Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life. Show all posts
We Did It!
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Life
We are debt free!
(well except for our house...but that is our next goal)
It took us a little over two years to pay off $53,962.42 in student debt and a small loan on Dave's truck. It required a lot of self discipline and hard work to do it, but it feels so rewarding! We began heavily paying down the debt in the middle of November 2008 and finished in February 2011. We came in just two months shy of our goal, but not bad considering the medical expense we have had.
Let's face it, we had a lot of student debt! With Dave in School for 6 years and me in school for 5 (3 of which I had out of state tuition) we had accumulated a great deal. The chart above hung on the inside of one of our laundry room cabinets to remind us of what we were working towards. We started with the smallest loan and worked towards the biggest. We would cross off each loan as we completed payment on it till they were gone!
If you would like to learn more about exactly how we did it or obtain a sample copy of our budget spread sheet, please leave me a comment. We would be happy to share what we have done and learned through the process.
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Sigh
Sigh...I know, I know! It has been over five months since my last post and that is a sigh of complete failure. I am so sorry blogging world that I have left you in the dark for so long! It was certainly not due to the fact that I didn't have anything to blog about but rather that there was way too much to blog about and simply not enough hours in the day to do it.
I feel like I have been going a hundred miles and hour until I hit my pillow every night for the past 4+ months. I am making no promises that I will return on a consistent basis, but I will try to be around a little bit more! I have so much pulling me in all directions and I am trying desperately to find balance, but I am not sure I am there yet.
Okay, now it's time to catch up. Where do I even start?
I can't BELIEVE my last post was on October 13th and the post prior to that was all the way back in August.
Thanksgiving:
We had a wonderful time with family for Thanksgiving. It wasn't the crowd we originally anticipated having, but Dave's brother who lives in Missouri came with his wife and 3 kids. I love planning menu's for such events and creating the table setting for the big day.
Thanksgiving:
We had a wonderful time with family for Thanksgiving. It wasn't the crowd we originally anticipated having, but Dave's brother who lives in Missouri came with his wife and 3 kids. I love planning menu's for such events and creating the table setting for the big day.
I loved having my nieces and nephew around! It is closest thing I have to being a mom so I cherish the moments getting to know them better and of having them in my home!
Christmas Time:
I had a wonderful time decorating for the Christmas season this year. I spent last Christmas laying in bed following a surgery unable to decorate my tree or put any Christmas decorations up. So to say the least I was just itching to decorate this year.
The evening after Thanksgiving dinner and stayed up a little late to clean everything up. I immediately took down all the fall/Thanksgiving decor and quickly replaced it with a few splashes of Christmas here and there. I couldn't wait even till the morning...I was so anxious! When my nieces woke the next morning they were thrilled to see it all and with excitement in their voice exclaimed..."Christmas"! I assume you did not plan to be reading about Christmas time in April but hey, I just couldn't leave it out...
And although it is 4 months late, here is our Christmas Card! Hope you had a good Christmas!
We traveled to my "home" for Christmas. I have not been home for the holidays in over 2 years so I was pretty excited. We missed our trip last year because of complications following a surgery. My Christmas wish was to have snow in New Mexico while I was there (little did I know we would have a white January in Arkansas).
(taken from my parents front porch)
There is nothing quite like a snow covered desert.
Christmas Day...
My Great Aunt collected thousands (and thousands) of seashells and sea life throughout her lifetime. I desperatly wanted a sea fan from her to hang on my dining room wall. My mom made arrangements to get me one from my aunts vast collection and surprised me with this amazing family treasure for Christmas. It's HUGE, and I can't wait to get it framed!
What can I say...Dave was simply elated to apparently get new work out shorts!
My Grandparents own this charming little cabin in the mountains of southwestern Colorado in a little community called Visita. It holds countless treasured memories of my youth and I always love the opportunity to visit when I am home. It reminds me of sledding and inter tubing in the winter, building fairy houses in the summer, walks to the candy store (where we would find all sorts of vintage candies they don't sell in the regular stores anymore), barbeque's with family, see-sawing at the park, skipping rocks in the lake, adventure hikes, and countless other activities.
I had many a sleepless nights out on this deck fearing for my life as I was concerned that bears were going to come and eat me! But nonetheless I put on my brave face so as to not show my cousins what a chicken I actually was since they all loved to sleep out there (unless they were all doing the same)!
Lake Visita
In the summer of 2002, Colorado faced a terrible drought. A fire was started which would become the 2nd largest wildfire in Colorado's history. It went on to burn 73,145 acres some of which you can see in these image. Thankfully my Grandparents cabin was spared but the beauty of the lake is far from what it once was.
