Friday, April 23, 2010

Check out this art...

So, my good friend, who I have known since Jr. High School, started her own company called "Anahera Gifts" See, her middle name is Anahera and it's beautiful.

Anyway, she has given her website a makeover and I'd like everyone to check it out. She makes very creative and cute baby gifts and wedding gifts. She will ship them where ever and it's a great idea if you are going to a baby or wedding shower anytime. Or maybe if a friend is getting married or having a baby and you can't make it. How fun to send something so cute and useful!

Here it is, please check it out...
Anahera Gifts

Cheeza Louiza!




If you read this blog, then it is common knowledge that we have had to give up our dogs due to this...

This is right before Linus' first ambulance ride which he calmed down and really enjoyed.

The rest of the these are him in the hospital. I figured I'd post pictures since I finally figured out how to pull the pics off my phone instead of emailing them all to myself and then downloading them to my computer...blah blah blah.







After this awesome experience, his allergist did the scratch tests and he is allergic to not only dog dander, but to the saliva as well.

 So..........good by my precious dogs.

Moxie is with Bethany.

Blue is with Linzy and her son Xander.
And Pali is with Michael downstairs. As you can see, they love each other. :) So, at least that makes this whole dog thing better. I can see my dogs whenever I need to and know they are being well taken care of.

The allergist also said that we will probably want to get rid of the furniture and carpets as soon as we can to fully see the benefits of Linus being allergy free. Since the dander and hair is all over them. AND the dogs licked and chewed on the couch. We have sold one couch, still trying to sell the other one, and working on getting rid of the carpet and buying new carpet. And can I just say that the dogs that lived here before...ew. There is still so much long hair that has settled under the carpet and I know they weren't as taken care of as they needed to be with their long hair. AND there are some major dog pee stains on the pad. Those weren't my dogs. I remember the few places they peed.

So, with all of this...Good-bye $$$.

Only to find out, we have a leak in the water main on our side of the piping.

Good-bye more $$$. When it rains  it pours right?

Matt started to look online to find a plumber who would fix the water main, who wouldn't tear up the front lawn and rip down the yard, and wouldn't tear out two walls of sheet rock that we'd have to go back in and fix. We've had ENOUGH sheet rock fixing in this house to last a while. Only one company out of 12 fit the bill AND he was super competitive with the pricing.


This is what it looked like when they got done digging up our yard.







































And this is what it looked like when they were done.












Notice they planted our bush back where it was.












They did a great job. In and out in 3 to 4 hours. What a welcome change of pace when most things go so wrong around here.










And last but not least, I just wanted to leave you with a cute picture to remind you to stop and smell the flowers...

Friday, April 16, 2010

Great Snow! (Kind of like "Great Scott!" from Back to the Future...)

I lived in Sacramento, California for a brief period in the 2002-2003 time frame. While I lived there, I worked at a great company called BloodSource that was the local blood bank. I loved it. I worked with some great people and it was a pretty great company to work for. Sometimes I wish I could have survived on my own out there and still worked there. I could have been on my own, but that would have mean living in a scary part of town and I am/was a naive white girl. AND that would have meant dealing with my crazy boyfriend sooner rather than later, but that is a completely different story.

We would do blood drives a little further out than just Sacramento and the outlying cities sometimes and get to spend the night since it was a long enough drive out there and back that it went against some law about the time worked and traveling. I was able to experience a lot of fun things on some of these trips. Like once, we were in a courthouse and the room they wanted us to do the blood drive had a HUGE table that took up the whole room and was too heavy to lift or move, so we did the drive around the table and one of the beds was actually in the fireplace. During the blood drive, a pitbull came running into the building and sniffed around and I calmly went to it, petted it, and led it back outside. All while the rest of the staff were freaking out because it was a pitbull. Seriously.

I ate at a Chinese restaurant that was inside of an old Victorian house in Modesto. It was amazing. I didn't know though that upon ordering the garlic crab dish, I would be getting a WHOLE crab covered in garlic sauce. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to crack the shell and eat a crab while it is covered in a delicious but slimy garlic sauce?? Well, I'll tell you, it's hard. I was covered in garlic sauce from my eyebrows to my toes. But it was good. I met Laci Peterson and her mother at a blood drive while in Modesto. Laci didn't donate because she was pregnant and not too long after, she went missing.

I would beg and beg my fellow staff to stop at IN and Out burger to eat since it was everywhere out there. And usually, they would, with a rolling of eyes, reluctantly stop for me. I can be pretty persuasive. "pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease" :)

Anyway, my favorite experience out there, was going to Tahoe. There was North Tahoe and South Tahoe. North was ok. Not much to do, a few casinos, but during the day, there were more beach and water activities. Not so fun when you are working all day. South Tahoe was like a mini-Vegas. The casinos were fun, good restaurants, and dancing. I always enjoyed going to South Tahoe. AND it was in the forest with a beautiful lake to look at. I want to live there. Ski resorts for the winter and lake for the summer.

I got a chance to go up during the winter. We heard rumor of there being a winter storm watch coming, but the company felt the need for blood was more important that a rumor of snow. So, up we went. You ever driven from Tahoe to Sacramento or vice versa? It's a beautiful drive but there is a part that is a little scary. It's a two lane road on the side of a mountain. For those of us from Utah, no biggie. A mountain. But this is a rock wall. Straight up for hundreds of feet and straight down for hundreds of feet and this random road winding along the side of this rock wall. It's a little terrifying for those of us afraid of heights.

We stayed in a casino hotel... and I can't for the life of me remember the name of it, but it was across the street from Ceasar's Palace. That night, it snowed 4-6 FEET. I grew up in, and again live in, Utah. We get snow here. Sometimes a lot. I have never EVER seen snow like this at one time. Not only was the blood drive cancelled, but we couldn't leave. We were snowed in!

This was probably the best work think that had ever happened to me. I hated the guy I was living with at the time and couldn't move out for reasons I won't go into. I had no money to go buy dinner, or go the movies, or gamble, but it didn't matter. We were each given $50 or so a day to eat on the company card so I didn't starve. I had a book I had been having a hard time getting started and was able to get going on it AND LOVED IT! I had a whole week to lounge, read, and get to know my co-workers better. They were all very cool toward me for a long time when I started working and made very great friends after this trip. We had a snowball fight and if I had a working scanner, I'd scan the picture taken of the group.

Oh, and the best-est part.... we got paid our 40 hour/week wage.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Um...yeah

So...we have ducks. Again. 3 of them this time. They are living in a plastic box in my bedroom.

We are getting chickens. They too will be living in my bedroom until they are old enough to live outside.

Matt is going to be building a chicken/duck coop next week.

I am pretty sure I am the most tolerant wife. Ever.

Well, he is pretty tolerant of me too... but... um...yeah.

Ducks. We all remember what happened last year. Sigh. Pictures will be coming of this new phase. When we find out we have roosters, we will be borrowing a turkey fryer and frying it up. All are invited to help pluck and eat this rooster. When we get hens that start laying, we will share the spoils. I will be looking for the chickens that lay the colored eggs and I will put those in with the spoils.

But only to those people I really like. They taste the best.