BEFORE & AFTER

When I bought my house the family room had these awful colors painted. The previous owner must have liked gold because she painted the wall in a two-tone gold and then painted the baseboards and moldings in a flake gold color.

I knew it was going to be a nightmare to paint the baseboards, but if I only knew just how bad I probably wouldn't have repainted. The baseboards took one coat of liquid sandpaper and three coats of paint. The walls took two coats, although I may have to put a third coat on the gold wall. Here are the before and after pictures, I think the room looks tons better and once I pick out some wall hanging I think it will look wonderful.

BEFORE





AFTER

OOPS IT'S WINTER

I looked at the calendar, and then looked again to make sure it was right.

October 12th, and we got dumped on with 11 inches (so far) of white stuff.

Snow in October is common in Utah, but usually it is just a skiff of snow, or and inch or two that melts really fast. But THIS is ridiculous!

The snow plows aren't out because, well, they haven't hired people yet to drive them, after all the calendar says October 12th.



Emmi calls this her "flower snow-girl" She is a combination of the two seasons we are in. Fall and winter. Up until last night we still had tons of flowers blooming.



The pictures above were taken this morning when we had maybe 5 inches.
Happy Fall-Winter

HAPPY FALL

It has been a little while since I have updated the blog. September just went past too fast. October is now here and Fall has arrived. School is going well for Emmi. Midterms came home and she is getting A's in all her subjects except for one subject.

Next week I'm taking off on a min vacation. I need a break from work, church, etc. The stress has really gotten to me and it is time to unwind. I plan on painting the family room and getting rid of the depressing dark gold color. I'll post pictures if I remember to. Then next weekend Emmi and I are going out of town for a few days. I'm excited for the break.

Last night we pulled up our garden and picked all of the tomatoes. They are now stacked in the window and hopefully will finish turning red. My mom is a great tomato stacker and somehow manages to stach them 12 high. Me, on the other hand, manged to line them all up and then when I started on row two the first row started falling off. LOL! It must be a art. Someday I'll have to have her show me how to stack tomatoes.

Emmi came home yesterday with her new school pictures. They are posted below. Good thing they took them early in the year, because in the past two weeks she has lost two more teeth. She now has the "pumpkin smile" again.

RESULTS

Okay, so I had my MRI on Tuesday and that afternoon they called with the results.
Everything is normal, no new growth of the tumor.
I'm so happy I could dance.
Thanks everyone for your support.
Yipppeeee

4 Years

Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. Four years ago today was my surgery to remove a Nerve Sheath Schwannoma Tumor from my spinal cord.

Part of me feels like the last four years have been the longest in my life, and part of me feels like it has gone by pretty fast. The first year and a half was the hardest, and even though I still have really really bad days, it is so much better than it was in the beginning. The best part is that I'm here, I can walk and I can live a mostly normal life.

The pain is still there. The nerve pain in my left leg is irritating, the numbness is annoying but it is the muscle pain in my back that has the capacity to bring me to my knees. But most days I can deal with the pain with little problems and I'm grateful for that.

With Emmi being older now and able to help out so much more than she could at age 4 it certainly helps. She can help with chores around the house so that I don't overdue it. (even though I still sometimes do)

I haven't had my MRI for the year, so I can't post that there is no regrowth, because I don't know that yet. I need to call and schedule the appointment, but part of me is always frightened to find out. It is that part of me that is afraid that Dr. Bryson Smith wasn't able to get it all, or that I have another one growing somewhere else. That is my worst fear.

I'm sure everything is just fine... it has been for several years. I just have unnecessary fears.

I'll let you all know what the results are in a month or so when I know.

But until then... Happy Anniversary to ME!

MY FIRST RAG QUILT

So what did I do with my yesterday, when Emmi was at day camp. Well, I could have gone to see a movie that was NOT made by Disney, or taken myself out to eat at a nice restaurant. But I didn't. Instead I spent 5 hours making my first rag quilt.

