-3 more years, but the driver who hit me, while very nice and solicitous at the scene, didn't have the courtesy to keep his insurance current so now our insurance is dealing with everything (and going after him).  It could have been worse; I'm currently under chiropractic care to deal with some neck and back issues caused by the accident but other than my car and my spine, I lucked out.  Thankfully we were just getting on the freeway and traffic was heavy enough to keep us going relatively slow.  If he'd hit me at standard Utah freeway speeds, my car might not have been the only total loss.

You wouldn't think this kind of damage would total a car, but he hit me in the perfect place to bend my frame, break my wheel axle thingy and do all this body damage to a 10-year old vehicle that some (impersonal insurance adjustors) people don't believe is worth fixing, merely because some Blue Book says it's not "worth" as much as the repairs.  They don't take in to account the reliability of the vehicle over the last decade, the fact that it did not need to be replaced before being assaulted by some German import and that I was very emotionally attached to my first and only car to date (having paid for it all myself).  That adds at least $8K to it's value, in my unbiased opinion.  Grr.

I made it on a CT!

If you know me (and you should, if you're reading this), you know that I kind of enjoy digital scrapbooking.  Just a little.  Well, I finally got brave enough to apply to be on a CT (that's creative team, if you don't speak digiscrap) for a digital scrapbooking materials designer...and I made it!  I'm helping to promote the lovely designs by AnnaBV Designs at ScrapOrchard (one of my 2 favorite scrapping sites).  I'm super excited about it and now maybe I'll be posting more, since I"ll have more to talk about.  :)

Working on it...

My goal today was to finish...anything.  While I didn't finish the things I had originally set out to do, I did manage to finish:

1.  Editing the real estate photos from yesterday so Jeremiah could post them and make $$$.

2.  Going through the magazine rack, tearing out the recipes I want for a binder and recycling everything else.  I'm going to try and use at least one menu or recipe from every cookbook or collection I've got by the end of 2010.

3.  Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse.  The books are definitely better than the movie.

4.  30 minutes working out on the Wii.  I like the yoga exercises and step aerobics.

5.  Editing what I have for my grandmother's biography.  I am now gathering additional information through email interviews.  She had quite an interesting life, going through WWII in Nazi-occupied Belgium and Czechoslovakia.

6.  Sending a birthday card to my cousin who was born when I was 21, making me feel old.

7.  Addressing Jeremiah's birthday invitations.  It's gonna be fun!!!

8.  Holding out hope that I would make Jessica Sprague's design team.  :(  Really disappointed about that one.  I would have gotten access to all the store content plus her awesome classes, for free!  Guess I need to keep honing my scrapping skills.

9.  A blog post two days in a row.

Arg

Two days...two miserable days was all I was able to do of a 30-day challenge.  So, apparently I need to do baby steps.  I'm going to try and post every day for the rest of this week.  And I'm going to count this new resolution as my first blog.  Exciting, huh?

So, maybe I'll do a daily review if I don't know what else to say.  Today I took pictures of four properties for Jeremiah's company and acquired several gorgeous new scrapbooking kits from a designer I really like who is quitting designing for a bit and had an amazing sale on her entire store.  I should be pretty well set for anything anyone would like me to scrap for them...just need to find people to scrap for now.

That's about it for today.  I forgot to get the sheets out of the dryer (I've been very excited about my new digi materials and some things just slipped my mind, like eating lunch and checking the mail) so I should go help Jeremiah put them on so I can go read "Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse" in bed while he plays on his computer.  Exciting life.

Photo Walk

Ok, so here's my post for today.  It's actually about my walk yesterday since I only made it to the gym today (it was a killer workout with my trainer).