In the summer of 2002, Colorado faced a terrible drought. A fire was started which would become the 2nd largest wildfire in Colorado's history. It went on to burn 73,145 acres some of which you can see in these image. Thankfully my Grandparents cabin was spared but the beauty of the lake is far from what it once was.
Skipping Rocks at the Lake
Dave had his first opportunity to snowboard while we were on Christmas vacation. I grew up surrounded by several ski resorts within about an hour of where I lived. Dave borrowed my dad's board and him and my brother enjoyed LOTS of fresh powder on the slops of Durango Mountain Resort in Colorado. It snowed over 20" the night before we drove up and continued to snow for the remainder of the day that we were there.
(My dad instructing Dave on his board while my brother patiently waits)
His first run down the bunny slopes...
He started out looking good, but reality quickly set in...luckily there was lots of fresh snow for his fall!
(Aftermath of an small avalanche while driving up-couldn't get to my camera quick enough...arrg)
New Camera:
With my Christmas bonus from work I was able to finally purchase a new camera! I had been dreaming of one for quite sometime. I felt very limited by my old camera's abilities so it was time. I purchased a Nikon D7000 and I love it (outside of the fact that I have no clue how to use it and a 350 page manual is a bit hard to memorize)!I haven't had much time to play with it, put here are a few of the first images I took with it...
RoseMary
Duck in the snow on the San Juan River
Snow Day in Arkansas:
We received lots of snow in the month of January and lets just say...Sadie LOVES the snow!
Dave's Birthday:
Dave celebrated his 32nd birthday on January 29th. We had a temple trip to attend with the youth so we woke up at 4:30 AM to head to the Memphis Temple for the day.
It is always tradition to stop at a popular Chinese buffet on our way back. One of the youth got the servers to come and sing "happy birthday" (in somewhat broken English) to Dave. If that wasn't funny enough they concocted a birthday platter of goodies from the buffet and rounded up a candle to top it off!
I love the array of colors and precise stacking of the treats...the finishing touch is certainly the
splash of red from the cherry tomatoes : )
Although it was hard to top that, I attempted with a gigantically tall carrot cake for his party!
It has been a busy, adventure filled few months. But the reality is that it has been hard. I won't sugar coat it. I have been physically and emotionally drained for some time now. I am learning a lot about who I am and what I am made of. Medically speaking it has been rough. The picture my doctors are painting for me seems to become increasingly more grim and it is taking a lot to simply cope with that.
I try to remind myself daily that I really am very blessed (and don't get me wrong, I certainly know this). I indeed do not have it all, but I do have a somewhat disfunctional body that still functions and I suppose that is a blessing. I still have two arms and two legs and that is more than some.
We were recently approached about a possible opportunity to adopt a baby soon to be born in our area. I can tell you right now that I wanted to more than anything. We prayed and prayed and came to the conclusion that for whatever reason it wasn't right, that it wasn't time yet. It seemed so close but so far away and it crushed me.
Life at 26 is certainly not what I imgined it to be, but I am learning that often times it isn't about what you picture for yourself, but what the Lord has pictured for you. I am learning that I have little control over much more than my attitude. I can choose to be sick and give up or to pick myself up and get on with life. I am learning what I am made of...
...and what I have rather than what I don't.
Hope you like the blogs new face lift. Come back often...I will try to be around a little bit more.
Update
So I know it has been over a month since I have sat down to write to you all. What can we say...we have been busy! So to catch you all up, here is an update of what we have been up to:
1. I guess I will pick up where I left off. My last post was on our wonderful and amazing trip to the beach. We spent the next week following our return, attempting to recover from our HORRIBLE sunburns and exhaustion (we even used waterproof sunscreen-I promise)! We took lots of oatmeal baths, smothered our skin in vinegar, went through two bottles of Aloe Vera gel (with lidocaine), then blistered and peeled like mad!
Dave's Blistered Shoulder
On top of the sunburns, my legs/ankles swelled up like I weighed 300 lbs-no joke! It took about three days for the swelling to go down (with lots of elevation). We are still not really sure what caused it...sun poising, jelly fish sting...? But either way I had once serious case of cankles! Just to prove it, here a few images taken from my camera phone (sorry for the poor image quality).
