News

Today Jenette and Chris should find out whether they are having a boy or a girl. :) I'm excited. Then in about 2 months Jayme can tell us too!

Christmas was good. We spent some great time with Rhonda, Michelle, Jenette, Chris, Gary, Dave, Grandma Fuller, Steve, Margo, Adam, Morgan, Brooke, Judah, Tate, Caleb, Jaxon, Boaz, Tara, Dan, Bobbie, Jeff, Brendan, Trevor, Macy, Grant, Marsha, and Kevin (that's a lot of people, and by next Christmas the list will have at least 3 more names). We played games, ate good food, went to church, opened gifts, drove home, saw my mom, saw Newgen and Andrea. All sorts of goodness!

The only part of the drive home that was hard was in Oklahoma. Yes, KS has basically no snow, but OK had a good deal. The construction on I-35 sucked. The only partly plowed the road so we went 40 through the construction and still slid a bit. Then in Tulsa it was even worse! Again only part of the roads were cleared, the rest were icy and lumpy. Shannon drove well and we got to our house only to fail at driving up our driveway into the garage. So, at 2am Shannon shoveled and salted the whole driveway while I slowly unpacked the car parked on the street. Then he drove it in and we went to bed. Guess what was clear the next morning... our driveway.

Geepers! If they would plow and salt they wouldn't have the problems. Or even just plow. Or even just salt! But no. We don't have those luxuries here. If you recall, this was an issue last year as well... post 1 or post 2 or post 3

Christmas in Garden City

Shannon and I are spending this Christmas in Garden City. We left work early on Tuesday (which was 1.5 days before we planned too) because of probable bad weather on the drive. Luckily, we missed basically all of it. Shannon said there was only one slick spot near Garden. The rest of the drive was pretty good. There was some freezing fog, but the roads were okay.

We will be here until Sunday. I'll post some pictures later.

Then next weekend (New Years) we will go to Wichita to spend Christmas with my mom and family. :) I'm looking forward to the two Christmas' with family. I miss them and am glad they all work together so well, pretty much all the time. It makes life easier.

In other news, we got an adorable e-card from Julia, Pickle, and Autumn. Not only is she wearing a hat I made her, but she's giving a thumbs up! How awesome!

Registering For Baby

I truly understand the concept of a registry. You are going to have a baby, people will likely buy you things. Tell them what things you'd like. Got it.

Here's a problem... There's a good deal of things I'd like from Etsy, but you can't make a registry with Etsy. You can add items to your favorites, then they are there forever and when they sell out you are linking to a gone object. Not great.

But there are things Shannon and I like. So, I will just post them here. If no one buys us them, fine. I may get them for myself. Also, there is no way to check for doubles...so...that. But really, I'm sure this isn't going to be a list for everyone. Just a select few who read my blog and want to buy our baby something.

Here goes:

• T-Rex Grasp and Teether toy by Little Sapling Toys : I think this toy is wonderful. Enough said.
• Prime Number Counting Chart by Tiffany Ard: She sells out of this often, but relists it. I pretty much like her whole shop, but this is my favorite item she has. It's wonderful! This one is 18x24. They also have an 8x10. I'm not sure which one I'd prefer. I'll let you decide.
• Nerdy Baby Dino Art Print by Tiffany Ard: This is my second favorite (possible Shannon's first). It' dino-riffic and nerdy. How wonderful!

Creepy Baby Pictures

We had a level II ultrasound on Friday. We left feeling better about the health of our daughter and with 12 new creepy photos. Here is (hopefully) a slideshow of all the pictures. You can go to flickr to see them full size.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Nerves

Today Shannon and I are going to an ultrasound together. Shannon hasn't been to one yet. :) He'll get to hear the baby's heartbeat and see her!

I'm pretty nervous though. I don't know what the doctor is going to say. Hopefully that everything is good and the baby is actually due later than May 9th.

**Update**

It's all good. Nothing looks wrong. She weighs about 10 oz. and 05/09/10 is still a good guess for the due date.

Brain Power

I actually was asked to use my brain today at work. Twice actually. Once by a customer and once by Shannon. Quite nice. However, I did have a mild head ache about 30 minutes ago. Hmm...