On Thursday a lady in the neighborhood demonstrated how to make these at a church thing. I took the instructions, mulled them over in my mind and came up with this:

The top picture is the back. Normally it is only one color, but I really wanted to have a design on it too. The front has squares of ladybugs, purple pokadots and pink checkers. It turned out much better than I thought it would and took WAAAAY longer than I wanted it too, but it is so very cute. Emmi has pretty much decided it is hers. I THINK NOT!

THE COW BUNNY

So we got another bunny. *snort*. We just couldn't help ourselves. We picked her out and bought her a few weeks ago but she wasn't ready until this week.

She is a broken black mini rex or as we call her "THE COW BUNNY". Her name is Daisy the cow bunny.

Pokey doesn't know what to think of her, and freaked a little when we put her in Pokeys cage (Pokey doesn't really use her cage, she just stays out in the play area). So I went and bought Daisy her own cage and now Pokey is fine. But for a while we will be keeping Daisies cage locked. We need to let them get used to each other before we let Daisy hop around the play area with Pokey.

She is soooo cute huh?

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

Em and I went to Chili's on Saturday to have dinner and ordered the Molten Chocolate Cake for dessert. It wasn't the first time we have had it, in fact it was the whole reason why we went to Chili's in the first place.

After eating dinner we gobbled the thing down in record time and giggled the whole time.

Then we sat back and groaned from the pain of "Death by Chocolate". But ya know, What a way to go.

There is the guy on YouTube that shows you how to replicate the cake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4jSM8D5o4

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising. However, the cake we had last night also had caramel on it and his didn't. Hmmmm We will have to try it someday, but for now I know where to go to get my chocolate fix.

BIRTHDAYS AND MORE!

It has sure been a busy month.

My little girl turned 8 years old on the 2nd.
Can you believe it?
I sure can't.

We had a friend party full of lots and LOTS of screaming second grade girls (shudder).
Then came the family party which we combined with her baptism on Saturday the 3rd.
It was such a beautiful day and many friends I had not seen in a long time came.

Then the rest of the month started passing so fast that I feel a bit shocked that in 5 days my daughter will be out of school for the summer. WHAT????

We have spent almost every weekend in the yard planting bushes, flowers and killing weeds. The garden is finally in and hopefully will grow. (keep your fingers crossed)

The weather is finally warm. This spring so far has been very cold. So the past week of warm weather is very very nice.

It has been a good month.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMI

I NEVER THOUGHT

I grew up in the age of electronics and consider myself pretty savvy. I'm the one my co-workers look for when they can't get the system in the auditorium working, or their computer isn't doing what they want it to.

So I never thought the day would come when I would think of myself as electronically challenged. Well, that day came last week when I bought my daughter an ipod and wanted to give it to her with songs already loaded onto the thing.

The ipod itself didn't stump me, although the instruction manual was the shortest thing I have ever seen come with an electronic item before. It was the stupid itunes website that got me. Downloading the software was a complete and total joke. I'd download it only to try and purchase a song and have it tell me I needed to download 5.2 or higher, since I had just downloaded 5.6 it seemed kind of pointless, but I did it again anyway, just to please the big-wigs at Apple. But I kept getting the same error.

I figured that all out and then purchased the songs I wanted. The site said they had been downloaded and the little (you ipod has been sync-ed) came up. So I'm thinking. "WOW, and it only took me two hours to get this done" *said sarcastically* Only I spoke too soon. Nothing had been downloaded to the ipod, so I plugged it back in and low and behold a new screen appeared that allowed you to sync the ipod.

It works great now, and I understand how to do it again. But geez, I sure hope the 7-10 year olds struggle with this one too, or I feel really really old.

PICTURES, PICTURES AND MORE...

It's time for an update on some pictures from the past few months. These pictures are from my "film" camera. It sometimes takes me a while before I get them developed. I do have a digital, but I like the pictures from my real camera better.

Here you go!