2. Two days after vacation I underwent a procedure to tighten up the opening where they had previously re-implanted my ureter into my bladder (April '09). It was discovered a few months ago that I had developed reflux at the site of the implantation and it was increasing my bladder infections substantially. Urine was basically shooting back into my kidneys. Prior to the procedure I had been suffering from an ongoing infection for about 3 months that they were attempting to treat with every anti-biotic possible but it kept mutating. I do seem to have improvement and I was infection free for about 3 weeks following the procedure. There are still a lot of unanswered questions and problems but we hope that we are on the tail-end of this trail.
3. We have been busy with lots of house projects to prepare and make room for family coming to visit for Thanksgiving! After a 2 1/2 year ongoing battle with Dave's work out equipment which has occupied both of our spare bedrooms, I finally gave in to allowing him to move it into the larger of the two rooms so we could consolidate all of his equipment to one room (sigh). I wanted to save the larger room for the future nursery/guest bedroom since they will have to serve as one in our three bedroom house, but after some serious brainstorming I think I have figured out a way to include all of the things that come with a baby and still have room for a twin bed with a trundle for guests. So...a little reluctantly...we finally made the switch. In all reality it was a huge relief to have all of his stuff out of my way so I can focus on the current guest room. Even though there are no babies in site, I am a planner. I want to start on the guest part of the room but it still be applicable when we have kiddos. Why have to change it- I only want to pay for it once if you know what I mean. Anyways, I think I have rambled!
4. It seems as though our house is beginning to fill a bit more like a "home". It has been a long process as I have tried to build a good foundation of quality furniture that I love. In the past month, the table for our formal dining room arrived (damaged but that is a whole other story), we hung drapes in our master bedroom, purchased a new mattress- a sleep number to be exact, and had an antique solid mahogany dresser that I found on Craigslist for $40 refinished.
I have always dreamed of a big round table to dine at. I just love them! They are so personal and inviting. I went a little smaller (60" diameter) than I was originally planning so I have room for a buffet down the line. Luckily, I already had chairs from my breakfast table (I ordered 6, 4 came in slightly damaged, so they sent me 4 new ones and told me I could keep or destroy the other 4...which gave me 10 chairs). I keep 4 around the casual table and 6 around the formal table. They are not the chairs I will keep there forever (I honestly have so many of them I am kind of getting sick of them, plus the 4 or in so so condition) but they work out great until I can get these...
Dining Room
New Drapes
It is still certainly a work in progress...but it is progress none the less! It would look a lot better if I took down the blinds but they are really convenient for light filtration. We inherited the wing chair from a neighbor for free and I plan to reupholster it in a fun modern print once I decide on it's perfect place in our home.
Before and After Dresser
I wasn't sure I wanted to keep the hardware, But Dave loved it and told me I didn't have a choice! I guess I win most of the decorating battles in our home (even though he is very opinionated and we have very different taste), so I figure I should give him a few decisions.
I have always dreamed of a big round table to dine at. I just love them! They are so personal and inviting. I went a little smaller (60" diameter) than I was originally planning so I have room for a buffet down the line. Luckily, I already had chairs from my breakfast table (I ordered 6, 4 came in slightly damaged, so they sent me 4 new ones and told me I could keep or destroy the other 4...which gave me 10 chairs). I keep 4 around the casual table and 6 around the formal table. They are not the chairs I will keep there forever (I honestly have so many of them I am kind of getting sick of them, plus the 4 or in so so condition) but they work out great until I can get these...
5. As I mentioned earlier, we are having family come for Thanksgiving and we are SUPER excited! But did I mention how many...10 to be exact. I have been panicking trying to address the lack of guest beds in our home. I have wanted a very particular bed for a while for the guest room but the price tag was certainly not going to happen before thanksgiving. Plus it did not include a trundle and I really needed that option available. So...I found a pop-up trundle on Craigslist for $25 a few months back and bought it. Then I found a plan for a bed very similar to the one that I love (there will certainly be modifications, but it is close) on Ana Whites site (if that name is new to you, please click on the link). And enlisted the help of my awesome and handy husband!
The bed that is my inspiration (shown below) is upholstered. I have never upholstered anything so you would assume I would start out with something simple...but no! I am determined I can do it! I have done a ton of research, spoken to every resource possible and I finally feel comfortable with how I am going to tackle the project. So we bought the wood, and I have ordered the fabric: ivory-indoor/outdoor fabric- for great durability, stain resistance, and gender neutrality...after all it will eventually be in the nursery! I will also be doing all of the piping/welting in a contrasting chocolate brown. I can't wait to get started on the project and share the before and afters! Wish me luck...I'll need it!
I plan to turn this plan (obvious with some modifications)...