Growing Up

I've been married for 8 years and 3 months. We are going to have our first baby. I've graduated college with my masters. I've had multiple "real" jobs. I haven't grown any taller in the last 10 years. I'm pretty grown up. But, there are still a lot of things to do.

Now I can mark one off the list, meeting a health insurance deductible, and scaring myself at the same time. How so you ask?

Yesterday at my doctor's appointment (which went fine), I paid for my pregnancy and all bills in full. That met my deductible. Then I got home and was like, "oh crap. I just paid 1000$ and met my deductible 1 day before it resets. genius." Needless to say, I was rather bummed and wishing the doctors office was still open so I could call and cancel the payment.

But it was after 5:30. No go. So all I could do was think. I thought, "hmm... maybe the deductible resets on January 1st, not December 15th. That would be good (but not great still, only 15 days left). I'll ask work in the morning." But that still gave me time to think. So I thought some more, "Maybe the payment won't go to this years deductible, but next year since that's when the service will actually be performed." Bah, still had to wait. Really hope I didn't just waste 1000$!

So today I talked to work and our deductible resets January 1st (which now I know is pretty normal). I also talked to the doctors office and they don't charge until the service is actually performed (which is also pretty normal). So good. No wasting of 1000$! :)

AND, I know more about insurance and deductibles then I have the past -> Growing up!

Trans Siberian Orchestra

This past Friday, Shannon and I, joined by some friends and family, went to watch Trans Siberian Orchestra at the BOk Center!
We've been the past two years, but in Wichita. This time we didn't have to travel (but other's had to go further). It was fun. The show was pretty much the same, but still entertaining. The lights and lasers are fabulous as is the music. They played a lot from their new album after the Christmas show part. That was fun.


Andy, Jenette, Chris, Michelle, and Coleman all came down Friday evening to watch with us. That was nice, so see friends and family again! Michelle and Coleman had to leave early on Saturday for Michelle's going away party (she's studying in Europe next semester!!).


The remainder of us watched Zombieland at the dollar (fifty) theater. I really enjoyed the movie. It was just entertaining. Not trying to be all realistic and stupid funny and love-story based. Although there were glimpses of all three, the movie wasn't driven by any of them. Just fun. Shannon and I would definitely like to own that movie. Good zombie fun.

Andy left after that and dinner at Cafe Ted's. So, the four of us (Jenette, Chris, Shannon, and me) went to Old Navy (who has no maternity clothes... half the point for going) and Barnes and Noble. We bought Cranium Party Playoff. It was entertaining, but not fabulous. It was also only 25$, which is cheap for a game.


However, we also played Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game. That was more fun (also more game-like, less party-like). Chris and Jenette played the heros and won on the very last turn. :) Good times.

Monday was basically just fooding and then saying bye to Nette and Chris. Shannon and I (some together, some not) cleaned, sewed, trimmed hedges (and cut the extension cord...I'm too careless), put up outdoor Christmas lights, and hung out. A nice weekend at home.

On the Burn

A week and a half ago, when I went in for a follow-up visit, the doctor recommended me to a surgeon to talk about a skin graft. I don't need one and don't want one, so I canceled my appointment.


My burn is healing very well. The peeling phase is over and now it's just kind of "immature" skin. It's usually white-pink. But when I get cold it turns red-purple. But even that is getting less common. Only 2.5 weeks after I burnt it and it looks so good! It doesn't hurt. But it will probably scar. Which is fine. I can deal with that.

Slide Show

I added a slideshow to the top of my side bar on the left. I'm no html-wiz. But I just scaled down the slideshow that photobucket makes. The pictures are a little blurry, but if you click on them you can see them bigger.

Also, I only have 5 weeks worth of pictures. I just don't have the rest with me right now. I'll get them later.

My New Look

Instead of looking pregnant, I just look fat. I don't have much of a bump. I have just a large belly. It's quite annoying. My clothes all still fit and I think that is part of the problem. I jut keep wearing my normal clothes, so I don't look like I'm wearing maternity outfits (cause I'm not). But I just look like a slightly fatter person wearing my normal stuff.

