25 by 25

Well I am 25 now... So how did I do:

Bulls Eye:

graduate

go 10 days with out spending any money 

go on a date with Brody once a month (easy! and my favorite!)

attend the temple 10 times 

have 100% visiting teach for the year 

keep the living/family room clean for a month

Kiss and tell Brody I love him, and a reason why DAILY (0/365)

Missed:

lose 50 lbs: Nope... But, since I cut out dairy weight loss is going a lot smoother.

publish a research paper

run a 5K in 30 mins

work out 3 times a week for 10 weeks straight

dust monthly (it is so dusty in Pullman!!) (0/12)--I never dusted!

finish Tree of Life afghan

make a habit of getting up and out of bed for the day with the first alarm

have a baby/get pregnant

ski a Black slope (currently a moderate blue skier)--We haven't gone skiing in a while.

put pictures in our picture frames

finish our wedding/honeymoon/anniversaries scrapbook

A little short:

finish 4 of the 12 knitting/crocheting projects I have started: Well I never wrote down what they were... But I finished a whole bunch this year

read my scriptures more regularly--had a habit then something happened... I need to start again...

organize and keep organized my office 

take a box to Goodwill monthly (We did it every other month)

save $1500 (have $1500 in savings)--SO CLOSE!

deep clean the kitchen bi-monthly 

keep a weekly journal--I started a month or so ago

The BIG 25!

Well I am 25 now, and B will be soon to. This new year is bring all kind of changes to our lives. Here are just of few of the things we are looking forward to this year!

#1: B is in school full time! I am excited for this, he, not so much.
#2: My student loans have gone into repayment. In other words, we are even poorer...
#3: I got braces put on Tuesday. Finally! Not looking forward to the two years of braces, or the one oral surgery (and possible second). But I am so glad to get some things finally fixed.
#4: We will be entering our third year of marriage.
#5: I am going to learn to play the piano. I have always dreamed of playing it, and I got a REALLY nice one for my birthday.
#6: We are hoping to expand our family soon (but it could be next year for that, you never know...)
#7: I am learning how to drive in the snow...
#8: We have 3 chairs to re-furbish, which will get done this year! If B has his way they will be sold... If I have mine we will have a room full of chairs...
#9: We got a sander for Christmas and I will be re-furbishing our table and a hutch.
#10: I will organize our house! Mainly my goal is to clean up that basement. I love our basement, but it is a black hole...

Christmas Pictures!

The Bathroom! We love this walk in shower! So much that when we own a house we are putting one in our house!

Four Post bed, I want one!

Gas fireplace in out suite!

Christmas Eve horse and buggy ride around downtown

The Davenport 

It snowed! On the Roof top at the Davenport

Hall of the Doges

The Christmas Tree in the lobby

Brody's Hair

*This is a SUPPER old one! I lost the pictures and found them the other day! So here you go!*

Oct 2011:

Brody decided to grow his hair out to donate it. It was cause for much debate... But since, I donate my hair, I had to concede. He started growing his hair out in the winter (2010) and a couple of days ago he chopped it off. We found out that the companies that make the wigs dye all the hair. B was going to donate his hair because he, admittedly, was doing it for selfish reasons--He wanted a little child to have his 'beautiful locks of red hair'. He are some picture before and after!

I am too cool to get up...

Showing that it can go in a ponytail.

"I don't want to take a picture... I want our kids to know I was always crazy..."

I am going to eat you!!!

Finally, smilingly nicely.

I didn't take a picture right after the cut cut, this was one that was taken shortly afterwards. Don't mind the beard it was a compromise to expedite the hair cut.

Merry Christmas!

B and I had a GREAT Christmas. We even both got nice long vacations! I was able to take 10 days off and B had 3 WEEKS! We got a few things done, which was really nice. We also got lots of time to spend with each other, major plus!

This year was our third Christmas, and when we got married we decided we would alternate who we did Christmas with, including us. This year it was just us! Which was so wonderful. We knew this was coming and since there are no babies coming anytime soon we decided to make it BIG! We have been saving all year for this. It was completely worth it. Honestly, I would give up movie nights and dinner dates more if we could do this every year, that is how good it was.