6. I am not much for decorating for the Holidays (except for Christmas). I know you are thinking, "what?, but your a designer". When we first were married I always put out all the fun festivities for the applicable time of year. Over time, I discovered it became harder and harder to pull out the decorations because they seemed to haunt me with the fact that it was another holiday soon to pass and I was still childless.
My mom always made sure to make the holidays extra special with fun decorations and crafts and I always wanted to do the same for my own kids. This year I decided to be a little brave and decorate for fall. I couldn't really justify Halloween because it is so centered around kids and their cute costumes...but fall I could do. Plus I wanted it to be fun for the family and kids coming to visit for Thanksgiving.
I have wanted a fall wreath (2 to be exact) for quite some time so I was on the hunt for a fun project for a fall wreath with a twist. I came across this plan for the following wreath. They were really fun to make (thanks to a project night with some good friends). If I were doing it over again, I think I would use more of the smaller circles but I think it still turned out cute.
7. This past Sunday was certainly a whirlwind as Dave was called to be the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric of our ward and thus ordained a High Priest. It really took us off guard, but I am exceptionally proud of him and the man that he is. I am grateful that he is such a spiritual giant in my eye's and that he honors his priesthood so faithfully.
When the stake presidency called him in the week prior to the announcement and I heard the words "we would like to call you to be the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric" there was panic! It wasn't about the time restraints and long meetings that he would now have to attend. It wasn't that he is only 31 and way to young to be a high priest. But rather that I would have to sit alone on the pews each and every Sunday! There wouldn't be any kids at my side to keep me company or family in our ward whom could save me a seat. I was going to be alone! Church is already a hard place for me at times because I am surrounded by babies, kids, and large families that seem to close in on me each and every Sunday! Thankfully, I know great blessings will come to Dave and I through this calling and I pray we will both grow from the experience.
Thanks for baring with me through this update. I know it was long and daunting. My writing is just not as exciting as it used to be. I guess I have lost blogging steam. I hope everyone is doing well!
When the stake presidency called him in the week prior to the announcement and I heard the words "we would like to call you to be the 2nd counselor in the Bishopric" there was panic! It wasn't about the time restraints and long meetings that he would now have to attend. It wasn't that he is only 31 and way to young to be a high priest. But rather that I would have to sit alone on the pews each and every Sunday! There wouldn't be any kids at my side to keep me company or family in our ward whom could save me a seat. I was going to be alone! Church is already a hard place for me at times because I am surrounded by babies, kids, and large families that seem to close in on me each and every Sunday! Thankfully, I know great blessings will come to Dave and I through this calling and I pray we will both grow from the experience.
Thanks for baring with me through this update. I know it was long and daunting. My writing is just not as exciting as it used to be. I guess I have lost blogging steam. I hope everyone is doing well!
HOT, HOT, HOT
Can you believe we are going on our third year here in Arkansas. Each year has brought us many adventures experiencing what life and weather is like in the south. For each year we have been here, I have deemed an appropriate name for what I have remembered it by. The first year was what I call, "the year of the tornadoes". We had only been here a few short weeks when these crazy storms began to roll in, many of which came quite close to the proximity of our home. I remember thinking..."what have I moved too"!
The second year I refer to as "the year of the rain". We experienced record rain fall in Arkansas. It is always amazing (and devastating) to see people being rescued by boat from their homes or cars. It is crazy to have work canceled and freeways closed due to flooding.
Although this year is far from over, I have already deemed it "the year of the unbearable heat". The first two summers in Arkansas everyone kept saying..."oh, this is such a mild summer". After hearing it for two years I just figured that was the normal temperatures and everyone was just trying to scare me. I can recall going to lunch with a lady from church shortly after I moved here. She gave me a myriad of information regarding how to survive in Arkansas. She explained to me what the heat index meant and even gave me a handout showing a chart of how to calculate temperatures based on the humidity levels.
At the time I thought, "I know all about the heat...I grew up in New Mexico and lived in Las Vegas and Phoenix. Boy, was I wrong! I now know what unbearable heat really is. For several weeks now the temperatures have been hovering in the 100's. Add the heat index (caused by humidity) and you can make that about 115 degrees outside. It was even reported the other day to be 122 degrees with heat index here in Central Arkansas! 122 degrees...that is insane! No humane should ever reside in a place that has temperatures that HOT!
I walk outside and within 3 minutes I am completely sweating and my makeup is literally dripping off of my face! It is just not right. But in all reality there are perks to living in the most beautiful state in the USA. I mean I get to wake up to this outside my window every morning...
So I guess I will suck it up and deal and simply hope to survive till spring (my favorite season here in Arkansas). Happy Summer! Hope everyone else is staying a little cooler than me!
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