It's a rather awkward state.

Winter Dance

We went to Manhattan on Saturday to watch Michelle perform in K-State's Winter Dance. It was entertaining. But that was only part of the weekends mentionables. Also in the list:

• Getting to see Gary and Linda. They flew in from CO earlier in the week and we got to see them Saturday and Sunday. That was nice. We saw Gary in March (?), but I haven't seen Linda since May of 08. Jeepers!
• Really slow, some-what crappy service from Houlihan's. That isn't normal. That place is usually really good. Also, my chicken was super-dry and practically rosemary-free (it was Grilled Rosemary Chicken).
• The roads were REALLY icy from Salina and about 20 miles south. I was driving and could feel it getting bad, so we slowed down from 70 mph to about 50 mph. But then we saw a wreck (a big one, like 5 cars) and slowed down some more, maybe about 40 mph. Then we went over an overpass, which was super-slick. I almost lost control of the car, but luckily I didn't nor did I hit anyone. So, I slowed down to about 30 mph. And drove between 30-45 for about 45 minutes. It was crazy. I could feel the car slide on each overpass, which I just coasted over. We saw another wreck, a pick-up rolled onto it's side, about a mile after the first. It was pretty nasty.
• We have our car back!
  

We got home around 7:30. That is really early for us. We planned to stop in Wichita and see family/friends. But we didn't want to get stuck in the weather, so we just kept on driving. At home we put lights on our tree (no ornaments yet) and ordered some pizza. This was the first time in the past four months it didn't feel gross to eat it. Maybe we won't toss an entire pizza in a week.

Zebra Spots

That is what I keep thinking. Then I actually think about it and realize I mean giraffe spots. Zebra's have stripes, silly.

But that is what my burn reminds me of now. It is peeling a lot and due to the cracking and dark top skin, it looks like giraffe spots.

No infection or real pain still. :) Which is good.

Also, we started to put up Christmas decorations. :D Yay holidays!

Keeping Busy

My burn is doing better. The skin is peeling and the new stuff underneath is quite red.


There is more peeling today, but I don't have my camera with. That pic is from yesterday morning.

I also have been busy like crazy with Etsy! I have about 5 custom orders to do. I finished two last night and should be able to do two more tonight. It's pretty fun. I just with I had more in stock in my store! I'm down to pretty much nothing (save for cross-stitch patterns, people should buy those more :))

~Side note~ it looks dumb to put a smiley in parentheses, like above. I run into this a lot.

We also took our Christmas decorations out of the attic last night. We put a few up around the house, but mostly just opened a lot of boxes. :) About 40% of the houses in our neighborhood have Christmas lights up already. We are not one of them, but hopefully can help soon. On our cul-de-sac of 5 houses, everyone but us has lights up!

Thanksgiving

I don't actually have many pictures of our Thanksgiving, mostly of making gingerbread houses. But I'll still share.

Rhonda and Michelle got in on Tuesday. I taught class that night and Shannon when with them to buy some more food. Then we did some prepping for Wednesday and Thursday.


Wednesday evening everyone else came in. Jenette and Chris (with their new Kia Rondo) came down and we ate at Asahi. It's a sushi place that is close to our house and usually really great to eat at. Friendly service, good food, good prices. But it sucked on Wednesday night! They never took Chris' order. Then they came out about 5 minutes after we ordered and told us the kitchen was closed (it was just about 9:15 and they close at 10:00) so all we could order was sushi. Well, not everyone was eating or would eat sushi.

After our sushi came we started to eat and around 9:40, they actually started to shut off lights and get ready to go. Service just got worse the later it got. She stopped asking if we needed things and didn't hear when you asked for stuff. It was crappy. By the time we left, right around 10:00, I think all of the cooks and most of the other staff had their jackets on and bags on their shoulders and were waiting by the back table for us to leave, so they could leave. Yeah, that sucked.

Besides that... Mom, Maria, Jayme, Charles, Nikki, and Hendrix came in later Wednesday night. We finished up some cooking/cleaning and headed to bed.

