Busy, Busy, Busy

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately,

We've been busy!

A good busy.

I'll let the cat out the bag,

I think some of you may know, but for everyone else:

we're in the process of buying a house!

So we've been busy looking,

making offers,

and waiting....

Right now we're in the waiting stage.

Remember last week when I talked about dreaming?

(I hope so, it was my last post... lol if not you can scroll down)

One of the things I was dreaming about was a house we put an offer on.

Sadly, we didn't get that house.

But we're okay,

the next day we found a house that we really really like!

It needs a bit of work,

but that's what we wanted anyways.

That way we can learn new things and make it just the way we want it.

So until we find out, we'll all keep our fingers crossed.

If it doesn't work out, I'm sure we'll find something else!

And if it does, I'll post some pictures, until then I'll keep it a secret!

Dreaming

Today is a day of dreaming.

Actually, I think everyday is.

But today, I'm dreaming of recovering a chair I recovered in college.

It needs some love.

I only have a picture of it right after I finished it.

It looks pretty good, eh?

Well, it did for a while, but then it started to kind of fall apart.

Then I tried to sew all the parts together so they'd stay on a little better.

And once again, they did for a while, but now it just needs a makeover.

Then, my friend showed me these fabulous video tutorials from Miss Mustard Seed... a blog I'd never seen before,

always exciting.

So, now I'm wish that there was a reasonable fabric store closer.

Because while the fabric store in town has some of the cutest fabric I've ever seen,

I just can't justify spending that much on fabric!

Sorry, I just can't do it.

I feel that if I'm going to do it myself, I want to actually save money.

Maybe I'm crazy.

Probably.

Anyways, I need/want some new fabric so I can try out these tutorials.

Hopefully, we'll make a trip to the big city soon.

Totally not related, but after looking at that picture, I really miss those jeans and that shirt, it was SO soft! I'm really hard on clothes and those jeans are long gone... sad day!

Hello, my name is...

I have a confession.

I'm addicted to reading.

My sweet husband told me last night that he thinks books are my equivalent of crack... lol.

I think my mom will probably be the most happy about this, as she always wanted me to read when I was younger and I thought I'd rather stick a needle in my eye.

However, after reading an great book that really sucked me in,

I soon discovered the joy of reading

(for those of you wondering what book I'm talking about, it was Harry Potter... the first one started it, but I definitely read the rest of them)!

Now, if I find a good book that I really like, I just want to read and read until I find out what happens... sometimes even if it isn't the greatest book, I just want to know what happens.

When I find an AMAZING book that I really love, if I'm not reading it, I'm thinking about it, and how I wish I was reading it.

Well, I'm in quite the situation right now. My sweet husband and I are listening to The Help. I promised my sweet husband that I wouldn't get ahead of him.... AHH! I want to keep listening!

Also, we're listening to the books because we found that it really helps with long car rides. I usually just read out loud to him while he drives, but I get tired while driving and since we were heading out on a long trip to Arizona the other weekend, we decided that we'd get an audio book so then if I fell asleep (or read a different book) he'd be able to stay awake by listening to the book. It worked out really nicely.

But now, I just want to listen to it... lol.

It is such a good book, it really makes you think. I like books like that

(I'm getting better, I used to only like LDS Romance Novels... lol,

but I don't read a lot of those anymore... I'm expanding my horizons).

Basically, what I'm saying is: If you haven't read The Help, you should. Also, I read the dust cover to the book once while I was browsing books at Costco because I'd heard so much about this book and it sounded dreadfully boring... I don't know if I just didn't understand what was going on or what, but it just didn't sound like a book I'd like.

But after my friend, who always gives really good book recommendations,

gave her stamp of approval I decided I'd look into it a bit more

(about a year later, I finally did.. I'm kind of a procrastinator).

If gas weren't so stinking expensive I think we'd have to make a trip thousands of miles away from here so we could keep listening... until then know that I'll be anxiously awaiting time when my sweet husband is home so we can listen to the book and do projects

(and be together, of course)!

If you know of any great books, send them my way!

Also, if you are looking for any great books I have a few I just love

and would love to share with you!

THE best husband!

I would like to announce to the public that I have the best husband! I don't need to add ever because I have THE best husband, meaning there is only one best and I have him. I'm a very blessed girl!

