Bridal Veil Falls

We went to see a waterfall in Provo. On the way we hit a traffic jam. It was so crazy because on the OTHER side of the freeway an 18 wheeler fell over in the middle of almost every lane of traffic. Though it seemed like no other cars were involved. But it backed up OUR side of traffic, all because of rubber-necking. People are weird.

But we finally got to the water fall and it was great! Emma loved it. She has no nerve endings I swear because that water was ice cold and she could get enough.

Dada got her a snow cone, she was very happy!

Frank was climbing up...and then back down.

Emma trying to get me off her back...she won't smile for pics anymore!

We met a dog named Sammy. He liked to fetch rocks out of the water. First you throw a rock. Then he fetches it out and adds it to his pile! Emma loved this dog so much.

Hummingbird MADNESS!

This hummingbird was right up to my face! It was amazing. I am hoping to get better video and photos in the next couple weeks as their fall migration gets into full swing.

Rock...

...you need no money, no job, no nothing but ROCK in this life.



Sorry the video is sideways.



And, in my defense, this post WAS made last night, but I left to let the video upload and I forgot to hit "publish"....so I guess I failed my 14 days straight....lol

The Luck of the Irish

So about one year ago Frank's employer, Sensory Sweep, began to hand out late paychecks. They said publishers were late giving them money and so they were late giving employees money. We took that in stride. After a few months paychecks not only got later, the began to bounce and go missing.

We liked the free health insurance and hoped to ride out this storm, hoping that this company would recover. But they never did. Frank ended up quitting at the end of November. Turns out it was a good decision. This company wasn't paying the IRS any taxes, they were stealing 401k money and apparently this isn't the first time they've done this kind of thing.

So we head into the Christmas season with no job, no income except unemployment.

Frank has a promising job prospect in Austin, Texas. He flies out for an interview, the job looks good, looks like he might have it! After a few days of denial that we'd have to move to TEXAS I accept and begin to look forward to renting a house, having a yard and seeing new birds.

The company in Austin ruptured and closed their Austin branch.

Job after job is close but no cigar.

Frank interviews for a job in Provo. They like him, he's exactly what they want. But they don't like his "look"...his long hair and beard offends their BYU sensibilities. They insult him, call him "anti social" and offer him a temporary job if he gets a haircut and shaves his face. You know Frank...he's SO antisocial...with is love of cooking and being with his family. He declines this nasty offer.

Another job interview in Austin! Great! Denied.

Finally...FINALLY a real job offer for a small company, small but solid. We aren't out of the woods but at least it's a steady paycheck. Smaller paycheck, but steady. The bottom rung of a potentially lucrative ladder.

Today, 5 months into the job, laid off. The company forced to close it's doors because their biggest and onliest client decline to sign a contract because the owner of the company died in a car crash. Tragic. Ripples into the universe that happen to hit the Lucky Irish 3.

How can we have this much bad luck? Did I mention our car broke down...twice...with in 3 weeks...costing us over $1000?

The law of averages demands that we have stability for at least a little while. I was just unclenching my fists from this last round of madness. I was just starting to believe things were looking up.

We'll survive, many have it worse. At least we have each other.

sigh

Frank and I went to the movies today, we saw Julie and Julia. It made me uncomfortable to watch a movie about a lost 30 year old woman who blogged her way into SOMETHING.

sigh

10th anniversary

I never did say anything on the blog about mine and Frank's 10 year wedding anniversary last month.

10 years seems like a long time to me, so much longer than it's felt. Frank and I always had this image of doing something really amazing on our 10th. We didn't have much of a wedding and no honeymoon. We are ok with that. Life with each other is great as it is. But we always told ourselves our 10 would be something really great.

Well, a years worth of financial crap can ruin those plans. Late paychecks turned into no paychecks which turned into months of unemployment which mercifully turned into a good job in a solid industry and a trustworthy company. But we are still a ways from recovering from all that burden.

Well, as our 10th anniversary neared Frank and I realized that some fancy vacation, huge party, big gifts weren't really all that important. Frank and I are happy to have ridden the waves we have together. We ended up having a lovely dinner at home and watched a movie on TV. And I mean this honestly. I couldn't have asked for anything better. Frank and I have always believed it's about our relationship and not the stuff. Frank and I can still laugh until we hurt and we can talk until 4am. We are still so happy to be together. No one else we'd rather be with than each other. And that makes us lucky! How many people get that in life? Not many, and those of you who DO have that, good for you! I get to wake up every morning and hang out with my best friend, the funniest person I know and someone who loves me and my flaws.

I am only happy I get to spend many more decades with him.

This is not easy!

I wrote some poems about blogging every single day:

Roses are red
The night sky is starred
Blogging every day
Is getting kinda hard

------------------------------

Roses are red
Birds like to soar
Reading this blog
is probably a bore

--------------------------------

I thought it easy
to blog for fourteen straight days
But I was so wrong

-----------------------------------

Big
List
Of
Good &
Great
Ideas
Now
Getting

(that last one sucked!)

Death

Emma's been talking about death a lot. She's had reason.

