Laundry!

I feel accomplished today.  Zach has been having a rough week — lots of school work, little sleep.  On Sunday, he sorted the laundry, put a load in, then came to me with a chart.  You see….I don’t do laundry.  I was never taught how, and I’m quite scared of it actually.  It’s a bit funny, because I’m a logical person, you’d think I’d be able to figure it out, but I have some sort of “laundry wall.”  Anyway, on my chart was the size load, the colors, the temp to wash and the temp to dry.  Couldn’t be easier right?

I was a bad wife.  I put one load in, went downstairs to read my book and never came back.  He ended up doing everything anyway.  😦  But instead of putting the clothes away, he put them in a new basket, that he has been digging through all week for clothes.  Today, before he left for work and I headed to the high school, he asked if I could please put the clothes away, or at the least put the clothes in the washer in the drier.  You see he had school night and wouldn’t be home until 9, I get home at 4.

Today, I was a good wife.  I put all the clothes away.  I moved the clothes from the washing machine to the drier and I put in a brand new load.  Now I haven’t been able to move them around because the clothes in the drier aren’t dry, but I will soon.  And, I picked up the room.  You see, I have a tendency to leave my clothes wherever I take them off.  Some litter the floor outside the bathroom, some are in front of the bed, other in front of the dresser or the closet.  Drive Zach crazy, because he don’t know what is dirty or what I’m going to wear again.   It’s up.  All clean!  I was just about to dust when Zach came home.

Now I just need to fix the ceiling fan!  But that is another story.

Oh….side bar….my husband called me anal today, because if a clean towel lays on shoes for a day I say it is dirty and needs to be re-washed, he says it’s clean.  What do you all think?

Long Day

I worked long today. I normally get off at 4 and I didn’t walk out of the building until 6:30. It’ll work it’s self out, because tomorrow is the day I go to the high school and visit help out, so I lose hours. It wasn’t the typical rushing to get work done, long, it was I just wanted to get something finished up long. I hate getting into a rhythm and then quiting just to have to pick it up again later, so today I just stayed. It was almost calming, relaxing being in the office all alone. As much as I like working at home, I love the space at the office. If it was closer, say 10 minutes, I’d be there every day. I might even go on weekends to do my school work.

Six years ago (before I went and taught) I worked for this same company. We had an office downtown that the company had been in for years and years and years, it was the same office my mom had worked in when I was a little girl. It was too big for the people we had and outdated — so we moved. At building number 1 the walls were white, the carpet was blue, everything was bright. I remember when my boss took us to the new building to show us around and find out what we thought I was horrified. The walls were a tannish color and the carpet was a brown. When I stated that everything was “too dark” and that I didn’t want to leave the old building, my boss harrassed me about not adapting to change well and explained she picked the colors she did because they are suppose to be calming. Haha. That’s not what I thought. Now five year after being in the new building, I do find it soothing. The colors are warm and relaxing, not the high tension white hospital walls we had before. Inviting.

I’ve also learned to adapt to change better, for those who are wondering. In fact, last year, when I was teaching, I’d venture to say I was one of the more adaptable teachers at our school. I just kinda go with the flow and realize not everything is going to be my way and it’s not worth the effort to fight every inch of the way on every issue. You’d be surprised how many teachers don’t really get this concept….especially English teachers.

This morning I had a dentist appointment at 10AM. It was going to be perfect. I worked from home this morning, drove the five minutes to the dentist, that would take about an hour and I’d be driving to work just in time to grab lunch. But nope, I get to the dentist office and they don’t have me scheduled. They wrote it on my card a week ago, but it is nowhere in there system. This is only my second appointment as we are new patients at this dentist office, so it’s not really helping their image. I’m pretty pissed, they give me tons of options and I decided to go tomorrow morning. So, back out of the dentist at 10:10. Hungry. Need food, but no one sells lunch at 10AM! I don’t want breakfast. I’ve gotten myself all psyched up for lunch, not to mention I’m not much of a breakfast type of gal. So I head to work. It’s a bit of a drive and I figure I’ll get around there at 10:30, the time McDs sells lunch. Pull up to the McDs that is right on the way, I’m 4 minutes early…..nope they won’t be selling lunch for 15 minutes. Ridiculous. So I go to the next one that is a block past work. I get there 2 minutes after 10:30.