Thursday we had some soup for lunch. Everyone but Mom and I went to Hunter park and played for over an hour. They had fun. At one point I called Shannon and asked what he was doing "Putting out a fire." I was rather surprised and asked him about it. It turns out he and Nikki were playing. No real fire.

After soup lunch, we had an assortment of appetizers, cheese, fruit, crackers, home-made Chex mix, spinach-artichoke dip, garlic cheese ball, raspberry cheese ring, and some other random things.

Then we eventually finished the actual dinner and at around 7:30. Everything was tasty! We have so many left overs (still). But it was a good time. After dinner and desserts, we just hung out. Maria decorated Hendrix's hair, too.


Then Friday came, there was more food to be eaten, some Garden Ridge shopping, but no other Black Friday shopping adventures. The main event on Friday was making gingerbread houses. Shannon and I baked all the pieces earlier in the week and then we assembled and decorated them on Friday.


And the houses...

Shannon's: Red and green and lots of it!


Nicole's: I stuck with red and green and basic.


Maria's: Its about the accessories. A dog, snow angel, snowman, and Jeep.


Michelle's: She has a very cute snowman.


Jayme and Nikki's: They worked together to make it all! Chimney and dog with the head that fell of a few times.


Charles': He made a sled with Santa and a jolly man actually inside the building.


Mom's: Lots of color and cuteness!


Jenette's: She made a deck and the window on the backside looks into the house showing the Christmas tree.


Chris': Nice thatched roof and friendly little man in the door.


Rhonda's: Covered in candy! No gingerbread showing.

More on the Baby Front

Now that we've finally told work, I can freely talk about my own pregnancy!

Shannon and I are going to have a baby too! We are about 17 weeks along, due May 9th. I've been feeling pretty fine (especially compared to Jenette).
This picture is from October 19th. It's my favorite because you can see little fingers. :) I have more recent ones, but not available for posting where I am.

So far everything has been fine. We are pretty happy and it's even more fun because so many of us are having babies around the same time! Julia just had her's last Friday, Tara (Shannon's cousin) and Dan should have their adopted baby within a month or two, Carrie (Jayme's sister-in-law) is due May 4th, I am due May 9th, Jenette is due May 11th, and Jayme is due in July! Next holiday season is going to be completely different than this yea.

New Baby!

Julia and Pickle had their baby!

She was born on Friday the 27th at about 1:00pm. :) They named her Autumn. Oh, I'm so happy for them!

Pre-Thanksgiving Photo Tour

Before I post about Thanksgiving, I've finally got some pictures of stuff since Halloween. So here is a picture tour of my past month.

Our house all Halloween-ified.
Playing safely with sticks on the swings at Jayme and Charles'.
Baby bellies at about 15 weeks.

Playing with Maria and her dog Hendrix at Hunter Park.
Most of Thanksgiving dinner before we cooked it.

My blister about 1 stage before I accidentally popped it. It was even bigger than this when that happened.
But then while washing dishes, I shook my arm and the blister popped. Now it looks more like this. (for some reason it keeps rotating the picture, but you still get the idea, much better.)

Brr!!

It is really cold at work. I'm sitting here with my little fingers freezing and my toe-zies like ice cubes. But I don't want to cover my burn now, so I can't just put on another sweater (yes another, I am already wearing one).

Turn up the heat!!

Weekend Adventures

*I had this posted last week, but with fooding with family, I decided to take it down until afterwards. Now that that is done, here is the post! again*


I enjoy having fun-filled weekends. Since the work week is always the same thing, day after day, it's nice to spice things up over the weekend.

After spending time at Riverdance and dealing with our car last weekend (by the way Jenette, Chris, Newgen, and Andrea, I belive we were in the wrong seats b/c someone else was in ours), this weekend we stayed home and spend time with Maria.

This was the third time she's been to our place. She helped us move in, and spent the night when we went to New Jersey last November for Teresa's wedding. So it has been a little over a year.

She came in Friday and we showed her around work. Then we used her Durango to pick up our tv stand. We brought it back and set up our new tv on the new stand!! It's wonderful! The tv is nice and now the cable works* and our room is so useful! The couch is marvelous the tv is great. It's nice!

