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. :)