“Are you selling lunch?”

“Nope, not for another 5 or 6 minutes.”

“Can I order it now and wait?”

“I don’t know. Let me ask. [Long Pause, as a person pulls in behind me] Yes, you sure can.”

Yay….I get my chicken nuggets and Mr. Pibb. The lady at the window was so nice and so was the guy giving me my food. It perked me up a bit after fuming about the dentist for 20 minutes.

Oh, I forgot to mention….my cell phone was completely dead, so I went to charge it. The charger was stuck under the drivers seat, so I gave it a yank. It came out, but the part you plug into the phone was just two wires. 😦 So now, I need a new car charger. Then I come home, and for once remember to bring it in to charge it and go to plug it it just to find two wires!!!! Guinness must have eaten the end off again. He seems to like electronics. He’s chewed through oh, about four cell phone chargers now and my vacuume cleaner cord. He is so sweet and lovable, but I swear I could strangle him from time to time. Now I have no way to charge my cell phone and have to go get two new chargers! Blah.

Welcome Christmas!

Yesterday was decorate for Christmas day.  I do NOT like to decorate for Christmas.  I’m not much of a holiday person.  I especially HATE the idea of having to buy other gifts.  Not because I don’t like giving, but I hate being forced.  And I don’t like to pretend to be happy with gifts that others give me.  Thankfully, this year we are only exchanging gifts with Zach’s family.  That works for me.  🙂

Zach on the other hand LOVES Christmas and giving gifts, even if someone doesn’t like the gift, he just wants to give it.  I don’t quite understand this, but we realize our differences and somehow it just works.  Anyway…..back to decorating.

Zach had a ton of homework, that he could have used the last week to do, but procrastination is the key to college, right?  Knowing that he can’t do homework and watch the Bronco game and knowing that if the Bronco game is on and we are home, he will be watching it, I asked if we could decorate during the Bronco game and it could be on the TV downstairs.  Not the festive Christmas music atmosphere, but it’s about getting things done.  It only took us maybe a quarter, 3rd quarter I believe, and it’s done.  Now, I’ve got to figure out how we are putting 15-20 people in our house for Zach’s work Christmas party.  Our house isn’t big and I’m afraid that’s a lot of people, but….I’m sure, somehow, it’ll work out.

The Tree:

Stockings:

Table/Banisters:

Dogs being cute under the tree:

After decorating I found myself down on the couch with Zach watching football….hmmm…..weird. 🙂  I pasted the time taking pictures, which ended up pissing Zach off more than just the Broncos losing.  Good thing he loves me and forgives quickly.

Zach watching football….Lexi and I being annoying:

This one is funny, because it looks like Guinness is trying to attack me.  Really he is just yawning.

This is what I was trying to get.  Guinness was all snuggly and had his head on my shoulder.

Lexi-Dog:

Oh, I almost forgot….the game:

And then Zach did homework and I read one of my library books….Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper.  I started yesterday and am about half-way done.  I’m sure I’ll finish today, Zach has a class tonight.  I’m REALLY enjoying it.  I can’t wait to tell you all about it.  🙂

To the store we go.

We had to get dog food today, so we piled the dogs in the car and were off. It is an amazingly beautiful day. The temp is around 55-60, the sun is shining, a little breeze and bright blue skies. This is one of the many reasons I love Colorado; I get my cold and snow, but it’s beautiful most of the year!

 

 

Anyway, Guinness and Lexi were perfect angels at the store. I had both and Zach pushed the cart. Never do one of us ever take both dogs, but they were so good today it worked. On the way home I wanted to see if our dogs would stick their whole heads out the window (we normally only crack the windows, so they can only get there noses out). At first Guinness only stuck his noses to the level of the window, it was so funny-an invisible walls. 🙂 Lexi, she loves to stick her head out and her ear fly, which is also pretty funny. When we were almost home they decided to stick there heads out the same window and this is one of the shots I got.

