Catching up Quick

I don't know how/why I keep so busy, but I do.
We had a fantastic Thanksgiving week with my parents. :)  Wes had to work more often than we'd like, but we still got in some quality family time.
We spent a lot of time downtown Boise during this visit - I don't think we made our way over at all their last visit, so that was pretty nice.  We went to restaurants, acupuncture, the Festival of Trees... and I don't even remember what else.  Mom and I got pedicures, watched movies, went shopping, and saw a play one night too.
We really did make 3 turkeys!  And we still have SO much left over in our freezer.  But I'm glad we made all 3 - it's impossible to pick a favorite!  Wes's Uncle Steve and cousin Doug joined us, which was really nice.  Doug has been struggling a lot lately and Wes made a special effort to help him have a good time... and it worked!  He very graciously thanked us for inviting him.  Success!
I do have some pictures... mostly of just the food (lol).  I'll try and remember to post them a little later.

The past few weeks have basically been a blurr... I've decided to do a Christmas party this weekend with a candy buffet, ugly sweater contest, and a blessing bag assembly line.  Needless to say, it's kept me pretty busy.  I made some crochet photo props for a friend who is trying to launch her photography business so she's going to take some pictures of the party in exchange!
I'm really excited to have some higher quality pictures to put up on my blog.  I really need to update it with my party stuff.  It would be so awesome to be able to rent out some of my supplies, along with invitations for a package deal.  Baby steps!

I completely forgot!

I don't know where my head has been lately, but I've been awful forgetful!
Like journaling, for example.
I also forgot to do an online class my lender requires - we went through it once for Wes, but I apparently needed to do it too.  I started it WEEKS ago, and then completely forgot.  Until today, when I was going through my email to find my parents' flight itinerary (they're coming to visit for Thanksgiving, which I have NOT forgotten, lol).  The stupid class cost us $50, and I would have had to pay again in a few days if I hadn't run into it today.  Sheesh!
The last week or so has been pretty weird.  We got about 6 inches of snow last Thursday/Friday... which is a lot of snow for this area anyway - but also really early in the year.  We've already dipped into negative temperatures (at night)! And believe it or not, I've actually been enjoying it.  This is the first year since I've lived in Idaho/Utah where I have been genuinely excited by the snow.  Which is strange, considering it makes my already dreadful commute to work at least 3x worse. And causes my husband to be virtually non-existent around the house due to his 14-16 hour work days.
Poor guy is exhausted.  And I'm officially getting bored waiting for him to come home. Eating dinner alone is no fun.  Watching Gilmore Girls isn't so bad.  I've been working on Christmas presents for my family and I have gotten quite a bit done.  I still need to finish Mom's and Dad's before they get here on Saturday though. We'll see how late Wes gets home tonight...
Oh!  I also started acupuncture.  Like, real - full body - acupuncture.  It feels pretty awesome.  I finally found a place that's reasonably priced.  It is still costing us over $100/mo, but I think it'll be worth it.  Especially if it helps me get pregnant, without all the chemicals and hormones.  She said that my body has a pulse (not like the heart rate, but something else in Chinese Medicine) that is really faint which means something is blocking my Chi (ok, so not actually my "chi," but something similar, and I can't remember what it's called), or, I have some kind of deficiency.  Acupuncture is supposed to increase your body's ability to heal itself.  You start out with more frequent treatments (I'm doing 2x/wk right now), and gradually decrease.  But it's surprisingly relaxing - I don't know if I'll be able to give it up!  You aren't supposed to do it when you're pregnant though, so we'll see how that goes.

Busy busy busy!