We watched movies, hung out with Hendrix, played games, went to the park, ate out, cooked at home, and just kinda chilled. She left Monday morning because she had work. No fun.

Well, even more no fun. I was making Shannon and I some Maple Malt-o-Meal for breakfast after she left. It had been cooking in the microwave for 3ish minutes. I went to take out to stir, and spilt it. All over my left wrist. It. Hurt. A. Lot.


I cried (and I don't cry often over pain). It sucked. I soaked it cool water for a good while. Shannon went to the store to buy me some gel to put on it. When he came back, I put it on and put some lose gauze over it. Then I layed down on our new couch with Shannon and watched some tv. Trying not to think about the burning pain on my wrist.

Eventually the pain stopped and we made some gingerbread for houses on Friday. Then we make a huge list for Thanksgiving and went shopping. We got almost everything we need, it ws 300$. :) That was a lot. But really, Figure it'll be around 375$ with everything (turkey and bread and all) for about 3 meals worth of food. We got stuff for lunch on Thursday and for Thanksgiving dinner, and for dessert, and for breakfast on Friday and for making gingerbread. (6$ in molasses!).

I am SO looking forward to seeing family and eating food and having off of work and making gingerbread houses! I love the holidays!

*The cable would have worked when we first tried on Friday evening if the cable guy who came out when we moved in turned on ALL the cable and not just one of out connectors... Oh, Oklahoma.

Today I went to the doctor for my burn. He gave me some ointment to put on it. I'll go back in 1 week to make sure it's all good.

Okay, the picture below is kinda gross. So if you don't want to see my ugly blister (that is now HUGE) don't scroll down. If you want to be grossed out, then go ahead. It's quite huge. (like 1" by 1.75"...







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really, you don't have to look.














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but if you want to.....












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here it is!!

Excitement!

We get our new tv tomorrow! (a 54" plasma, perfect for Turkey Day Football)

Maria and Hendrix are coming to visit tomorrow! (she's only been to our place 2 times)

Julia and Pickle are gonna have a baby girl any day now! (I can't believe it!!)

We are gonna have a big family Thanksgiving at our place! (We haven't combined mine and Shannon's family for a holiday in about 5 years, and may not again for a really really long time)

Jenette is showing! (check out her pic)

Jayme is pregnant with her second child! (and this time with a guy who cares)

Life is pretty good.

And this is funny...

Riverdance and Timing Belts Part 2

Back to the car. (That is Shannon and the car with the hood up.)

So, after enjoying the second half of Riverdance (which we greatly did), we headed down south to deal with our car.

Our plan is this. Jump-start our car and then go, no more stopping. If we get on the highway, we wouldn't need to stop until we got to Manhattan, which is a better place to leave the car to get fixed than Topeka. Jenette and Chris pulled their car up, we attached the cables, let her go and.. nothing.

Tried it again... and nothing. No luck. So I called State Farm's 24 hour number. I waited on hold for about 15 minutes for a person. Then finally got someone, told her of our situation, and she started to look for a tow truck. I waited on hold another 15 minutes while she called about 8 places and then finally got one to answer! Shawnee Auto Towing.

They wouldn't be able to get there for another 1.5 hours (which means at about 1:00 am) AND we'd need to pay cash since it's after hours. Jeepers. The six of us didn't have the necessary cash. Luckily there was a Wal-mart about 1 minute aways. So we drove there to get the cash. While walking it, Shawneed Auto Towing called and said they had a call cancel and they could come get us in about 15-20 minutes! Sweet. So we got cash, went back to the car anda bout 5 minutes later, the truck was there.

We watched him put the bed down, then he got in the car, tried to start it and said "Timing belt." He didn't even think, he just said it. That is actually good news for us. This summer we were told it would need to be fixed, but we haven't been able to bring our only car in to the shop. So, hoped the tow guy was right.

Okay, car on truck. Truck to Ford dealer's service shop. Paid for tow. Said bye to Newgen. Went to Steak and Shake. mmm...