Example:

Remember the boat rescue story? Well, we brought it to our house so that my dear husband could work on it. When we pulled in Saturday night we covered it with the tarps and everything and went to bed. Well, the next day it started raining cats and dogs! Literally they were everywhere! Okay, I'm kidding, that is my early morning attempt at being funny.... anyways. But seriously it was raining so hard! And the wind didn't help at all! Because of the wind, not only was it raining hard, but it was raining from every direction! So trying to get in the car with my big umbrella to go to church was definitely a task! Let's just say, I was soaked... good thing I had the umbrella. Lol, we laughed pretty much the whole way to church!

But really, I'm getting off track so easily, back to my story. Because it was raining so hard and we hadn't really thought about how we put the tarps on water was pooling on the tarps and since it was supposed to snow later (oh don't you worry, it did...more on that later), my sweet husband wanted to suck the water out with the shop vac, Shoppy, and possibly reposition the tarps. So he changed into some snow pants, snow jacket, and some boots and headed out. Well, when it got outside it had started snowing, and actually sticking. It was raining/snowing all day... it couldn't make up it's mind. So apparently he had to break ice on the top of the pool of water so that he could start sucking out the water. I believe he repositioned the tarps, but I can't be entirely sure because I haven't been outside. He did it all! What a great man! This whole process probably took about an hour. Then he came in TOTALLY soaked, and said that he needed to shovel the driveway so he'd be able to get out in the morning to go to work. So he shoveled the driveway! Still all the while, I sat in the house (okay I did stuff while I was in the house)! This isn't a one time thing. I'm not saying this is the only time he's shoveled our driveway because that would be entirely untrue! Every time it snows he shovels our driveway. I've never shoveled here. And with anything, he is always such a good worker! He hates doing things half way.... lol so sometimes they turn out to be a lot more work then they should be. But they are always done well.

Sadly, it snowed more during the night and he couldn't get out this morning to make his vanpool, so he had to shovel again!

He's great! I love him! And I'm so blessed to have been married to him for 2 and a half years (yesterday was exactly 2.5 years)!

Patience... a virtue I may never master... lol

http://www.savagechickens.com/2008/05/patience.html

If you know me, you've probably picked up on the fact that I have a lot of patience...

as in I don't use it very often, so I have a lot stored up

(my friend's mom says that... I like it that way, it makes me laugh).

So basically, what I'm saying is that when I decide I want/need something

I often want it right a way.

Like a job,

or children,

or a house,

you know something like that (those are in no specific order).

But obviously I don't always get the things I want, when I want them.

However, I'm learning... sometimes very slowly... that that is not a bad thing.

Heavenly Father really does have a plan for us.

His timing is ALWAYS better.

Here is an example:

So when we moved here I looked and looked for a job.

But to no avail.

I decided that if nobody wanted me for a job, I didn't want them either.

So I started crafting full time,

and enjoyed every second of it!

But I'd always feel like I'd make a better contribution to our family if I was helping out financially as well, even with my sweet husband reassuring me that I didn't need to have a job.

He would often tell me that he'd much rather have a good dinner than a little more money.

He's so sweet.

But I still kind of wanted a job, sometimes... lol.

I figure, if we don't have kids I may as well be working to save up some money for kids.

But I didn't do too much about it.

I would definitely go in spurts,

one day I would look for jobs all day long,

the next I would decide that I didn't want to.

In October, I dropped my resume off to a total of one place... lol.

Oh, and of course I was doing the subbing thing for a while.

Then in December I was asked to babysit, so I've been doing that.

Then, Thursday of last week I got a call.

It was a member of our stake presidency,

of course I was worried.

A million things ran through my head:

I'm sure I'm not getting a calling,

we just had stake conference so I shouldn't have to speak,

then, reason kicked in: he wouldn't be calling, the secretary would call me, right?

Keep in mind this was all within like .05 seconds.

Finally, he told me why he was calling.

See he happens to also be an Optometrist,

and the one place I dropped my resume off.

And basically he was offering me a job!

I went in Tuesday to talk with him and discuss the details.

I accepted the job

and get this: they don't need me to start until after I'm finished babysitting!

This is evidence to me that Heavenly Father does have a bigger plan for us!

We just have to have patience and trust in Him that one day we'll see that plan.

Because we don't always get to right away.

But that's okay.

Boat Rescue

We're going to start a boat rescue.
We figure if there are animal rescues we should also rescue boats.
Because, let's be honest, I like boats WAY more than animals. I'm sorry, I don't want to offend animal lovers, but I'm not one. There. I said it. Sorry.