B was originally planned to go here... I thought he meant here... So when I asked him, I was heart broken, I thought we were going to a "castle in Canada". So we priced it out and needed to come up with another $1000 to go to the "castle". From the end of September, we cut our budget so we could make it happen. We even got our enhanced driver licenses. (Which was way easier then the DOT website makes it sound!) Then in the beginning of December we decided we didn't really want to drive to Banff... And we wanted to stay local (which was our back up plan if by some miracle the doc was wrong and we got preggers).

We decided to go to The Davenport in Spokane. It is our FAVORITE place! I was so excited! We even were able to book so that we could stay Christmas Eve to Christmas Morning!

Needless to say we had the best Christmas ever! After we got home, we were feeling guilty about all the money we spent, being students, but we did save it up. We also had some left over that we are currently debating on where to donate it to when we pay tithing this month. That I think, is one of the best blessing of this Christmas, being able to help someone, somewhere, some how.

Merry Christmas

P.S.--Next Post will be pictures, I promise!

And it is....

A sever allergy to milk proteins.

After years (since high school, about 7 years), I have had this horrible gross intestinal problem. I have seen 4 different doctors, one specialist, countless CT scans, and ultra sounds. To finally have some one say, "Hey could you be lactose intolerant? 30% of the people I see with this that is what it is."

Well... let me think MY DAD is lactose intolerant...

I saw my regular doctor today for a follow up from my appointment with the GI specialist. I asked her some questions about things and with just a few questions; we decided no more milk AT ALL!

It is a sad day, but at least it isn't wheat also!

(Well that I have to go get prick tested for and am waiting to do that....)

A New Year. An Organized Life.

A couple of weeks ago I decided I need to organize my life. I am horrible at keeping our house clean, dishes done, floors swept or vacuumed, washing and folding the laundry... The list of every day tasks grows! Some days I feel so overwhelmed that I do not do ANYTHING I probably should do.

So last Monday, I had this brilliant idea to make a list of 5 things to do every day that week. The 5 things went into these categories:

dinner

laundry

cleaning task

craft/yarn project

something for me

Let me explain a bit. I don't think like most women, I have learned. I think it has to do with a) having and engineering degree b) learning how to think like all those guys in my engineering classes and c) growing up hating men. (I have problems I know, just talk to my high school friends, they have great stories!)

Dinner: I learned that if there was no plan for dinner, we don't eat. For most of B and I's marriage I have made a meal calendar, gone grocery shopping, and then decided we were going to eat other meals. Therefore spending more money and throwing away lots of food and money! So I am going to change the way I do our meal calendar, not sure but more on that in another post.

Laundry: I am very particular about how my clothes get washed. No sure where/why I developed this. I run enough loads of laundry that I figured out a plan for washing all our clothes, towels, and bedding on a 2 week rotation. With this plan of mine I only do laundry 3 days a week! It opens up time for other things, I like doing more.

Cleaning Task: Yes, laundry is not a cleaning task. This is not one of those every day things, like dishes. More of things you need to do once a week, like mopping, vacuuming, dusting, deep cleaning rooms (kitchen and bathroom), and changing bedding.

Craft/Yarn Project: I have a lists of 20+ projects I want to finish one day... I need to schedule time for myself to do them. With this little daily list do-dab I have finished 2 projects for Christmas!!

Something for Me: We always need down time for ourselves. This is my one thing I really want to get done thing for me. It varies, some days it is organize the closet other days it is go to project group. It is just something that I want done that I know will make me happy.

Since this little list do-dab work fairly well last week, I decided I am going to make being organized my New Year Resolution. It is the only one I have this time. No, list of 50 billion things I want to change. No, crazy goals that even know I can't keep. Something simple, and that is going to make my life and every one around me more pleasant.

No one ever says you have to wait until New Years to make those, so I decided to start now.