Emmi participated in her schools "Reflections" contest this year. The theme was "I can make a difference by..." Emmi titled her picture "By planting Apple Trees". I like the cute squirrel climbing the tree. She took 1st place in her school but didn't place in the next division. Way to go Emmi.




These are of our snow this past January. WAY too much snow. I'm so glad it has melted. We did get snowed on two nights ago and are expecting snow this weekend, but the good thing about spring snow is that is melts in a few hours.




Our Bunny, Pokey, is just too cute.



Don't I wish it was always this easy. LOL! By the way, I didn't encourage this, she did it herself. It was one of the few times she was quiet that day.

EASTER

Easter weekend was a lot of fun. Emmi and I worked out in the yard on Friday night. We bought some pansies to plant and some soil for the garden. We have a bunch of tulip and daffodils bulbs that have come up but only one has bloomed. I can't wait for them all to be in bloom.

On Saturday we had the annual great-grandma Easter egg hunt. We had about 50 people there and the kids all had a blast hunting for candy.

After the candy hunt my dad always hides money for the kids...and bigger kids...*snicker* to find. He gets more and more creative each year. He has even been known to shrink wrap the money inside of an item. So you think the herbal tea container is new because it has plastic around it, but NOOOO it has five dollar hidden inside.

This year I got involved and my dad and I hid some money inside of a sewn baby burp cloth. LOL, it was the last money found.

We took the bunny with us to great-grandmas, after all, what is Easter without a fluffy bunny? The kids enjoyed getting to pet and hold the rabbit.

Sunday was pretty quiet. Emmi hunted eggs around the house, then we ate biscuits and gravy with eggs (one of my friends had this tradition with his family, and I've done it ever since). Emmi doesn't' like the eggs in the gravy, but she eats the rest. Then it was off to Church.

We spent the evening outside playing and then inside watching TV and playing with the Light bright. Overall, it was a good Easter and a relaxing one too.

Happy Easter Everyone and Welcome Spring.

IN A NUT SHELL

It's been a few weeks, so here is an update on the month of February.

Emmi was sick twice this month. The second time just happened to come the day before Valentines Day so she missed her school party, which was very sad. Then because she was just getting over her flu bug we had to cancel the cousin Valentine sleepover too.

Every year for the past four or five years I have held a party on the weekend around Valentines so that my siblings can go out with their sweethearts. It has become a tradition of sorts. For the last few years we have had all of the kids bring a white shirt and then we tie-dye them. Such a fun activity, and now days that have these cool kits you can buy that have everything you need.
The only issue we have had was that two years ago the boys somehow ended up making pink-ish shirts, so we now have to designate certain colors off limits to the boys LOL

Anyway, back to this month. With Emmi being sick we rescheduled the party for the 22, a week later. We had 8 of her cousins come and stay the night. It was a blast! I'm still finding popcorn in odd places around the house, but it was worth it.

Then this past Saturday we went car shopping. Do you know what is worse that clothing shopping????? Car shopping! Dealing with pushy salespeople, driving cars that the salesperson says are great cars in great condition and realizing that the POS car you are driving is in better condition. Sales people are the worst. I had one guy who thought that when I said, "I'm paying with cash" that it meant "she wants to finance a new car." *bash head*

Before we went out shopping I researched cars and decided on eight or so models that I wanted. My ideal car, ya know the one you have always wanted to own and drive, is a red VW Beetle, but they are too expensive for us right now. Emmi also wants a "Herbie" so at every car lot we went to she would run to the Beetles and hug them. "Please, please, please mom." *snort* My reply would be. "Sure Emmi, as long as you can go without food for the next 5 years."