I love our neighborhood.  It's a good mix of small town and country.  Just two blocks away, our farmer neighbors have an area where they keep a lot of equipment and it made for some neat pictures.  Check out my photo blog for all of them.  This one is my favorite, though.  There's just something about an old silo that makes me think about homemade wheat bread, knitting by the fire and fiddle music.  :)  Yes, I'm aware of the fact that I may be a little odd.  Anyway, there's my post for today!  Hopefully they'll get better.  Now to wipe down my dirty cat who decided to stay out for 24 hours and made me think he was lying in one of my picturesque fields, well, never mind...

My Blog Challenge

Ok, so I'm really not so good at blogging, mostly because I don't think anyone's reading.  :)  However, regardless of whether or not anyone reads this, I'm going to start a 30-day blog challenge (thanks for the idea, Jocelyn).  I'm going to have a standard "What I Saw on my Walk Today" post (because I'm trying to walk and do an ab routine every day for the next month just to see what happens) and another post a variety of topics.  We'll see what happens.  :)

Digital Scrapbooking

I've decided it's time to come out and admit that I have a problem.  I'm a bit addicted to digital scrapbooking.  I love it!!!!  I scrap everything about our lives (it's a bit more fun than writing in my journal) and I've been putting together albums for family too.  I'm seriously looking into the possibility of making this a profession; it would be wonderful to have a job that I totally love and meets my creative needs.

When it comes to scrapbooking, I'm super picky about my kits.  I only have about three places I buy from, one being Shabby Princess Designs (http://www.theshabbyshoppe.com/homepage.asp).  I love their light vingtage-y but still modern designs.  Check them out if you're interested in getting started, they have tons of adorable free kits to start your collection.  Or if you're too overwhelmed with the thought of scanning in all your pictures and scrapping them, let me know.  :)

Home again

I feel like we've barely been home since school got out.  On June 10th we drove up to Washington for a quick trip (so quick, I didn't even tell my friends I'd be there because I knew our time would be too short for a real visit with anyone outside family.  Sorry.) for my brother's graduation from Eastern Washington University with his master's in computer something stuff.  It was a nice ceremony, much better than his undergrad graduation with 2400 other students in the scorching out sun.  This one was cooler and much shorter.  We then spent two days celebrating my birthday and gushing over my nephew before driving 10 hours back home so I could take more pictures of Jeremiah's rental units and try to get into some kind of routine (which so far consists of going to bed really really late and that's about it).

I'm excited to be home for a few weeks straight and have people come see us for a change.  Here are some pictures from our quick trip.

Jeremiah and I after a water fight.  I won.

Phoenix likes the way Jeremiah tastes.  Or he's getting teeth.  Take your pick.

The original 5.

Phoenix exploring Uncle J's face.

Summer's Here

I have been so excited to be done with work.  The day after it ended, Jeremiah and I booked it down to San Diego and spent a very lovely four days relaxing by the pool and reading at his parents house.  I did take a few hours to drag him up to Julian, a little old mining town that is famous for their pie, to take pictures (and eat pie, of course).  I also got to "pan" for gemstones in the old garage--they give you a bag of dirt with rocks in it, pour it into a wire screened box and turn water on in a little trough.  I actually found some pretty cool stuff, like an Apache tear and a cut, polished amethyst (1 in 5 bags has a cut gemstone worth at least $10.  The owner didn't like the contents of my first bag and gave me another for free.  :).  I read 2 books while we were there and Jeremiah got pretty pink, what with all the swimming and shirtless putting he did in the yard.  :)  It was also really nice to spend time with his entire family (it's been a year since we were all together), including his aunt Susan, whom we have seen since our reception in Virginia almost 3 years ago.

I think Jeremiah wants one.

We came back on Tuesday, bypassing all that nasty Memorial Day traffic (I know I complain about his job, but I do love that he can make his own schedule) and I've spent the last few days trying to go through all of my work stuff and declutter some of the rooms.  It's slow, boring work but I have all day ('cuz I'm not working anymore) so I have plenty of scrapping and reading breaks.

