Snow, Valentine's Day, and C25K

The bad thing about only posting once a week is that when I do finally sit down to blog I have already forgotten what happened 3 days ago. So I sit here for a few minutes looking at the screen trying to figure out what all we did this week. Which is really why I wanted to start blogging in the first place. If I can't remember what happened this week, I KNOW I can't remember what happened 3 weeks ago.

Monday morning started us out this week with snow on the ground. Not the kind of snow that you stay home from school for. Just the kind that makes things white enough that you can say it snowed.

I took this picture first thing in the morning because I knew it wouldn't last long.

And I was right.

On Tuesday, after the snow from the day before was already a distant memory, we celebrated Valentine's Day. I, personally, do not care much for Valentine's Day. Call me unsentimental, but to me it's a day that people spend entirely too much money on flowers that will die within a week and little chocolates that have some sort of nasty surprise in the middle.

No thank you.

I do not need 'things' to know someone loves me, and I don't need a specific date on a calendar to tell me what day I should tell someone I love them. I get that flowers and chocolates are some women's love language, but it's not mine. When Robbie starts doing the dishes or taking out the trash without being asked, THEN he is speaking my love language.

But I did help with Austin's class party at school and I did try to make dinner more special that evening by making chocolate covered strawberries and putting rose petals on the table. I did this because it has been exactly 15 years since Robbie took me out to eat at The Red Apple in Heber Springs and then took me to a little beach out there where he got down on one knee in the sand and asked me to marry him.

I thought that at least deserved some chocolate covered strawberries.

Wednesday was a big day for Austin because he finally lost his first tooth. It's been loose for a while but he hasn't let me touch it much because it hurt. As soon as church was over Wednesday night he came running up to me to show me his new hole in his gums. His teacher said he pulled it himself and was so excited when it came out that he thought he had swallowed it.

What is it about a kid with missing teeth that is so stinkin' cute?

Since we've been in this house I've done a lot better about cooking every night. It's no secret that cooking isn't my favorite thing, but I really don't seem to mind it as much in this house.

Or maybe I just know that since we now have house payments we can't go to Tamolly's every night like we've gotten used to. Yes, I think that may be it.

Anyway, we have some friends that have a chicken hotel in their back yard (have you ever seen a ceiling fan installed in a chicken coop?) and they have offered us some fresh eggs a few times. I thought that all eggs came out about the same size and they were all white. I now realize that I have been a little sheltered with my store-bought eggs. Apparently chickens lay their very own little Easter eggs and most of us just aren't aware of how colorful our eggs started out being.

I was impressed. And they're so good.

Yesterday was a holiday for the boys and Aaron woke up with a little fever so we just stayed in all day. We just changed our Internet provider which sped up how fast games move on the laptop, so most of the day was spent with the boys taking turns on the computer.

I had set 2 goals for this week. One was to get the trailer house cleaned out. The other was to start the couch to 5K. I'm happy to say that I just completed week one of the C25K. One week down, 8 to go. I did not, however, move anything out of the trailer this week. Maybe next week? Maybe not.

And since I've been a SAHM for 11 years now, this really stuck out to me when I saw it on facebook this week. I'm pretty sure I've heard all of these. Y'all have a good week!

Ok fine, it doesn't have to be centered

When I posted last week I had two problems related to our house: our spoon shortage and our lack of a cook top. I'm happy to say that I have updates on both. First, the spoon shortage. I was in Target on Sunday and just happened to find myself in the silverware aisle. I hadn't really decided what I wanted to do about it when I got into Target, but when I saw a six pack of spoons for less than $6.00, I just had to have two. So with those 12 spoons added to the 3 I had, I was up to 15 spoons. I had solved the spoon shortage problem.


Which felt like a really big accomplishment until the next day when I was moving some things out of the trailer and realized that all of our spoons had been hiding out in the dishwasher over there.

I now have 27 spoons.

Perfect.

So with my spoon problem a little more than solved, it was time to move on to the cook top problem. Rob texted me Tuesday and told me that they had moved our back-order date to February 27th. This was my cue. It is time to get over my OCD of my cook top not being centered and cut a bigger hole.

This is what we started with.

This is after we cut through the tile and wood to make the hole 10 inches bigger. It all had to be cut from the right side because I have drawers and cabinets on the left that I was not willing to sacrifice just to satisfy my need to have a centered cook top.

And this is what we have today.

And I love it. I now have 4 regular burners plus a grill that is interchangeable with a griddle.

I almost feel bad for Jenn Air for having to give me the more expensive model because of their lack of keeping their production going during the holidays.

But not really.