 

Now, the rest of the day is crocheting and putting up Christmas stuff.

November 17.

Some of my best friends growing up were born around the same time as me. Matthew on the 17….Kristin on the 18. I was the oldest, older than Matthew by two days and Kristin by a year and three days. It was always good to have our birthday’s together, why? I don’t know. It was just comforting. I’m lucky to still be in contact with these two, but not the way we were growing up. Funny how life has a way of bringing people in and out of your life. Kristin is in pursuit of her doctorate at University of Michigan, another science person….I honestly don’t know how so many people I was close to in high school turned into such science geeks. I can’t relate to them in anyway when it comes to science. Matthew and his wife just welcomed their first baby into the world at the end of October. Congrats on baby Noah! I could get side-tracked at this point and go on to talk about Emily, who shared my birthday all through middle and high school, but that is a long story of a enemy-friendship circle. 🙂

All this to say, I’m learning as I get older to celebrate me and my birthday and it’s okay. And it’s always a good excuse to have people over and have some fun. 🙂 And that’s just what we did last night. I fixed appetizers, which can be found on the Recipe Page. I forgot the salt in the Checca, but didn’t realize that until today. Zach said it tasted good and I don’t eat the stuff so I hope it was still good. The sausage balls were a hit like always, but my personal favorites are the Bacon and Swiss Mini-Muffins, although I think this batch was a little more oniony than I prefer.

As most of the guest are in my cast of characters, I won’t re-tell you about them, but there are a few “newbies.”

Jonathan and Cari:

Jonathan is an old friend of mine from Faith Ministries, the first church I ever really went to. I believe we were 14 when we met and although we fell out of contact for several years, the marvolous invention of the internet has brought us back together. Cari is his wife. They have a little boy, Judah, but left him at home for the evening.

Tasha and Billy:

Tasha, Billy and I played in orchestra together in high school. I can’t say we were close in high school, but we were friends. Tasha and Billy dated though high school and got married, I believe, a year after we graduated. Again, the Internet has brought us back together and we are wondering why we weren’t closer growing up. I guess God brings people into your lives at certain times for a purpose and we just don’t know what the reasoning is.

After the initial talk and eat, we play Keri’s game, “Celebrities.” It was fun and we all were involved. Then Tasha and Billy left because they are moving and were just beat. We had some cheesecake and Zach brought Roxy down to play for a moment.

My cheesy smile:

Travis (Hanna’s boyfriend) and Hanna:

Russ and Roxy:

Keri:

And then we had nine….one too many for PIT, but Jonathan said he would sit out. I decided it was okay as long as he took the photos…..well, then his wife, Cari wanted to sit out and play with my camera. I think she had fun and I got great game shots. 🙂

This one just cracks me up….look at my face.

A hand:

Stacy playing PIT:

Me playing PIT:

Zach playing PIT:

Hanna playing PIT:

My favorite shot of the game:

Game shot:

A few of the main person-behind-the-camera of the night, Cari:

Later, somehow….Stacy and Zach got into a discussion about how many baby carrots Stacy could fit into her mouth at one time, kinda like cubby bunny, but with carrots. Well, Stacy claimed 30, so she had to follow through. 🙂 It was probably the funniest thing that happened all night. I couldn’t stand it and had to go to the bathroom, so Russ had to step in taking photos for me.

Stacy and the carrots:

And the last one….makes 11! More than I thought, but not 30. 🙂

Oh, and for my birthday, Stacy painting this great painting of Lexi and Guinness.  I’m going to put it above the fish tank, which means they look at the front door.  Hehe.  🙂  Mom and Dad had it framed.  It’s great!

 

Happy Birthday.

Yesterday was my 27th birthday. YAY! I’ve had a good two days celebrating, but don’t have the energy to write about them now. Just wanted to post a few photos.

