You likey my new background? Got sick of the old one.

It's a love-hate kind of thing...

Moving...

This little word strikes fear into the hearts of most people. Not me. Not right now because I'm ready. I've been ready for a while to move and get into The Hole.

But that doesn't mean that this is an entirely pleasant experience. There are things you forget about moving that you rediscover during the process. Things like...

- Finding out how much CRAP you have acquired over the last however long you've been in your place.

- Realizing that you think you're keeping a clean home, but then remembering that "Oh yah. I guess I haven't actually move that couch for about 3 years. Hmm... That's gross."

- Remembering how physically painful it is to lift all that heavy stuff - and then going up and/or down stairs while carrying that heavy stuff.

- Seeing how empty your place looks after taking all your junk out.

Of course, call me crazy or whatever, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. Some pros like...

- Purging. Getting rid of a whole gob of (again) CRAP that you've been holding onto for no apparent reason. This is probably my favorite part. I LOVE de-junking my life.

- Getting everything really clean after you move all the stuff out of the way.

- The excitement of starting something new - starting a new home, new area to live in, new ward, and all that kind of stuff.

- Getting your new home all organized and put in good order. Some of you may be thinking I'm a freak, but I actually like organizing stuff. It's a lot of work but it always looks so clean and neat when it's done.

Well, that's what I think anyway.

I'm excited to get into The Hole, get all my CRAP back out of boxes and get my new home organized. We'll be out of our place this weekend, then in limbo for a few weeks until The Hole is finished.

In the mean time... watch out Mandons... we're comin' for ya.

Poor kid

So, my awesome big brother sent me this email today of this unfortunate little girl who someone tramp-stamped!

She has no hope.

He also sent this pic with a threat {like any good big brother should}...
to me, my sister and baby brother that if any one of us ever did this to any of our female offspring, he would personally kick our butts.

Thanks for the warning, Aaron.
I'll be sure never to do that to anyone.

{bliss list}

{...bliss list...}

Definition: A list of things that make you happy

Here's mine

~Quiet~

~Sunshine~

~The thought of being done with school~

~My family~

~My faith~

~Chocolate~

~My (former) Young Women~

~Saturday mornings when Albert and I don't have anything to do and we just get to lay there together all warm and comfy~

~Laying on a beach~

~Bubble baths~

~Early summer mornings~

~Good music~

~My Moki~

~Knowing that one day I WILL be a MOM (some day, somehow)~

~Good smells~

~Baking~

~Yard work~

~A clean house~

~Diet Pepsi~

What's on your bliss list?

A Quickie

Here's a quick post about what we've been up to lately.

*Christmas was AWESOME (Late, I know. Get over it.)! Lots of good times spent with family playing games and eating lots of really good food.

*New Year's was a fun night spent with friends playing games and eating more good food. I see a pattern developing.

*Watching The Hole turn into a Home has been quite exciting (I have new pix to post soon)! We can't wait to move in and settle into our new home. Also excited to start attending our new ward soon. Watch out 11th Ward! The Foster's are coming!

*I started school again the first week in January and it's going about as well as can be expected. School has never been my favorite, but GCU is very adult-learner-friendly and not too overwhelming. It's really more annoying than anything else and I should be done this coming December! YAY!

*Albert has been working his guts out with insurance renewals and whatnot. He still likes his job a lot! He continues to serve as 1st Counselor in our Bishopric and loves being a volunteer fire fighter for Roosevelt City.

*Albert is also starting school TODAY. He's doing the Master's of Human Resources program through USU. He's pretty excited to be back in school and have homework again. He loves homework and reading textbooks and stuff.

*We've been packing and taking stuff down and apart (and we found a few really huge, really nasty looking spiders in the basement last night - shiver) getting ready to move. We will be renting our house to a really awesome family in our ward and we will be out of our house February 8th.

*Not sure The Hole will be ready for us to move in in 2 weeks, so we'll be bunking with some good friends that have been kind enough to let us mooch off their heat and space for a couple weeks. Thanx, Mandons!

*The Hole will be painted next week, thus this weekend will consist of me, besides doing homework and packing more stuff, finalizing my paint colors. A difficult decision for me as I tend to lean toward the indecisive side. Our rock is also being put on as I type this now not-so-quick entry like I thought. Maybe I should change the title. Ah well.

*Oh, by the way, I got released from Young Women's in November. It was hard and I miss my little chickens. But they give me hugs on Sundays and text me every-so-often.

*We're thinking of looking into adopting a kid from Haiti - like everyone else who's been watching the news. Albert read that there's an estimated 1 million children who are now orphaned and/or homeless.

*Lastly, ummm... what else... I don't know. That's pretty much all. Hope you've enjoyed this quickie. Oh! I'm going to go tanning today because I'm grumpy because I'm sick of winter and I haven't seen any real sun in months now because I live in the freakin' deep freeze and we've gotten about 5 - 6 new inches of snow this week and it's supposed to keep coming, but the snow is good because that means that it actually has to WARM UP to snow here, so we're at like 36 degrees today (how did you like that sweet run-on sentence?). Heat wave. I should put my swim suit on and go play in the slush.

*That's all.

The Hole Update

Well, it's not exactly just a hole anymore.
Here are some pix of how our new home is coming along.

This is a pic of part of our basement where there will be 2 bedrooms and a bathroom and a big living room.

This is a pic of my crawl space that's underneath my kitchen. It's about 4 feet high and has tons of room for storage - a necessity.

This is an earlier pic - these are all kind of out of order, sorry - of our basement when they very first started framing.

Here's a pic of the kitchen.

And here's one of the front room. You can see where the front door will be and 2 windows to either side of the door. To the right will be 2 bedrooms and a bathroom.

Front of the house. The right side will be our master bedroom and the kitchen in the back. To the left will the be the 2 bedrooms that we'll fill with munchkins one day.

Okay, now onto the most recent pix.

This is Albert's garage. You can see they've got all the insulation done and have started doing sheetrock. You can also see the door into the house and out to the back (someday) yard.

Another pic of our front room, bedrooms and bathroom.

Here's my kitchen!!! I'm so freakin' excited to have a nice kitchen I'm about ready to pee myself. This is going to be a vast improvement from my current kitchen. I can't wait!

The front of the house, of course. You can see they are almost done shingling, there's just that little bit left on the top of the garage.

Another angle of the front.

Out of order again - oh well. You get the idea.

This will be our bonus room and (if Albert gets his way) eventual movie room. You can see where the stairs go down in the middle - there's kind of 2 sides. The side you can see is bigger than the other so the smaller one will probably be an office or something when we finish it later.

And there you have it, my friends. You have officially been updated.
I'm a great tour guide, huh?

Mas Gratitude.

Today, I am grateful for...

My job.

Funny cartoons that are even funnier if they specifically pertain to your profession.

{...like the one above... :D}

That I get to spend 2 whole weekends with my family!

I can't wait!

My personal value system.

...and...

Volleyball.

Even though I don't get to play tonight. I live for thursday nights during the fall and winter.

What are you thankful for?