Annnnnnnyyyyyway, school for me starts this Thursday, and I already feel overwhelmed.  I ordered my books weeks ago and I have one.  One out of four.  I got an email yesterday saying I had to go to Target to buy one since it was way cheaper than going through the book store.  Thanks teach.  So technically I guess I have two, even though I haven’t actually gone to get it yet.  However, I called the bookstore and told them “Hey, this book has been sitting at West Campus for a week and a half… you think you could ship it… and what about this other one that’s been pending for a week… what about that one?”  The response I got was less than pleasurable with one book being dropped off by FedEx the day before my classes start, and one book being on backorder, despite the fact that they have 15 in stock for people who are picking up, until after classes start.  I ordered my books on the 3rd, how long do you wait for people to pick up their books… an eternity?  So yeah, totally sucks.  I hate being unprepared.  Jason’s school starts on the following Monday, and he’s already picked up his books, easy peasy.

A few months ago, I ordered a little device called a FitBit.  It took forever to get here (on backorder… just like everything I ever order) but I finally got it Thursday.  It is amazing to say the least.  It tracks sleep, and calories burned, and has an entire website to track all that and more.  The only thing I am truely disappointed with… is my results: (click it!)

The sleep feature is what really sold me on this little device, and so far this has been my worst night out of three.  My first night I was awoken 12 times, but got about 8 hours of sleep.  My second night I was awoken 23 times (!!!) but got about 7 hours of sleep… last night was obviously the worst because when I was woken up, I stayed up instead of being up for a minute or two.  The website also tracks your caloric intake, and water intake based on the foods you entered in, so it is really interesting to see the total caloric intake of what you eat versus what you burn as well.  So far I am in love with this tiny little helper, but I’m giving it at least a month before I give an absolute recommendation as I’ve seen a lot of pros as well as cons on their forums.

That’s pretty much it for now.  I’m off to force Jason to clean with me… we defrosted/deiced our freezer yesterday (easy to do in this heat) and now its off to organize the kitchen!

Why yes, yes I am one of those crazy people who celebrate their dog’s birthday, with a beef and bacon cupcake!  I can remember when I first picked up Lucy, in Tucson, and Jason wanted NOTHING to do with her (because he hadn’t seen her yet) and now he can’t spend a day without her.  I can’t believe she is 3; she is growing up so fast.  *sniffle*

<3 the Lucy Bob

P.S.  I will be working on this theme over the next week or so, so don’t worry, you won’t be blinded by this hideous bright green forever.  :)

So as a few of you may know, Jason caved into my crazy last weekend, and he allowed me (I didn’t give him a choice really) to take our pups to a Dog Whisperer.  Not The Dog Whisperer, but a really good one, that not only helped us communicate, but gave us a lot of help with other things in training aspects.  Her name was Krista Cantrell, she has actually written several books, and been on TV and blah blah blah… and totally not a hoax, as I am sure know some of you thought she was… She had some AMAZING insight and knowledge.  Jason was skeptical until she got to Lucy, and then he was sold.  I recorded the session, that we went to with two of my co-workers (as one had been to her before, so we set up a “group” like session) but unfortunately, we had to stop recording during Lucy’s session, and when I went to save it, having not used the program, screwed something up, and the last hour (which was ALL Lucy) was not saved.  There are some interesting tidbits in there from Maggie (co-workers dog who went first), Landon, who is a ham, and Sadie (other co-workers dog), plus about 5 minutes of Lucy before we had to stop.  The file is about 2 hours long, but interesting.  You can find a zip version, and the straight MP3 version, here. 

A few weeks ago, I built a garden.  I think I mentioned it.  I put up pictures of it in the gallery.  Well, our sweet devil of a dog, Lucy, decided to jump into it, and have a hay-day in the dirt yesterday, demolishing everything in there.  I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do.  All the onions were shredded, and there was no saving them, and I got to save five out of the 6 jalapeno plants.  Luckily, we have a separated yard, and we moved the garden into the back yard, where they cannot get into (now anyway.)  Sadly though, I don’t think the jalapenos are going to make it.  I replanted them yesterday, and when I went to water them today… they were all shriveled and… almost dead.  So sad.  :(  Luckily she only got into one bin, and not both.  The tomatoes, cucumbers, and artichokes still have a chance.

As for the gallery, I added a few new pictures / categories:

• Camping
• The Garden
• And the kids and Jason sleeping on a Sunday  (really important, I know.) 

Enjoy!

It’s annoying.

 In short:  if you go to the page someday, and can’t see it: let me know.  I don’t think I’ve hit any real people just the ones that are visiting 40 times a day.