Anyhow, we've talked about this boat rescue for a while now.
Well, we made our first rescue this last weekend.
We headed down to Arizona and picked it up.
It was an adventure, but it was a lot of fun. I finally got to meet my sweet husband's maternal grandfather. It's funny to see the similarities in families, even when you don't see them very often. Several times throughout the weekend his grandpa would do something and I would think, my sweet husband (SH) would SO do that. It was really neat... and often funny.

So a little about the rescue:

We headed down Friday afternoon and met up with my sweet mother-in-law. Loaded up all our gear and headed out. We listened to the Cougars' awesome game! 52 points! Go Jimmer! And got to Arizona late. Checked into our hotel, and quickly went to sleep.

The next day we woke up and headed on over to Grandpa's house. Grandpa and SH worked on changing the tires, getting new ones, getting new batteries, and putting the new tires on. The rest of us tried to help out when we could by moving things, getting things they needed. We were very good lovely assistants.

Then came the pivotal moment... could we actually get the boat out of the side yard.

First we tried moving the boat with the four-wheeler.... no such luck.

After a couple attempts we finally gave up on that one, and SH backed my MIL's car in. Luckily, Grandpa's yard has a pasture as well, so SH could pull the boat out, turn around in the pasture, and drive straight out of the side yard. Which sounds easy enough, but with like 5 people telling you what to do, it can be quite the task. But, he did a great job!
The best part of this stage of the adventure is when some people thought he wouldn't be able to get around the pipe that was coming up from the septic tank! SH and I both thought he could do it, but others disagreed and pulled up the pipe. I stayed FAR away and snapped pictures and laughed SO hard! Gross.
After they moved that SH got it out pretty quickly. Then he fixed the lights as we listened to the Cougars again... this time with a much less desirable outcome... but we won't go there. Hopefully they do well in the NCAA tournament! Go Cougars!

I digress... sorry.

SH fixed the lights fairly quickly, we only had to make a couple runs to auto stores, but after we got the right parts it went well. We left it at Grandpa's that night for safe keeping and picked it up the next day as we were heading out. It was a fun weekend full of lots of work and sun. Oh I love sun!

Lucky!

I made this about a week ago, I've just been lazy and haven't taken a picture of it. I'm not really sure why I decided I really wanted to decorate for St. Patrick's Day, even though neither of us are Irish... lol. It's a fun holiday, even if we aren't Irish. When we lived in Provo we always went to our friends' house and ate "St. Patrick's Day Dinner," I'm going to miss it this year. Also, before I was married one of my best friends and I made "St. Patrick's Day Breakfast" every year, everything was green! It's a lot of fun! If you don't already do that, you should, it's really fun.

I love this little button rainbow! I really wanted to make one with real buttons, but I really liked the flower buttons and I don't have any so I just decided to print it out like the creator of it did. So it was a really simple craft, send it to a photo printing place, pick it up, and put it in a frame! Easy!

Navajo Tacos

Last night we had the missionaries over for dinner. When they come I like to make dinner a little more exciting. I'm not saying our dinners aren't exciting any other day because my sweet husband is so fun to cook for (he loves food and will eat just about anything, I love how happy my cooking makes him!), because that would not be true.

Anyways, last night we had Carne Asada Navajo Tacos! They were so yummy! So yummy in fact that I thought I would share the recipe with you!

I found the Carne Asada marinade recipe here. But for convenience sake, I also copied it:

1 1/2- 2 lbs of flank steak

1/3 cup vinegar

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tsp cumin

1-2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp oregano

2 limes, juiced

4-5 cloves garlic minced

In a gallon size Ziploc bag, combine all ingredients with flank steak and mix really well. Let marinate for at least 6 hours, overnight if you can.

Grill steak until desired degree of doneness. LET SIT FOR AT LEAST 5-10 MINUTES! Once the meat has cooled, slice ACROSS grain into small chucks or strips.

For the scones I got the recipe out of one of my recipe books:

2 1/2 cups warm water

3 Tbsp yeast

1/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 Tbsp salt

6 cups flour

Sprinkle yeast and sugar on top of water. Let rise for 5 minutes until bubbly.

Add eggs and salt. Add flour gradually and mix for about 7 minutes until dough leaves sides of bowl. Remove from bowl and clean out bowl. Spray bowl and hands with pam and replace mounded dough in bowl. Let rise until doubled in bulk (30-40 minutes).

Then I deep fried them in my deep fryer at 338 degrees (that's just what mine has a line for, I would guess set it as close to 350 as possible and just check it every so often until golden brown and then switch) for about 2 minutes and then flipped them and cooked them for another 2 minutes.

Then load them with all your favorite taco toppings and enjoy!