I got in!

Big New of Today:  I got accepted to the University of Toronto!  I just found out today.  It has been my dream for the past few years to take their Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Certification Program.  I'll be able to start in January, and after a year I'll be all certified to teach.  Craziness!
Now I'm really going to lose my motivation for school.

Hooray!!

Hello again

Hey I'm here.  I don't even know where to begin.  My semester started September 12th and I was struggling to come up for air.  Thankfully these past two weeks I've been able to handle all my responsibilities without feeling completely overwhelmed and inadequate.  I haven't been checking this blog at all, and today I decided to start reading it again and it is so refreshing!

I'm sorry (not as in apologize but regret) to have missed the last few months.

Justin and I are still living with his aunt, and I have 5 more weeks of school.  I am doing great, but I am missing our dog (who is living with our in-laws) and I'm missing doing normal wife things like grocery shopping and cooking (Justin's aunt does most of it for us).  I am so thankful for her though because I don't know how I could do all those things while keeping up with schoolwork.

I applied to grad school for getting my certification for teaching ESL.  They'll let me start in January if there is space.  Justin is still applying to jobs..he's started to apply for jobs in Alberta (would mean a big move) so we still don't know where we will be come January.

I miss hearing about all your lives and I'm looking forward to catching up on older posts.  :)

birthday bash!

OH MY GOODNESS.  I am so tired right now and so thankful I am not working today.  Yesterday was Shea's birthday and it was tons of fun, and not even the reason I am so wiped out!  Shea was sick yesterday. He did really well all day (even without a nap!) but after all the party-doings and Jeremy and I finally went to bed (close to midnight), Shea started coughing.  He sounded so bad, I got up and checked on him and gave him some honey water, because he just couldn't stop!  And he was having such a hard time falling asleep.  I tried lying in his bed with him, singing to him, letting him in our bed, but nothing stopped him from coughing.  He started asking for a show, and I thought maybe if he watched a movie it would distract him and he would fall asleep.  So, the three of us piled into the guest room bed where we have a tv and playstation set up and I turned on the tigger movie.  This bed is SO hard - I'm glad I realized that we need to figure out a comfier bed for guests!  Anyway, Jeremy eventually went back to our bed because his back has been bothering him from working, and Shea and I stayed in the guest room.  It did help - he stopped coughing as much.  Buut, neither of us could fall asleep.  After the movie was over, he was tired enough to finally go to sleep, so it was now 1:45AM when I finally crawled back in bed, exhausted.  I got to sleep until about 8:30 but woke up a lot and am just soooo so so os osoo tired this morning.


Anyway.  It's 10:33 and although Shea has had a bath and is dressed and my hair is straightened, I am still sitting in my pajamas.  Most of the aftermath from the party has been cleaned so the house is looking ok too.  It will definitely be a relaxing, sit-around-cuddling-drinking-hot-drinks-and-soup-and-watching-movies sort of day.  Poor little guy.  He seems to be doing better today though.


And now, the PARTY!

My big 2 year old!  (ok, well, tomorrow technically, but I can't believe he's so big!)

So we had most of my family over (my parents, little brother, little sister and her boyfriend, and my brother Kit and his wife and son) in the afternoon.  I had some snacks out and it was a nice day so after the house tours, we walked down to the beach for a little bit (love having this across the street!).  

looking at his new thomas book from grandma

My brother, Kit, who is an amazing cook, helped me cook dinner.  I wish I had gotten a picture of it - it was delicious!  We roasted a whole chicken and some thighs, I made roasted yukon and sweet potatoes mixed, fresh homemade whole-wheat honey rolls, and a spinach salad with roasted squash and cranberries.  It was SO good.  It was almost like a scaled down thanksgiving (felt like that much work almost!), and so perfect for an october dinner party.  I also made a pumpkin spice cake which I served ginger and cinnamon ice cream from work with (yes, I have been stocking up with my daily free ice cream, so I had 7 individual tubs of ice cream, ha ha...).

Shea was very serious about his candles

delicately blowing out his candle

opening his HUGE present from Uncle Kit - this crazy big tonka truck track.  Thaaaanks for a huge plastic toy with tons of pieces all over my house, haha.

After dinner, Jeremy's parents and shea's three cousins who live next door came over (his parents were babysitting them that night) and we opened presents, played with new toys, and had cake and coffee and said our goodbyes.  It was fun to be entertaining, and I'm looking forward to having thanksgiving here in a few weeks.

Oh and some things migrated after the party, here is some of my fall decor for now (the stuff on the table is now on the china cabinet in the top right):

I found some orange lights that the owner of the house left, so I want to try and find some nice branches and put them in a tin on the TV stand, but my burlap bunting makes me happy :)

Hoping to hear back about my job interview today, too!

Fall days :)

Last night was so productive!  After Kingdom Kids (the childrens' program at the church), Jeremy and I rearranged SO much furniture and finally got rid of those last few boxes.  My friend is on her way over, and I have some cinnamon scones baked and planning on making some grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch - it is the perfect windy, cold day for it!  Our house is SO warm right now, because we started a fire early in the morning.  I love how a simple wood fire heats up the whole house and makes it smell so nice and cozy in here.