Zach brought me flowers home for my birthday. This is the dogs smelling the flowers. 🙂

And then this is Zach and me tonight at the Melting Pot. Yummy and fun. 🙂

I didn’t crop or any fun stuff. But there you go. 🙂

Blessed

I was looking though some old photos today. I’ve also been going back and retyping emails from my past. The combo of the two has me thinking about my life. I have been lucky to live a blessed life. Some of those blessing have been disguised and only upon later reflection do I realize how wonderful they were.

 

A brief recap of life since high school:

 

• I stayed at home and when to a commuter school for college. Originally this was only going to be for the first two years and then I was going to transfer. Life happened. I applied to the private school out of state that I wanted to transfer to and was accepted for the second time. Between getting accepted and accepting the offer, my dad had emergency surgery and was paralyzed from the waist down for several months. He slowly recovered, and although he has never made it back to 100%, he can walk and rarely do people realize what has happened to him. But I’m getting side tracked. I couldn’t leave my mom to take care of my dad and my little sister, a high schooler at the time. So, I never accepted the transfer offer. Blessings: I continued my relationship with Zach. I was in less debt when I graduated than I ever could have been had I transferred. I got an amazing job that paid well and worked around every scheduling conflict I ever had.
• In high school I never had a boyfriend. My first “boyfriend” was more a best friend in late middle school, early high school, but after that no one. Okay, I shouldn’t say no one. I did go on at least one date, but we both didn’t think it had the potential to move beyond that. I’m still pondering why I was such a loser, but that is of no consequence now. My first year of college I went through every guy that would become part of my history: Jeremy-good friend, something more? He lived out of state and we couldn’t figure it out….on to Nathan. That one was short lived….a few months. Nathan is a nice guy, I still talk to him from time to time, but all he cared about was money and my lip biting and the fact that I love God (even though he claimed to be a Christian) got in the way and our relationship ended. Jeremy jumped back into my life. Jeremy and I were great friends. We knew each other very well, but as the time grew closer for him to move down here, the more I got interested in this new guy, Russ. Since Jeremy and I were “just friends,” I never thought much of the fact of him moving down here, but then he got here and started freaking me out. I remember him saying things that made it sound like we were going to get married and he’d only been here a week. That just pushed me closer to Russ, but that was a blessing. Russ was the player of all the guys I was ever “with.” He only wanted to break me. Make me kiss him, but he never succeeded. After two weeks of trying, he somewhat gave up and told me we could only ever be friends because I reminded him too much of his mom. But that wouldn’t stop him from asking me to make out with him when no one was around. Russ did enlighten me to the ways of the world. I learned more in our two weeks, than in my nineteen years to that point. And I was no longer a holding hands virgin. But I was crushed….I cried for hours, I was miserable. Blessing: Had this not happen, I wouldn’t have gone back to the daycare center. I wouldn’t have met Zach for the second time. I wouldn’t have given him a chance. I would have been scared away by his life.
• When Zach and I got married we lived for a year and a half in a two-bedroom apartment with my father-in-law. It seems like it would be an awkward situation and I suppose in someways it was. I do remember feeling like we’d just gotten married and grown up when we moved into our house. And I do love walking around naked, and that’s not quite the way you should do things when you live with your father-in-law, but looking back it was a huge blessing. Ron is one of the most easy going people I have ever known, but he is shy and keeps to himself. I do not think I would have the great relationship I have with him, had we not lived together. There are just things you learn only by living. We got to spend more time with Zach’s brother. We ate together. He helped take care of the dog and would take her on long, long walks. He paid half the rent, even though there were three of us. Blessing: I was able to finish school and student teach for far less money than had we had to pay for everything on our own. We were then able to move into a house as our first place together instead of an apartment. Another blessing: During that year Ron had a few mishaps. I won’t go into details, but several times I received calls from the ER. One time, Ron had to have jaw surgery and was in ICU for a few days and then had to eat with a straw for six weeks. I know the was a rough time for Ron and I hope he was blessed with us living with him and he could rely on us for odds and ends. I know I was thankful to have him around when I broke my foot a few months later.