Anyway, I need to still work on that homework, so I am going to cut this short.  We are headed to the Renaissance Festival today (finally) so you can expect a bigger update, and pictures later this week.  : )  If you’re board, you can see some of the crappy animations I have been working on for school over at Look What I Can Do, I suggest the UltimateTours5 as it has the most going on, as it has been a step by step process and small lessons besides that.  I do have to warn you though, there is a LOUD sound at the end if you click the Lighthouse Cruises button… so mute or turn your speakers waaaaay down.

Ciao!

Sunday we drove to Tucson to get the kids, who were less than thrilled to see us.  That took up a big chunk of the day and we got a whopping two loads of laundry done and were completely exhausted.

Monday was back to work, which was just wretched trying to figure out who did what and what went where etc.  After work we went to Sprint to look at new phones because I am sick of constantly exchanging mine, and it not working.  Then we headed to IKEA because Jason bought a desk with the money his dad gave him for Christmas / Birthday and I bought some lamps for my desk because I can’t stand dim light; however, the lights we bought didn’t fit my desk, they only fit one side of desk (they were clamp lights) and so we had to return them.  We get to IKEA, and Jason grabbed the wrong receipt.  We toss the lights back in the car, and go get different lights and head home, crash pretty much as soon as we get there.

Tuesday night we head out to IKEA again, because light set number two also didn’t work because my desk is very thick, and the clamps opened up about 1/4 inch too little, so now we have 4 lights to return.  Go us.  We head upstairs, measure the desk that I have, and went on a mission to find lights that could clamp on.  No luck.  Ended up setting on a swing arm lamp with a 12 lb base to it.  :P  The light is amazing with such a tiny bulb.  It’s literally about half of my thumb and lights up my desk perfectly.  Once again IKEA, you impress me.  Our house is slowly becoming IKEAized… one day all of our furniture will probably be from there.

Wednesday we had an appointment with the stationer.  Sad to say we will not have the invitations we want, and will probably end up doing them ourselves.  Wow, it is crazy how expensive things are.  CRAZY.  Unfortunately, it took us 50 minutes to get to the stationer, 15 minute appointment, and 50 minutes back.  Again, there was not much time left to do anything once we got home, and we pretty much went straight to bed.

Thursday morning, both doing our own thing at work and Jason gets a call to remind us of our appointment tonight, and if we can change places where we were going to meet.  Uh, appointment?  What appointment?  Heh.  It was with one of the DJs that we met at the bridal show, and let me say that I am so glad he called to change, because we were really impressed with this guy and the services that he offers / provides–but we totally forgot we even made an appointment.  (Hell, we haven’t even had a chance to look at briday show information yet.)  Once we get paid next week, we will be placing the down payment with him.  We really need to buckle down and get back to the wedding business though because we still haven’t purchased my dress (which I have been told can take 4-6 MONTHS to get in) and we still haven’t picked a photographer.

I created a gallery, since I don’t have a paid Flickr account anymore, and therefore am limited, and I have uploaded all the pictures from our trip to  Oklahoma.  Still working on some of the descriptions, so bear with me a bit.  But you can check it out here: fendiandemo.com/gallery

Alsoooooooo, a co-worker of mine has planted a little seed that is slowly growing.  She told me that I should seriously think about opening up my own business selling dog treats since her dog goes nutso over them.  If everyone else hasn’t been lying to me, than I know that other dogs besides mine also love them, and sometimes even prefer them over their regular treats, and I have been talking about it with Jason.  I think the inittial start up would be kind of rocky, but I think it would be a fun and beneficial hobby.  I’ve brainstormed a ton of ideas with Jason and he’s being very supportive of the entire idea, and even offered to help, but I am wondering about other opinions out there… anyone?  Anyone!?

In site / wedding news, I updated the Wedding Plans section, however it’s password protected.  You can email Jason or I for the password.  Also, I was thinking about making people who want to read this sign up for an account.  I’m getting kind of weary of those who are reading it from really weird places (hence the password protected plans) and places that I do know.  For the first time in my life, I am scared of who is on the internet! :P Haha.

• Jason starts working with me tomorrow.  Not sure exactly what he will be doing, but I do know that alphabetizing is in his near future.

• While finishing up our Christmas shopping today, I was thrilled to find The Nightmare Revisited.  Not only is it awesome that they keep coming out with new Nightmare stuff (like last year watching it in 3-d was the best thing of the entire year!) but now it includes some of my favorite artists.  :)

Yay!

So last night, I spent the majority of the night experimenting with peppermint bark. I made a double chocolate batch, and cinnamon bark, which came out… just not really as I had planned. We could not find cinnamon candy canes anywhere, so Jason suggested I try cinnamon imperials and break them up by blending them. That worked great until the blending part, which turned them into cinnamon powder, and I went ahead with it anyway. It was an “interesting” batch to say the least, and I don’t think I will be sending any of it out. I think next time I will keep them whole, they are about the size that the candy canes should be when you put them in, but then again, the candy canes, which are easy to break when you don’t want to, I had to end up wrapping in a double Ziploc bag, and then a towel, and smashing them with a hammer. The cooking life is not easy, let me tell you.