So the big story of our car shopping experience is that after test driving something like a billion cars and getting stood up by some idiot in Bountiful who obviously wasn't serious about selling his car, I headed home. I'm on the freeway and hear a "wack wack wack" sound and then it felt like something came off my car. I pull over thinking I had a flat tire and see nothing wrong. I get back on the freeway only to notice that I have lost my power steering. grrrrrr

Turns out my serpentine belt broke and shredded. My brother in law replaced it, but by then I was so frustrated I just wanted to go home and go to bed. BUT, there was one more car to look at. This one was for sale by owner and not a car model I had really looked at too much. It was a little white Chevrolet Cavalier. Turns out I loved the car and it had really low mileage, so I bought it.

Yesterday I licensed and registered the car...Oh and I put a little ladybug sticker in the window. *snicker* So now I have a new-er car with a cute bug on it.

SO VERY TIRED...

...Of snow. It has been nonstop since before Christmas. I can't remember there ever being a winter like this in all my years in Utah. Each snowstorm seems to bring more and more and there isn't anywhere else to stack the stuff.

Last year I remember being worried that I wouldn't be able to handle shoveling the snow a the new house. I think I only had to shovel twice. At the time I was thinking...I can do this, no problem.

If I had only known then what was coming this year I might have bought more shovels or invested in a snowblower. Now I'm wishing I could put a snowblade on the front of my Ford car and just floor it out of the driveway each morning.

The plus side is that I have nice neighbors who have been willing to help. I've got three men who have helped, mainly with the sidewalks, but I'll take any help I can get.

So the snow isn't over with, at least according to the weather people. We got hit again last night and should get more on Friday. I'm just soooo tired of it all. I really don't want to see any more white stuff for another 9 or 10 months. I'm ready for spring to come.

So ready!

I took this picture of Emmi this morning after shoveling about 7 inches. A few weeks ago we got 12 inches and the mailbox got buried. Since then it has compressed and melted (a little) . But with the storm last night I noticed that we may have to dig the mailbox out again.

It's never ending.

GULP...KNITTING

We’ve had a lot of fun the past two nights playing with one of Emmi’s Christmas presents. Santa brought Emmi a knitting machine and so far we have made two scarves.

I’ve tried to knit by hand before and made a dog leash. I just couldn’t master going back and forth, but I could make a straight line. Hahaha Emmi wanted to learn how to knit and I am so not the person to help, so Santa stepped in and helped me out.

Here are our creations. The little one was our first attempt.
Look guys, I CAN knit.

IN WITH A...

2008 came in with a “hack”…. literally. Emmi gave me her cold just before the holiday and by New Years day it had gone to my lungs. I hate being sick, but under most instances I can push myself to work. Not this time. I was down for a week and just started feeling normal on two days ago.

The past 14 days have been weird to say the least. With me being sick, Emmi having some medical issues and all of the snow we have had here in Northern Utah, it has been far from normal. In fact, I just got caught up on laundry last night and started tackleing the messy house. I tried really hard last night, but the house still looks like crap.

It’s sad how fast things go to pot when you are sick and then when you start feeling better it takes FOREVER for things to return to normal.

With all that said, I did take the time away from cleaning this weekend and played two hours of Disney Scene It with my daughter. Try it sometime and see how fast your kids beat the pants off you. LOL

The snow has been annoying. Remember when we were kids and prayed for so much snow that they would close the schools. Now as adults we pray for less and less snow every year so we don’t have to shovel it or drive in it. Plus I have decided that it would take 4 feet of snow in Utah before they would close the schools. Our last big storm is case in point. The storm was only supposed to be a 1-2 incher and we got 12-13 at my house. Some parts of the valley got two feet and did they close anything… nope! Cause this is Utah. LOL

I remember living in Kentucky and getting what Utahns would call a “skiff” of snow and everything in the whole city shut down. It boggles the mind!

So I’ve spent the last three weeks shoveling more snow than I ever wanted to shovel. I was a nice mom though, because I piled it all into one hill so all of the neighbor kids could come injure themselves at my house. *grin*. They had fun sledding down the hill so it was worth the back pains. The sad part is that my 90 year old neighbor came over to help shovel my driveway… with his snow blower. How pathetic is that?

HERE’S TO 2008!
Is it time for spring yet?