The service shop wasn't open Sunday, so we drove Jenette and Chris' second car back to Tulsa on Sunday. Then Monday, the service shop called and said it was indeed the timing belt and it would be 600.27$ (parts, labor, and tax) to repair it. We said "do it." Then they called around 4:00pm said it was done, and now our car is all better. Granted it's in Kansas and we are in Oklahoma, but Jenette and Chris are gonna bring it down for Thanksgiving and we'll trade cars back.

So, we are going to get a new car. We don't want to have to keep dealing with these issues. This is the third time this year we've had a problem with our car. It's only 10 years old, but I think she's about done. We'll keep it for a second car, but we will likely be buying a larger more reliable mobile in the nearish future. Sounds expensive...

But for an ironic twist... Jenette and Chris were going to pick up our car in Topeka after work Monday and then bring their new car to a different shop because parts they needed to get fixed were in. Well, their car died! So since we had their second car and they hadn't got ours yet, they had no car! I feel SO bad! Luckily, Shannon said they dealer gave them a car to use. I think he also said they are gonna get a different new car because that Kia they just got has had a great deal of problems since they got it. That sucks.

Riverdance and Timing Belts Part 1

Saturday, after class, Shannon and I packed up the car and drove up to Topeka. We had tickets to go watch Riverdance (like the actual Riverdance!!) with Jenette and Chris and Newgen and Andrea. The plan was to meet at Red Lobster for a nice dinner, then head over to the show.

Well, Shannon and I payed the 8.10$ toll (jeepers) at the south end of Topeka, and then we tried to leave. But no, our car just died on us, at the toll booth. It just wouldn't start. So, Shannon pushed the car to the toll booth parking lot while the attendant stopped traffic. Then we called Jenette and Chris, they were about 8 minutes away. They came and picked us up and we headed to Red Lobster.

After finally finding a parking spot, we actually got seated pretty quick. But, still we've just taken over 15 minutes away from an already pretty tight schedule. Shortly, Newgen and Andrea arrived and we had the fastest trip to Red Lobster ever, about 45 minutes total.

Now, off to Riverdance! We got there about 8 minutes before the show started and walked very briskly into the center. Jenette and I peed, and then the six of us when up to our seats in the balcony. We got there, sat down and were immediately disappointed.

I mean immediately!

You could only see like 30% of the stage! No lie! There was this giant wall for the level below us overing more than half the stage! So, the 6 of us tried to move down and ovet to get a better view. Which helped a little, now we could see about 50% of the stage, still absolutely ridiculous! After the show started, but during one act, Chris when to to tell them how lousy it was and get our seats fixed. They said they couldn't

Then a little later, during the show, Jenette (I should add, the entire reason for this trip is because it's a Christmas present for Jenette from Chris) went to tell them about it, and it may have been the tears and runny make-up, but she recieved a different outcome. They told her that they couldn't reseat us during the show. But we could move seats now and then come down during intermission and they would try to move us to a better location. So, we all squished down and over some more. Jenette, Chris, and I got seats to see about 75% of the stage. Newgen and Andrea sat in the aisle to see more of it. It was crummy, and for 50$ a ticket it was just wrong.

The dancing was great. It's really impressive what they can do with their feet. But there was one act where all we could see was the projector and hear some music. Then a violin player appeared. Apparently he'd been playing the entire time, we just couldn't see him! Geez.

Then intermission came. The six of us wandered down to find the woman Jenette was told to meet. She was polite and worked with some other workers and they found us new seats! For the second half of the show, Shannon, Newgen, Andrea, and I sat in the second row right in front on the floor! Jenette and Chris were about 2 rows behind us. WOW! What a difference!

You could see the entire stage, you could see the looks on the dancers faces, you could see all of the red dancer. And you know what, there was live music! In that corner that we couldn't see there were about 6 musicians playing wonderful music the entire time! It was even more amazing.

So, it ended okay, but is sucks that Jenette and Chris had to deal with that...

Well, now that the show is over, we still have the issue of our car. But this post is really long already, so I'll have to write it up later.

The Blind Doctor

Two things:

1 - I don't want the Blind Doctor to be working on me.
2 - It's just too easy to get a driver's license any more.

Staples v. Office Depot

Last night, on a quest for more Christmas card supplies, we went to Office Depot. It is right near to work, so we thought it would be an easy trip. While we did find nice paper for our letter and some really cheap magnetic white boards, that was about it. No cardstock in the colors we wanted and we had to settle for envelopes that are too big for our cards.