I never really got to update what else happened in the last week - but truth is, I don't even remember anymore!  I just know that I was too busy to write. lol!
Wes was gone from Wednesday morning through Friday at the SEMA car show in Vegas.  He went with Discount Tire and he LOVED it.  He was in absolute heaven; he barely even had time to call me.  So I spent my days at work and my evenings in bed, watching TV and working on Christmas presents.  It was actually quite nice. :)  But needless to say, I was overjoyed to have him home.
I did a lot more of TV/movie/Christmas present making over the weekend - with Wes.  It was so nice and relaxing!  I even took yesterday off so that I could drive Wes home from a root canal - not nearly as much fun, but relaxing for the rest of the day sure was!
He went ahead and took today off of work too, which was probably a good thing - but I haven't been able to talk to him all day because he accidentally washed his phone with all of his new shirts he got from the car show.  (Oops!)  He filed an insurance claim and should be getting a new one in the next couple of days.
This week is another busy week too... ward missionary correlation tonight, visiting teaching tomorrow, and Relief Society Activity on Thursday.  Part of me hopes its a small turn out because I do better in smaller groups... but, a big turn out would sure make me feel good!
And Wes got a new calling - he'll be a Teacher's Quorum Adviser - working mostly with the scouting program.  He's acting nervous, but I think he'll really enjoy it.  I think he'll have to start going to Young Men's on Wednesday nights!  He is going to be POOPED.  We both are.

Halloween Party

I feel like this last week took FOREVER.  I can't believe it's been less than a week since the Halloween party!

It did go pretty well though.  Turns out it was just our best friends and their 3 kids that came.  Wes didn't get home from work until 6:30ish and the part was supposed to start at 7, but our friends got there early so I didn't have time to do the centerpiece like I wanted. :(  But I really legitimately did a 5 course meal which was already pretty elaborate for our best friends...we have them over all the time, lol. But they seemed to really appreciate it, and the kids loved it.  

Here is a picture of our new entry table.  Found this baby at a thrift store for $30, last minute.  I may need to invest in some more decor next year. :)

I had a special little table for appetizers, drinks and desserts.  I thought they turned out pretty awesome!  Eyeballs, Monster Toes, Poison Apples and Sparkling Cider!

And the table, looking all fancy:

I clearly need more experience taking quality pictures.  

Winding down

Last week was hectic and this week hasn't been too much better.  But the Halloween party is on Thursday, so I can take a quick breath after that.  Not long though, because I have several other projects lined up.  I'll be making some invitations for my nephews' birthday party.  Ali is planning a "lego police man" party.  I'm pretty excited about the invitations - I think they're going to turn out really cute!  I'm just on the search for lego scrapbook paper.  I know I've seen it before... now if I could just remember where...

Also, I need to be working on the Relief Society Activity for November.  I know that we're doing crafts, and I think I decided that we're going to make Christmas trees out of cones.  At first, we were just going to do a spoon tree or a string tree or a paper tree... but I found this:

on pinterest and I felt the need to open the doors for personal creativity.  Apparently our ward doesn't get a great turnout for these activities - so I'm planning to set up a table outside of the Relief Society room with examples and a big fat poster.  Oh, and handouts too.  And I'm hoping to have this done by Sunday.  We'll see.

After that, I will be frantically trying to complete Christmas gifts.  I offered for my family to choose their own gifts and I would make them. I'm hoping to have my parents and Jen's family's presents done by the time by parents come for Thanksgiving so they can bring them back and I can save myself some shipping!  They'll be here in less than a month!  I can't even believe it.

Yay!  2 weeks in a row.  I'm on a roll!

Believe it or not, this is really impressive for me.  I have a lot going on right now!  Here's what I mean:

Last night, we had a family from our ward over for dinner and games.  

Tonight, we have ward missionary correlation meeting.  And hopefully, we'll be doing some touch up painting (no, we haven't finished it yet). 

Tomorrow, I'm going visiting teaching.  And possibly more touch up painting.

Thursday and Friday are still open - so one of those days, I'll have to go shopping for my Halloween costume because...

Saturday, we have the ward Trunk-Or-Treat.  And we're bringing a soup.

Then next week we are doing a Halloween dinner party on Thursday (the day before Halloween).  I'm sure I'll spend most of the week making decorations and preparing food... I plan to make a 5 course meal... after working all day. 

