Drama in the cul-de-sac

I should probably tell you about my dads trip. He stayed with us for a couple of days. It was nice. The kids had a blast having grandpa around. I could also wish you a very Merry Christmas! But instead I will tell you about the goings on of the cul-de-sac last night.

First off let me remind you of last year's christmas eve.

So last night Larry and I are having some drinks by the light of the Christmas tree and just talking cause you know how it is going on vacation and having house guests. We haven't spoken to each other in like 5 days. So we are sitting in the living room with no lights on except the white lights of the tree.

Larry hears something going on outside and gets up to look out the front window. He says "There is some guy out there that looks like the belongs in the Grateful Dead. Long grey hair. He's taking stuff out of a pick up and putting in on the grass."

So I get up and look out the window of the front door. And sure enough there is some old hippie dude walking around under the street light and a huge white pick up truck. With him is this tatooed punk looking guy. I can't see what they are doing cause whatever they are putting on the grass is behind a huge bush. But they are acting really strange. They would work on whatever was in the grass for a minute and then one of them would go out into the middle of the street and get down on his hands and knees and look at their work.

Keep in mind that it is 10:00 at night on Dec 23rd. What on earth are they up to?

Then a giant gets out of the truck. No seriously. A giant. This guy was HUGE! He made the other guys, who didn't look little before, look like midgets. He wasn't fat, just BIG in everyway.

Then the big dude takes the truck and parks it right next to our house in the street. So Larry goes out into the back yard to see if he can overhear them talking. I go to the window and now they really start to make me nervous. They pick up whatever was in the grass, which now I can kinda see made of shiny metal and start running around the cul-de-sac. But all crouched down and hiding behind bushes.

I'm seriously ready to call the cops at this point.

Then Larry comes back in and they are hiding behind bushes right infront of his car so he flashes the lights. This startles them but they don't leave. Which now I'm curious because if they were up to no good I would think this would get them to leave.

A few seconds later the three of them are pushing a car down the street on this dolly thingy. They push it over behind the truck that is parked next to the house and we hear hydraulics.

Ahhh... repo men.

That explains everything.

Our vacation in the clouds

Just got back from our weekend in Sedona. I had planned on doing some hiking, seeing the stars, walking around in the little artsy shops, and seeing the big red rocks. Ehhh... It didn't really work out that way.

It rained the whole time. So no stars, no hiking, and clouds so low they were blocking the mountains. However, that does mean that we were literally IN the clouds. And there was almost no one else there which was cool.

We had the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in. It was a one bedroom apartment at this resort type place. Very cool. I don't think we saw one other guest the whole time we were there... not that I can think of anyways. They had a fire pit like 5 steps away from our door. The first night we went out there and sat by the fire and drank Hot Chocolate. Cozy.

They have a festival of lights this time of year and we walked around that. That was pretty neat. We did walk around the little shops on the second day and then we went to a movie. Tangled. It was really cute. We all liked it a lot.

When I asked Connor about Sedona he said "Tangled was pretty good. I liked Tangled. I liked the lights. I liked the telescope. I liked the hotel. I liked the merry go round with the reindeers."

That about sums it up. Looking forward to my dad's visit tomorrow and then Christmas!! It's going to be another crazy week!

The cough heard around the Target

You know you are sick when you get up in the middle of the night to Google the symptoms of Pneumonia. I'm just saying.

I woke up this morning feeling like I had just run around the block when all I did was walk into the bathroom. So I made a drs appointment. Before I went made sure that I memorized all the symptoms so that I could make sure I was correctly diagnosed with said Pneumonia. But I don't have it, regardless of what the websites say.

I do however have Bronchitis. Which at least let me know I was not crazy. I also left with 4 prescriptions, which I don't know, seems like a little overkill. I got an inhaler (since I was out of breath just walking from the waiting room to the exam room), two different cough meds (one for day, one for night), and some antibiotics. My plan was to not fill both the cough meds but I just went ahead and fill them all, that's how crappy I feel.

I called Larry after my appointment to let him know I was done and that I was headed over to Target to get my meds. He asked me to pick up both his cholesterol meds and his allergy meds. Which meant that Maddy's asthma meds were also needing to be filled. I worked for three years to get their monthly meds on the same schedule, so now it is a hard and fast rule that if you pick up one, you pick up both!

So I hand the pharmacist my four prescriptions, and then ask for the other three I need. Gosh... 7 different meds for 3 different people. She was like... ehhhh... It's probably going to be like 30 mins. Which I expected.

So she rings me up, $100! Jeeze! I gave her the money and a joke about opening my own pharmacy. Then she reaches into her drawer and takes out two gift cards. "I only have two of these left, you can have them. There's $10 on each." Sweet! I don't know the rules on the magic gift card stash, but I was greatful. I'm sure they are meant for the little old lady who gets like one pill at a time cause that is all she can afford. But I still really appreciated it. It was probably my raspy, crackling, I'm-so-sick-I-shouldn't-be-in-public voice that got me first in line on the sympthay train.

Hello hello!