Then we tried to leave. But it was hard to turn left across traffic, so we went right, but then the intersection we went through didn't allow left turns, which we needed to make. So we had to just go straight and turn later.

But right before getting on the BA Expressway, we saw a Staples in an easy to get to location. So we went. Maybe they would have good cardstock. Well, they did, but it was expensive. So we didn't buy it. But we did look around and the rock compared to Office Depot! We were first impressed by their collection of OXO office supplies. Brillaint! OXO makes great kitchen gadgets, and now they have awesome office gadgets too! Like this sweet scissor that quickly switches to a box cutter. Brilliant!


Then we took a few more steps down the aisle and bam! More brilliant! It was a little dispenser type system. You purchased the size of container you wanted, there were three choices. Then you could fill it up with what you wanted for a set price! They had like 6 varieties of binder clips, 3 types of normal paper clips, paper clips shaped like cats, dogs, suns, guitars, treble clefs, and more, and other types of little office supplies. It was SO cool!

Then even continuing to walk around, they had not only fun stuff, but good prices and the store felt cleaner, too.

So, if you ever have a choice, go to Staples, they are the better of the two.

Saving some money... on accident

We make Christmas cards every year and enjoy doing it too. It's fun to think of what to do, then work with Shannon to carry it out. Now that we have a sweet house with a fire place, we listen to Christmas music by the fire, while drinking delicious Christmas tea and make our cards.

So, this year when we went to buy supplies, the gentleman at Hobby Lobby accidentally gave us a discount on our 40$ worth of supplies that we didn't actually get. Or at least we didn't see that they were on sale. Either way, we were chatting the whole time about things and never mentioned it. Eh, we shop there enough that it'll probably work itself out in the end.


Also, I am looking forward to the holidays! There is a good chance we will have many baby bumps around. And speaking of baby bumps, Julia and Mike are due in like a week! CRAZY! I'm so excited for them!

Company Potluck

We had our holiday potluck at work today. Shannon and I brought Creamed Onions with Sage and Autumn Cheesecake.

Shannon made the onions and sage. I think this dish would make a good green bean casserole. They always call for cream of something soup, but we don't cook with cans (generally). So, I think using this onion recipe would be a good substitute for the canned soup.

As for the cheesecake, I made it. We make it every holiday season for one reason or another. It's really good! I don't make any changes to the recipe either. It's a good amount of crust to cheesecake to apples. Some comments say to add more cheesecake filling, but I think that would be too much. We use Granny Smith apples and about 3 apples is 4 cups.

Now I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving at our place even more!

My Tummy is Grumbly

It just keeps grumbling. ALL the time. When I got to bed, all I can hear is *grumble-grumble*. Shannon said he doesn't notice, but man do I!


Then at work, it goes off some more. I swear, it's loud too! I eat a little and that helps. But it just goes. Eh, I guess it could be worse.

3 Wasps

It's been pretty warm this weekend and it's supposed to continue through early this week. Which is too bad. I am looking forward to it cooling down, mostly due to wasps.

Last year, we had almost one wasp a day in our living room. It sucked. This year it has been much better. Shannon has sprayed about 3 wasps nests over the year and the one by the chimney has helped the most, I think.

Up until yesterday, we only had about 4 all summer. Which is awesome. But yesterday there were 3!! Usually they are rather slow and half-dead. But one of yesterday's was flying around all buzzy and stuff. Brave Shannon smooshed them with his floppy shoes. All three of them, the buzzy one and all. Then unbrave me went around with the vacuum cleaner and as long of a hose as I could and sucked them up. That is scary too. You can feel them bounce through the tube. Iew.

So, I look forward to the cold, because then the wasps stop getting into my house. Grr. Little beasts.

Happy Halloween!

All sort of happy this time of year!
Shannon and I carved us some pumpkins Monday evening. While we carved we watched Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin and part of Hocus Pocus. That movie is so much fun. It always makes me want to dress up like a witch!!



I made a haunted house and he a spooky tree. They came out good!