Fyew.

Fortunately its a little slow at work today so I have some time to write.  I work for St Luke's Idaho Cardiology in a call center.  I'm basically on the phone all day - making appts, getting insurance authorizations, getting messages to the nurse for patients... that kind of thing.  Not my favorite job, but it pays well and is fairly secure. St Luke's is a good company to work for.  The worst part is probably the commute.  It's really only about 20 miles, but the traffic is horrific (especially right now, since they're doing construction).  Lately, its been taking me about an hour to commute each way.  It takes a conscious effort to remain calm and positive during the drive.  Sometimes it feels like it takes all of my energy, and leaves me nothing.  Truth be told, I'm counting down the days until I no longer have to work.

We are working hard to get out of debt.  At least out of credit card debt... And eventually, our car.  By then, we should be able to live on just Wes's income. 

Lately we've talked about starting foster care.  In which case, we would be receive some money from the state, so we could afford for me to drop down to part time.  Of course, this all depends on the age of the child.  If we end up fostering a child younger than school-age, I would like to be able to stay home.  Even though they would cover day care costs... 

I don't know.  There are so many variables.  We'll have to wait and see how it goes.  We plan to look more into it in January and then we'll start the classes and home study, etc.  We may decide against fostering, and use the home study to adopt... It's a tough choice.  

Journal writing Goal

A couple of weeks ago while watching General Conference for my church, I set a goal to begin journal writing at least once a week.  I'm hoping this won't be too hard for me since I was an avid journal writer for a good portion of my life.  The sad part is, I stopped writing when I met my husband.  I was using journal writing as an outlet to vent out all of my drama.
Whereas my life has definitely calmed down in the drama department over the last 6 years, there are many things going on that I would like to remember, and I would eventually like my children (and grandchildren) to be able to read.
We're living in Nampa, Idaho now - just bought our first house, actually.  The process was a little painful, but we are so happy to be in our new home!  We got a great deal - it actually appraised for $138,000 when we paid $132,500. Unfortunately we weren't able to put much down, so we have to pay mortgage insurance, but the market is going up so we're hoping to be able to refinance in the next couple of years and get rid of that.  We're hoping to be able to knock off a couple hundred from our $920/mo payment.  Maybe those numbers will be more interesting in a few decades. :)
It only has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, but its 1800 square feet with 2 living areas, a beautiful stone fireplace and .25 of an acre.  More than enough house for us, plus the location is perfect - right across the street from a middle school and a park.  We have easy access to tennis courts, basketball courts, soccer fields, baseball fields, playgrounds and disc golf.  Needless to say, we're loving it!
The best part though, is our ward.  BY FAR the friendliest ward we've ever been in.  We've been in for about 6 weeks (with general conference and a couple of weekend vacations in the middle), and I feel like I've met everyone.  We've given talks and received callings.  Wes and I were both called as ward missionaries, which is completely different than anything I've ever done.  We have a weekly meeting (on Tuesdays), and are able to visit the new members and less active members whenever convenient throughout the week.  We attend the gospel principles Sunday class, which is an amazing spiritual boost, and are starting to delve into family history.  Apparently new members who are able to find an ancestor and perform temple ordinances for them are something like 80% more likely to stay in the church.  That's a really cool figure!  Neither of us have done much with family history in the past, but our families both have and we figure its time for us learn... especially if we want to help the new members!  Besides, I reread my patriarchal blessing the other day and I totally forgot it mentioned that I would be filled with the Spirit of Elijah and family history would become very important to me.  Pretty cool!
I was also called as the Relief Society Activities CHAIRMAN.  Woah, talk about responsibility!  Definitely the biggest calling I've ever had.  But I met with the Relief Society presidency last week and it seems like I'll have a lot of support.  I have about a month to plan the next activity and we're doing Christmas crafts.  I'm actually pretty excited. :)