Also this week my birth mom, Sherry, came to spend a few days with us. She lives in the Dallas area and we just don't get to see each other enough, so it has been really nice having her around this week. And I know the boys enjoyed having their Nana around...especially when Aaron brings home a box of chocolates that he has to sell for school and Nana tells them to pick out what they want and she'll buy it for them ;)

Sherry and I at the bowling alley Friday night

Tonight we went to eat at Roadhouse with some friends and then went to TCBY for 'make your own yogurt'.

Y'all.

I think I have a new love. You can sample every flavor they have before committing to the one (or ones) you want and THEN you get to add whatever toppings you want. And there were more toppings to choose from for your yogurt than there are choices of toppings at the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday. I don't care that it hasn't gotten much above freezing outside today, I want more TCBY. Soon.

Lane, Blake, Aaron, and Austin

I have two goals for next week. The first is to start the couch to 5K program. I've done it before but didn't finish. This time I will do it and finish, no matter how long it takes me. I'm ready to start running again and this program is a great start.

My other goal is to get the trailer house emptied out and cleaned up. This goal is more apt to kill me than the running. But it HAS to be done.

I'm starting to think that the frozen yogurt tonight has given me some sort of unrealistic expectations of myself. What am I thinking with making two big goals for one week?

I'll let y'all know how it turns out, but I'm not really holding my breath on either one of these.

Sickness and More House Decisions

Well, I was hoping by now I would have my house perfect and picture-ready, but instead I've spent my last week dealing with strep throat and all of the things that go along with sickness. Austin got it last week, and as soon as he got over it I got it. In fact, today makes 3 days in a row I've woke up with fever. I think I've had strep before, but this time around has kicked me in the booty. If I had known that Austin felt this bad with it last week I would've babied him a little more (even though the better part of 2 days was spent with him in my lap) because there may have been times in the past few days I would've liked to crawl up in my mom's lap and be rocked.

I think what we've had deserves a new name because 'strep throat' doesn't even almost work. It's more like 'the type of flu you DIE from' meets 'menigitis' meets 'sore throat'. Maybe something like 'strep throat influenza type C with menigitits' (because we all know that type C is the really bad kind).

Even though I know that talking about sickness is FASCINATING, I suppose I will move on now.

It's been 2 weeks since we moved into the house and we still have so much left in the trailer that needs to be either moved or sold. We moved several things from there last Saturday, but I don't think I've been back over there since then. Why is it that we choose to live with so much unneeded stuff? And how is it that we had food in our cabinets and refrigerator that expired 3 years ago when we had only been in the house for 2 years?

Things that make you go hmmm....

Several weeks ago we found out that the cook-top that we ordered back in December had been back ordered until the end of January. From there it keeps getting pushed back a week at a time. Now I think we may be looking at end of February. I don't like living without a cook top.

This is the hole we have been looking at. The place we are getting it from told us that they would give us a bigger cook top for the same price and they have that in stock now. But it's 10 inches wider and my entire island was designed around the measurements for the cook top we ordered. It could be done fairly easily on one side, but then it wouldn't be centered in the island.

Buuuttt..it IS a bigger cook top. I could get it NOW. It's worth a LOT more than the one we ordered and we wouldn't have to pay the difference... Do you see my dilemma? How much do I care if it is centered? This is a question I ask myself DAILY.

And I just thought my house decisions were over...

Another thing that has been bothering me since we moved in is that we only have 3 or 4 regular sized spoons. I don't like having to use serving spoons to eat with, but it has come to that since we've been here. Where are all of our spoons?! We have plenty of forks. We have more knives than I ever remember us having. But no spoons. It's as if during the 30 foot move all of our spoons turned into knives. And if I was super talented I guess I could eat my cereal with a knife, but I am not and would really just like a normal sized SPOON.

Which leaves me wondering if I like the pattern on my silverware that I picked out from Dillards 15 years ago enough to go see if they still carry it or do I want to throw out all of the silverware we've had since we've been married and get all new silverware that I really like just so I can have some spoons? Or do I just go to Walmart and get a pack of spoons that don't match just to satisfy my need for spoons?

This decision (unlike my cook top decision) will be made within the next few days. I refuse to live under these spoon circumstances another week.

During the 6-month building process we have been making a burn pile of left over materials, boxes, workers empty lunchables, root beer cans, and empty cigarette boxes. And today was the day to burn it all. This is how it looked when we started:

and this is how it looks now:

Much better.

And we all felt much better about Austin being in control of the water hose in case the fire started to get out.

I did take a picture of the outside of the house this morning and I've had several people asking me what it looks like, so here it is:

Our home. :)

And one day I will get around to getting house pics up on here.

I really will.

As soon as the sickness leaves this house and the spoon problems get worked out. Because I do have priorities.