This brings me to my next item on the agenda, the cooking site. I’ve already posted a few recipes that I had from way back when, and some of the new things I’ve tried. It’s been very active as of late, but once the holidays are over, it will probably slow down a ton. But you should check some of them out. I think they are pretty tasty. :) (And they all come with a picture that isn’t all fancy-schmancy-cookbook-beautified!)  There is also a list of the most recent posted recipes off to the right.

Tonight, Jason and I went to Souper Salad, because they are cheap, give unlimited food, and provided us with a nice non-distracting environment to do Jason’s midterm (that he finally got the access code to.) We were there for about an hour, and I helped him with notes and picking out the parts he had to include in his project. It brought back bad memories, because I only took that horrible midterm two months ago. Good riddance!

We were also slightly celebrating. Because my boss is so awesome, and we are getting short-handed soon, and super busy (like really busy, like I actually want people to stop dying, we’re getting in 3-6 cases in a DAY, and have 20+ concurrent, which means super busy workload) and he said that he would hire Jason for odd jobs, but basically wanted him in the system so that he is ready to go when we need him. Jason just has to take the drug test tomorrow, and I think he’s set. He will be doing a lot of work for me, because I am currently doing two and a half jobs because no one else has time to do them (and I’m not sure why they think I do) so my paperwork has been so behind. I probably have about 50 files sitting on my desk, and the pile grows larger daily, of files that need to be finalized and filed away. We also had a HUGE project a few weeks ago which included pulling files from a specific insurance policies and a specific casket company to get rebates on caskets, which was a huge profit (well maybe not in their eyes, but it was over twenty-thousand dollars worth, so I’ve heard) so all those files (probably 100+) need to be filed away in various storage locations as well. And then there’s running. I will lose my runner, Fred, at the end of December because he is taking two weeks off, and while the job has already been asked upon someone else, she is probably going to be put on services (as we are losing a Funeral Director for surgery) and then Jason could be my runner. I don’t really know how it’s all going to work out, but at least it will be something for him to do, he’s already going stir crazy at home. Plus, haha I just can’t stop, my boss wants him to be on the payroll for future computer issues that may arise. So hopefully he will be kept busy, and I will have a load off.

Preeeettttty (LG Lotus)

The other day, I met my dream phone on TV. Tonight, before dinner, we went in to the Sprint Store, and looked at it. It is so beautiful, I could cry. It is a purple PDA flip. Since I’ve had my MotoQ for almost a year, I can’t imagine going back to a normal phone. The one thing I don’t like about my phone (well the main thing) is that I have to lock it every time I put it down, or I end up calling Guatemala! Pain in the ass, but that’s where the flippy awesomeness comes in. Santa, if you want to drop one of those beauties in my stocking, I won’t mind. ;) Did I mention it’s purple? Yeah, its purple, metallic purple, even the keys illuminate purple. I love it!

I don’t know why, because our Christmas shopping is pretty much complete, but I have been looking at home-made gifts a lot, and I’ve found a few that I thought we’re just too good to keep to myself. The first one, is more kid oriented, and is a Pocket Advent Calendar. It’s simple, it’s cheap, and it’s so adorable. I wish I had someone to make it for… although it’s a little late now. Another thing I came across was Homemade Gifts in a Jar, things like brownie or muffin mixes prepared in a jar so all you have to do is mix and bake. I’ve always thought these were cute, and very simple ideas, but again, it’s kind of late for me to do it for Christmas, especially this year, but some of them could be year-round type gifts. I am definitely bookmarking these for next year.

And lastly, something I haven’t posted about in a while: The Wedding! This Friday (well, hopefully) we are starting to look at locations. The one I am trying to set up an appointment for is the Waterfront. I found a list of wedding vendors online. The list had everything from reception sites to wedding cakes, and this one was ranked as $ versus the rest of Phoenix which was $$-$$$$ and Jason and I both really liked it. There were a few other places, but I wasn’t so big on their pictures, so we are checking this place out first. Also, I’m kind of bum on the whole wedding deal not only because of the financial situation but because of my “wedding court”. My Maid of Honor, whom I still haven’t asked, has been kind of giving me the brush off and unless I plan on asking her through MySpace, I don’t know when I’d get the “chance” to ask her in real-life time. One of the other people that I was going to ask has decided that she hates me, and until I have my Maid of Honor set, I don’t want to go any further in the asking process anyway. Ugh, I just hate this. This is supposed to be one of the most exciting times in my life, and so far, it’s been nothing but trouble. Even according to The Knot, I am behind. This is their to-do list:

• Begin envisioning your wedding — formal hotel or friend’s loft? Backyard barbecue or exotic beach? (Eh, sort of)
• Decide on a budget and hash out who’s contributing.
• Knot Hint: For a quick and easy way to determine a budget, use The Knot Budgeter.
• Make sure to insure your engagement ring.
• Pick your preferences for a wedding date and time, and finalize after okaying with important guests, location, or officiant.
• Begin interviewing wedding consultants (if you’ll have one) AND / OR start asking family AND friends for local wedding vendor recommendations.
• Brides: It’s never too early to begin thinking about your gown. Start by figuring out what style will look best on you.
• Start interviewing caterers.
• Scout out reception sites. (Starting)
• Start looking for an officiant who suits your style and spirit.
• Book your reception site as soon as you see something you love that’s available on your date.
• If you’re having an engagement party, set a date, draft a guest list, and purchase your invitations.
• Get organized! Start a notebook/file folder to house all your wedding-planning paperwork in one place.
• Begin working on a preliminary wedding guest list and decide on your wedding’s approximate size. Request lists from both sets of parents and create your own wish list.
• Choose your bridesmaids/groomsmen and ask them to be in the wedding party. (Hahahaha right now…)
• Find a ceremony site if one hasn’t been determined by your choice of officiant or reception site.
• Hire a consultant (if you’re having one) and sign a contract.
• Contact newspapers to announce your engagement (you may need to have an engagement photo taken as well).
• Choose a color scheme, if you so desire, taking into account the decor of the rooms/areas you have reserved for your ceremony and reception.
• Decide on a caterer. Hash out a rough price per head and begin working on a menu.
• Brides: Begin looking at pictures of wedding dresses online and in magazines.  (Being doing that since I was old enough to know what a wedding was :P)
• Brides: When you’ve found some gowns you like, head out to the stores to try them on.
• Start investigating any ethnic customs or cultural traditions you might want to incorporate into your ceremony or reception.
• Finalize the guest list.  (Knot hint: When you’re done, make your life easy by entering everything into the Guest List Manager.)
• Sign your caterer contract and send in a deposit.
• Start auditioning reception bands or DJs.
• If you’ve chosen an outdoor ceremony or reception site, look into tent and lighting rentals.
• Set up appointments with various florists to discuss options.
• Decide on and meet with your officiant to discuss ceremony structure and any religious requirements (such as counseling).
• Interview and get price lists from several wedding photographers and videographers.
• Book reception band or DJ, sign the contract, and send a deposit.
• Brides: Narrow down your gown choices and make a final decision.
• If you plan to use frequent flyer miles to travel to your honeymoon destination, book your flight now.  (Honeymoon?  Yeah, I don’t think so… not even close ;/  )

The crossed out, is N/A and the bold is what we have done. Pretty sad. : ( Also, should I actually have bridesmaids, although the outlook is currently grim, this is the dress I liked for them.

Anyway, I think this is quite long enough for now, its bed time.

Anyway, Jason has pretty much adopted the attitude of “whatever makes you happy” about the wedding. It’s already really annoying. It’s really hard to get him to help me on anything. I really want to get a jump start on things so that I’m not freaking out over the next year, and we know what we will need to budget for. We (and I use the term “we” very loosely) have picked out a date of October 3rd, 2009. So mark that date in your calendar, folks! We really need to decide on where we want to have it. No matter where we have it, we’re going to inconvenience one side of the family, which we both hate. However, Jason had an idea to just do it in the middle somewhere, which in theory sounds great, but then not only are both sides of the family inconvenienced, but so are we, and I really don’t want the added stress of having to blindly pick a place to get married, have a reception, pick a photographer, caterer, etc. etc. because I can’t physically go see it, and then have it not be anything like what is described or what pictures looks like, plus all the travel hassle on top of that. I don’t think Jason quite understands that yet, so we are still debating on where to have it. I do have a few ideas in mind, but I can’t seem to drag him away from the Xbox long enough to get any kind of input. (I’d like to take a moment to thank my boss for doing a game swap so that he now has an “excuse” to sit in front of the TV the entire time he’s home… thanks Kurtis.)

I’ve looked online at a few dress places, and although I haven’t found a wedding gown I like, I think I may have found the bridesmaid’s dresses. Now, I just need to ask the bridesmaids to actually BE the bridesmaids. :p I’m starting this weekend with my maid of honor, I know she will say yes, but I’m waiting until then anyway. Back to the wedding gown, the wife of one of the people I work with is a seamstress, and if I have luck finding a dress pattern this weekend, I am going to ask her how much it would cost to have a custom dress made. As for the tuxes, I am letting Jason pick them out. From the sounds of it though, I’m pretty sure he wants a no button jacket (which I don’t think I’ve ever seen) and a vest. As for the colors, I’m keeping them hush hush for now. :)

I guess I should stop killing time by posting on here, and finish up the rest of the site. Ta ta!