Essentially, I started this blog to write about Ron. I know he reads this blog from time to time, so….

 

Ron – I’m glad you are in my life. I’m glad you put up with Zach and I, especially me and my pushyness. Most people complain about there in-laws, and would dread having to live with them. But I look back on those times as happy memories and would do it again in a heartbeat. My words can’t express my thoughts well enough, but I have this feeling you will completely understand. I love you…..Jenn

A Night on the Town.

Yesterday Zach and I went to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra.  I was so excited to go.  I got all dressed up.

Before we left Zach took a million photos me and said, “This is what it would feel like if you were famous. With the paparazzi.” Most of them are a bit blurry except for the one above, a bunch of my back and this one of me scratching my eye brow. 🙂

Well, we got to the symphony and paid $10 for both our tickets that should have cost us $100, thank-goodness for student IDs.

I need to backtrack a bit. Zach has a research paper to do and I wanted books…so we spent most of the afternoon at the library. I love the library! It just makes me happy. 🙂 In addition to the research paper, Zach can get some extra credit in English for reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  In my wanderings of the library while Zach looked through research material, I found the book on CD and in book form, so we got both.  On the way downtown we started listening to the book.  I got pretty interested and since we got to the show early, we found a quiet place and I read to Zach. 

Then the show started.  Okay, before the show started, when the orchestra came out, there was a guy who plays the bass who was on oxygen.  The guy next to me said, “Hey, look at that guy on the cello with the oxygen.”  Honestly, I can understand getting a Violin and Viola confuses, but a Cello and a Bass?  That is just pitiful, especially when you are at the Symphony!

Well, this show was special because it was really the Dave Matthews Tribute Band with the CSO….and it sucked!  If you want more details you should read Zach’s blog.  The best song was right after intermission, when the drummer played a bit quieter and they had worked out some mic issues, so we could hear everything, but it didn’t last long.  All the night accomplished was me wanting to listen to Dave Matthews and really wanting to go to a really symphony show.  Seemed to do the same for Zach so we are going back for our 7th year anniversary of our first date. 🙂  More on that later.  Zach is having a “mid-life” crisis.  I really hope it’s a quarter life crisis because I don’t want to lose him at 60.  He wants to go to the symphony AND he wants to go see the play Pride and Prejudice.  ???  I don’t know what is wrong with him, but I’m not going to complain.  I’m super stoked. 🙂  Again, let me say “YAY for student IDs!”

After the show, we walked down the way to the Cheesecake Factory for Fried Macaroni and Cheese and a slide of cheesecake.  Mmm….. 

On our way back to the car, at like midnight, there were these ladies that were setting up to play chess on the 16th street mall.  It was so weird that late at night.  And they were playing with Pirates of the Caribbean pieces. I tried to get a shot, but as you can see…it didn’t turn out to well.

We had a great night out. 🙂  And then I was sick all day today.  Agh….I don’t know what’s wrong with me recently.

Help!

See my post in Mixed-Up Minds….here.

Too Early.

It’s Saturday morning and the clock just switched to 8:02 and I’ve been up for about a hour and a half. WHAT??? It’s Saturday, why am I up so early? Oh, that would be school work. 🙂 And although my part of the project didn’t need to be done until noon today, I kept waking up, worried that I would over sleep and it would get done and I’d let me group down. So, now I’m done with that (I still have something due at midnight) and I’m completely wide awake. I’m sure it won’t take me long to fall asleep if I go snuggle up next to Zach in the warm bed. The house is cold this morning. Could be we left some windows open. 🙂 Hehe.

 

Well, we (both Zach and I) have homework to do today and all weekend, tonight we are going to the Colorado Symphony to see the Dave Matthews Band Tribute for Zach’s music appreciation class and I’m actually kinda excited. I got my student ID yesterday, so we both will get in for $5 and probably get $80 seats. Pretty good deal if you ask me. 🙂 I’m thrilled with my ID. It makes me feel young again. Plus, it’s pretty cool looking.

 

I’m off. Later all.