Look at me... two posts in one week. Let's keep up the good work!

So yeah... My van got hit while parked.... again. I was dropping Connor off at school and another mom was basically trying to parallel park in front of me and clipped the front corner of the van. I went and got an estimate, $400. Which is totally ridiculous, but what can you do?

It's funny cause as I was pulling into the school parking lot I was thinking about how embarrassing it would be to hit something. Cause it's crazy in there, 100 cars going everywhere. I was thinking how I would be less concerned about the damage than I would be about having done it. You know? And then this mom, who I've talked to here and there over the last few months, comes up kinda snuggles up to me and says "Is that your blue minivan right there? the Kia?" and I say "Yeah, why? Did you hit it?" lol. She puts her forehead against my shoulder and says "Yeah. I'm so sorry!"

So you know... hey. It happens, what can you do. They will fix it. I'm more worried about being without my van for two days. Luckily... if you can call it that... two clients canceled this week so I have to work today and then not again til next Tuesday. So I don't NEED my van until then.

But anywho... got to run.

2011

Hi! Long time no talk... I know!

The year is almost over. Can you believe it? I can't. It was a pretty crazy year. New friends, new job, dog owner, landlord, college graduate. Doing the final paper work for Clear Sky, started The Grime Fighters. Lost 20 pounds.

Next year will be even weirder. I'll be the mom of two school aged children. No kids home with me during the day?! Wild!

But you know why I'm really writing today? Because it's New Year's Resolution time again!

My 2010 resolutions were:
1. Get my associates degree: Basically done. I have to take my finals but I have an A in both classes so I'm going to say done.

2. Pay off non mortgage debt and not take on any new debt: ehhh... not so much. My non-mortgage debt has been greatly reduced but buying the rental property certainly doesn't count as no new debt.

3. Get my hair done at least 3 times: done!

4. Do something together as a family at least once a month: done! Easy.


Ok, so New Year's Resolutions for 2011. CRAZY!

1. All non mortgage debt paid off: Ha! We will try again. Mortgage debt only! Both houses included. I don't think that I'm goint to pay one off this year... although, that would be AWESOME!

2. Read 25 books: Could be easy, could be hard. Let's see. I'll have to keep a list somewhere. I'm not really sure if this is a strech or not.

3. Paint the living room: I've lived here 6 years and I've been meaning to paint for about 5.99 years. It's ridiculous. Let there be paint!

Ok, I'm going to call that it. Something financial, some personal development, and something I've been putting off for too long. I think that is a good mix. I should put in there to blog once a day. But let's not get carried away here! Although I really do want to blog more. I know I've been busy... but hopefully things will balance out a little better this year.

Til next time....

Excellent

Forget everything I've said before... my kids are AWESOME! :)

We had parent teacher conferences last week and both kids are doing great. Maddy has straight As, which I knew, and has "Excellent" for everything in self management. Which is like listening, doing her work on time, being nice to the other kids, ect. They give them standardized tests to determine where they are for different subjects. For Reading she got a 4.5, which is the 5th month of grade 4. I wasn't surprised at this. I know she is a very strong reader. But what I was surprised at was that she got a 4.6 in Math. She tested in the 92nd percentile for math. For MATH!! Holy cow.

Connor did great too. It's "only" preschool so they don't really evaluate them the same, but his teacher said he is doing great. And he is doing great. Reading reading reading. Today we were waiting for something at MCC and he wanted to read some booklet about the school. So he picks it up and just starts reading it. So many words I totally wasn't expecting him to be able to read. Like "homework" and "school" and others that I can't think of right now.

Anyways, yeah. Proud Mommy.

I will also get my associates at the end of this semester. Wohoo. That's what we went to MCC for. To hand in my application for graduation. Which don't even get me started on that. I shouldn't have to apply. Dumb. They know what they require, and they know what I've taken. So how do they not know that I've graduated. Durrrrr.

Talk to you later...

For Rent

Hello September... 3 weeks later.

Ok, so we closed on our rental house. Yay! I've been hanging out over there and making a mile long to do list (I accidentally wrote "to go list", which is way more accurate.)

I really want to learn how to be more handy around the house. So now is the time. The house really doesn't need much work. A good scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint will take it a long way. But there is some dry wall stuff that needs to be repaired and some leaky sinks. Nothing big, but enough to be overwhelming to someone who considers hanging a picture on the wall to be big time construction work.

The entire house is white inside. I really tried to talk myself into just keeping it all white, because it really would be a ton easier to repaint it. But I can't do it. It's against my religion to have an all white house. I refuse! So I picked out a nice beige. Which I know, isn't much better than white in a lot of people's eyes. But I do have to keep it neutral.

I laid out a surprise picnic in the empty house tonight. That was kinda fun. We ate sandwiches, grapes, and brownies. Then played a board game. It was also when we realized that the AC isn't turning on. Which was a shocker because it was working before. So, blah. One more thing added to my "to go list".

But I'm excited. I should take some pictures so I can have a before and after shot. That way you can see all my handy work. :)