We spent all of yesterday at the Parade of Homes with our friends the Cooley's.  I was really bummed that I forgot my super wide angle lens at home (darn my desire to be organized and put things away!  I should have left it in the traveling case.) Jeremiah's favorite was the castle, naturally.  I admit, I liked the library, indoor swimming pool and cinema with snack bar but $2.4 million is a bit outside our current budget.  I did get some ideas for redoing our bedroom and bathrooms.  :)

The "house" Jeremiah wants.  All 15, 000 square feet.

That's about it.  I've been staying up way too late every night, gonna have to nip that in the bud if I want to get all of my projects done but I think I'm still savoring the fact that I'M DONE!!!  Hee hee.

School's Out!!

Woo hoo!!!  I finished the school year for the last time!  School isn't officially out until tomorrow but since I'm part-time I got to be done early!  I spent most of the day packing up my office and leaving detailed notes for the new therapist.  I've turned in all of my keys and realized that I had more school keys than personal keys.  It was a little hard saying good-bye to all of my co-workers but I'm so excited to start a new adventure--whatever that will be.  I have lots of options but right now I'm just looking forward to a few days in San Diego, then a week-long house cleaning and organizing gala before heading to Washington for my brother's graduation from EWU.

It hasn't really sunk in yet that I'm done, partly because this weirdly cold weather makes it feel like we should have another month or more of school and partly because summer vacation never sets in until you've had at least a week of not having to use the alarm clock.  :)  That'll be so nice.

Brookside Elementary, my last placement in the schools.

With my friend Mary Patterson on my last morning of work.

I Love Free Books

Since I'm leaving the school system, I needed to use up all my Scholastic Bonus Points before the end of the year so I spent a couple hours on the site, very carefully making my selections and this is what I got!  I'm so excited!!

• The Hunger Games and Catching Fire-a new series I've heard great things about and got in hard back.
• Inkspell and Inkheart--another fun series
• Percy Jackson and the Olympians Books 1-4
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--my favorite book in 3rd grade
• Ramona the Pest and Ramona, age 8--I love Beverly Cleary!!!!
• Fudge-a-Mania, Double Fudge and Superfudge--another series I loved growing up
• Tales of Fourth Grade Nothing--Judy Blume is spectacular
• Charlotte's Web--a classic every library should have
• Woolbur--a cute little story about an ADHD sheep
• The Tale of Despereaux--I thought the movie was super cute and I only had 38 points left; it was 25 so I got it.  :)

I've already read The Hunger Games and LOVED it.  I'm trying hard not to read Catching Fire until we leave for San Diego on Thursday so I can savor it.  The third book is due out in August.  I love it when I come across a great series just before the last book comes out so I don't have to wait very long.  I did the same thing with Twilight and Harry Potter (book 4 was almost out when I started reading it).

I'm looking forward to a great summer of reading, photography and looking for a new job.  Hope you have something great going on too!

One week left!!!

So I'm not a lot better about updating this blog.  I can't believe it's nearly the end of May--and the end of school!!  Tomorrow is my last full day with kids.  I am somewhat sad but not really.  :)  Too bad I have a lousy cold, again.  Maybe that's why I'm not too sad, I know it was one of 5 kids that had colds that I worked with on Friday that gave it to me.  It's a little nerve-wracking to be giving up a job in this economy but I'm hopeful that good things will come.

As for what has been going on here, that's going to have to wait until tomorrow.  My foggy brain is begging for my bed.  :)

A Good Day

It was quite a productive and relaxing day today. I went to the chiropractor in the morning and got some of the knots in my shoulders worked out with ultrasound (don't ask me how it's supposed to work), then after going to Costco, mowing the lawn and doing laundry, I went to The Retreat Full Service Salon here in Springville for an amazing 75-minute massage as part of their Teacher Appreciation Week package for only $25, with a free haircut thrown in!  It was quite lovely and I think I may have to go back again--soon!  I've had knots in my shoulders that are hard as granite since I was about 2 and now they've softened up to a really tough leather.  :)  It's progress.