It started a few months ago when I was watching Family Guy (I'm a bad mom, shoot me.) It was the episode where Stewie kills Lois. Emma talked about that for days, it sparked a few of her newest obsessions including her incessant, "Are they REAL or are they just acting?" phase. But anyway, back to death. Emma could not stop talking about that. Why would a baby kill his mother?

Then a month or so later Frank killed a daddy long legs in the bathroom and didn't hide the carcass well in the bathroom trash. Emma, who adores daddy long leg spiders cried and told Dada to never kill one of her BEST FRIENDS again.

Flash forward to a week or so ago at the family yard sale. A perfect storm was brewing:

• Emma kept finding some very friendly pill bugs and was carrying them around the yard, talking to them, making little homes and telling everyone their different personalities.
• Becky breaks out some quite delicious pumpkin cookies she got at the store.
• Kira was roaming around stealing every bite of food that wasn't being gaurded.

The cookies we so delicious Emma was sure that one of her pill bugs would love to have a bite of his own. So she tears a part of the cookie off and sets it on a table placing the pill bug onto the piece of cookie. We all know what happened next. Kira wonders by, sees the cookie bit and gobbles it right down.

A moment later Emma comes by to see how the pill bug is doing with the cookie and asks where it is. She sees Kira chewing and said "Kira at my pill bug!" and she starts to sob. Poor girl. She asks me what happened to him and I tell her, "Well, he died Emma." More sobs.

Some where during this time Emma started her, "Wubbzy is trying to kill me!" thing. Up until this time Wubbzy (a Sprout show character) was one of her very best imaginary friends. I'm pretty sure this has something to do with Stewie killing Lois. She then recently made her own poison for him made of bubble mix, water, chalk and bits of a bullrush.


Now today, her fish died. His name was Binoculars. He was her prize for potty training. We got him just before she turned 3. So he lived a good life of about 2 years 4 months. We had a little flush-funeral.

LAZY POST!

I went to Becky's house to scrapbook and I am showing you the two pages I did:

This first one isn't quite done. I want to find some kind of scissors embellishment to go in the upper right corner and then I will do the journaling in the lower left corner. This is Emma's haircut after Mama seriously messed up. I decided from that point on professionals should deal with Emma's hair! That is why it's called "Cute Oops"

On a funny side note, Emma has a very odd sense of humor. She and Kira were playing in the back yard while we were scrapping and she came running in saying, "Kira took off her diaper and it's all poopy and she was sticking the diaper on the end of a stick and swinging it around!"

Becky and I, of course, go outside to see what is going on. Sure enough, there on the ground near Kira is a poopy diaper and a long stick. Becky goes over to check to see if Kira still had a diaper on and strangely she did.

Emma then yells, "TRICKED YA! I found a poopy diaper on the porch! I made you believe what I said!"

I didn't even know what to say.

Sculpture

Emma sculpted a cat out of play-doh!!! I am so proud of her. Art is her "thing" she says.

I asked Emma to pose like a sculptor:

Then today we rocked out to U2 while doing dishes. And I just noticed how EW my house is in the background...EW! Time for me to get the carpets cleaned.

Let me just say...

...I love my child. She's not perfect. But she's GOOD. She's FAIR. She's sensitive. She doesn't like to hurt people's feelings. She's been very patient with her friends who aren't always these things. And that's ok. People mature in different ways, at different rates. But I do think it's important for me to take the time to recognize those things about my kid that are special. And this is one of those things.

Today she had two friends be mean to her. These friends aren't evil or bad....they were just having bad days. It did make Emma cry. But she never once said she didn't want to be friends with them. I think it's important to have that kind of patience when she has that kind of sensitivity.

I also think Emma is a good example to her peers. She's innately fair and honest. She never tries to cheat or tries to get more than her fair share. She is always willing to play a game with a friend even if she's in the mood to play something else.

These are underrated qualities in my opinion. Especially for girls. Girls do have to be strong. Don't get me wrong. I get that 100% But it's also important to be patient and flexible. To be understanding and sensitive. As long as she's not surrendering her happiness I see these qualities as nothing but a plus for her.

PHO!

So, Frank attempted to make Pho, a Vietnamese soup, two days in a row. The first attempt failed before it even hit the table. The second attempt was served but wasn't super tasty. Though Emma and I DO enjoy being Frank's guinea pig's. How can I complain? I have a husband who LOVES to cook almost every single day.

He plans to keep trying this soup until he's got it right. And we plan to continue to let him use us to test the results.

I'm so damn PROUD of myself! ***UPDATED!!!***

I decided I wanted a table/desk to for scrapbooking. So we sold our unused recumbent bike and the money we got I was going to use to get the new desk. But I got thinking...I don't want to spend a bunch of money on something like that. I want to spend the money on actual scrapbooking stuff. NOT the desk on which I scrapbook. So I thought it over for a while, went out to my garage, hauled in a bunch of old shelves and a broken coffee table. I drew up a plan, got my saw and drill and went to work.

The finished product isn't pretty, it's not amazing, but I made it, for FREE, with matrials I had already and it took me under an hour and it's quit sturdy!

So here are the before and after pictures:


This last picture I updated to show how it looks with all my supplies nicely organized!