After I was pampered at the salon, I got home to find that we had been invited over for dinner by the Cooleys.  Not having to cook dinner on top of a massage?  Priceless!!  I did make cookies to take over in order to test out my new baking stone (I think I'll stick to using it for bread and pizza, you have to pre-warm it and that's difficult with cookies) but baking yummy, melty, chocolate chip cookies is not an onerous chore.

Now I'm all set to go to bed early and read my weekend book deal--The Wrath of Ezra (Book 4 in the Leven Thumps series) for $4.99 in hardback and signed by the author!  I have books 2-4, all in hardback, all purchased at Seagull Books from the clearance table, all for $9 (I got super lucky and the first 2 were only $2 each).  I just need to get Book 1 and I'll be set but it's not showing up on clearance (apparently when they get in the first of a series in clearance, they sell out pretty fast) and so far I have not been able to talk myself into paying full price, even though I've already saved like $30 on the other 3.  Some day, I just know it'll be sitting there, with a big red sticker saying $3.99...

Wilton II Finale Cake

I've been taking cake decorating classes for the last two months with my friend Lisa.  I've learned a lot of cool techniques but arranging and designing with style is still something I struggle with.  Nevertheless, I have confidence that when the time comes for me to make my child a birthday cake, I will be at least as good as the people at the grocery store bakery (given lots and lots of time to practice).

I thought about going ahead and taking the next class (Gumpaste flowers and fondant) but decided I needed a little break, especially if we are going to be taking foster care classes.  Plus, that's just a lot of cake to have do something with all the time.  It's good cake, don't get me wrong, but it's not helpful to have it laying around the kitchen when you're trying to cut back on sugar.

Here's what I did for class yesterday, I'm still working on the concept of level and I was so tired by the end of class I just started sticking flowers anywhere (that basket weave border is hard on the hand) so it's not super pretty like some of the other class cakes but I'm still proud of myself.

Ok, apparently Blogger doesn't like my pictures, so go to my gallery to see them.

http://gallery.me.com/janaiwm/100675

Some recent projects

This post is primarily for my mother, who wants pictures of all the things we've been up to but I'm not very reliable at doing that.

So far this spring, we've done lots of things:  we've gotten a new patio set (which I put together), organized the garden shed and set up shelves and curtains in our kitchen niche (in lieu of the $2,000 custom cabinetry we were looking into doing.  Maybe we'll get to them somewhere down the line but right now we have other places to put our money).  We are hoping to get edging done in a few weeks, plus expand the garden and add a drip system to the boxes already in place.  I've also been working on improving my cake decorating skills, which has been a lot of fun (and pretty delicious!).

Second Post

Ok, I've already spent way too much making this blog pretty instead of washing the floors and working out like I was supposed to but this was much more fun. I'm still trying to figure out how to make my own backgrounds that will actually fit the area but in the meantime, I really like this background and at least I've figured out how to customize the header and insert a signature. Yay for me!

I have 19 days of work left and I am so! excited! Not that I don't love the kids I work with but I really just want to be a stay-at-home mommy and homemaker. Since we're still not having luck with bringing biological children into our home, though, we have begun the path to become foster parents. We have been thinking about this for a very long time and this last General Conference just really cemented in our hearts that we want to be able to provide a loving, stable home for children, regardless of whether they are biologically related or just here temporarily. I am a little nervous about losing all my free time that I have enjoyed so much but much more excited about getting to help teach and serve God's littlest ones. We are still pursuing fertility options but this just feels right so we're going with it.

Ok, time to stop and go do Pilates and maybe the kitchen floor, too.

First Post

So, I realized that no one was reading our other blog and decided to join the rank and file by starting up one on Blogger. Now I'm going to figure out how to customize it using all the cool digital scrapbooking kits I've been accumulating and then maybe I'll be tempted to use it more often than the old one.