We went out to Kountry Korners today - which is right by the Albertsons in Kingston (closest grocery store), and took some pictures of Shea by the wood carvings.  I have pictures of me when I was 3 or 4 by these carvings too, so it will make a fun picture frame some day!

The rest are pictures of us playing this week, and my new haircut (which I love, because Shea is totally photo-bombing in the background).  Its kind of hard to see that its any different because I have it pulled back, but it looks SO good right now, I am very happy with it (just got it trimmed and cleaned up).

Anyway, my father-in-law is here right now putting up doors (yay, finally one for our bedroom and the guest room), and I'll have to share pictures soon of the things I put together!  My sewing room is all set up, and I can't WAIT to paint and get it cuter looking.  I also made a burlap table runner and have our table looking very fall-ish.  Share pics soon :)

Just thought I'd say HI!  Oh, and Angela, your door make-over is a total "knock-out", har har har.  Amber better appreciate that one!  It reminds me of my dad and his "corny" jokes :)

I love days off. LOVE them.

I worked the last two days, if you could even call it work. I had to go to a horrible awful computer class for those two days. The original instructor got sick and we had this guy that kept walking around to all the computers helping everybody individually instead of doing things on the huge tv monitor so the whole class could see. It was 14 hours total of class that could have fit into 4 probably. So boring, but hey, at least they were paying me.

Anyway, I had today off and I decided I wanted to have a productive but enjoyable day. The garage has been bothering me for quite some time now with the outdoor tools thrown everywhere, boxes all over the floor and yeah, just a mess. I picked everything up, put all the tools away, stacked the boxes nicely (they are car parts Paul needs to sell), and labeled everything I could on the shelf. I love it out in my garage now!

I also spray painted our door knocker and door kick . The silver may be slightly too light of a silver, but I had the spray paint and it was the rust proof kind so I decided to give it a try. I like the look so much better than shiny brass and the funky color shiny brass turns when not treated correctly. :)

I also picked up and vacuumed the house today. I finally figured out how to delete Windows Live Messenger from my computer (the standard way did not work). I swam a mile, drank coffee, went grocery shopping, and stopped in Fred Meyer to buy snack size ziploc bags since we use like a million of them these days. I have this new thing when I open a bag of crackers or cookies or whatever I separate the whole thing into snack size bags so they are easy to grab when I pack lunches. I don't know why I never thought of this before but it makes packing lunches much less dreadful. :)

I forgot to take a picture of it but we got our kitties a cute new litter box. I know, cute and litter box shouldn't go together but just wait till I show you. It is camouflaged. Right now it is in the empty spare room but I am thinking ahead to when we have a kid and that box has to go in my craft room and then when we have another kid and the box goes to the spare bedroom. It had to be pretty!! Here is the link until I take a picture of the one in our actual house. :)

Becca I am praying for you, I hope you get the job. Lots of love to everybody!

so much to do!

Today ended up being a day doing things I didn't plan on doing, and getting none of the things I planned on doing done.  Yesterday at work I received a call from someone who was given my resume from my friend's supervisor (did that make any sense?).  Apparently my friend's work doesn't have any openings, but she was kind enough to pass along my resume to someone who did!  So I had a last minute - and very unexpected - interview at 1PM today.  This also meant that I needed to get my hair cut BADLY this morning.  It has been MONTHS since it has been cut, and at the ice cream store I couldn't care less about it, because I wear a hat all day...but for an office job interview?  yeah. So I had to go out get it cut (15 minute drive one way), then come home so Jer could go work at the church.  Then I had to take Shea to the church and leave for my interview.  The interview lasted 50 minutes - and went pretty well, I think!  It is a small company which handles COBRA insurance claims/applicants for employers.  It is just a lady and her husband and one other girl who works in the office - the girl is moving in April because she is military and so I would train with her until then.  They all seem really nice, the lady who started the company is a christian and even though I'm not totally excited about an 8-5 job all week, it is a salaried position working up toward some benefits, and is MUCH better than the ice cream store.  It also sounds like a VERY busy job with soooooo much information to learn, but that excites me!  I love a job where I am kept busy and able to learn new things.  


So we'll see if I get this job or not!  She said they are interviewing a few other people so maybe I'll know by early next week.


Anyway, Sunday is Shea's family birthday party, tomorrow my friend and her son are coming to visit, and I feel like I have barely any time to get ready for his party!  I know it will be just fine if I don't do all the things I want to, but I work tomorrow most of the day after my friend leaves, and 6 hours on Saturday.  Can't believe my little boy is going to be TWO next Tuesday!   Time has FLOWN.  And now, off to clean the house for tomorrow!

a day off

Well.  The house is clean, cookies baked, child sleeping, and I have about 25 minutes before a mom from my moms group is coming with her son for a little play-date.  It has been a GOOD day off and I've accomplished a lot!  Some things:

- regular cleaning, like vacuuming, dishes, tidying up.

- finally got rid of some last few boxes sitting around, have a couple left.

- figured out how to use the left-over piece from Shea's crib to make a headboard for our guest room

- baked cookies :)

- finished the laundry thats been up to hang for a few days

- took a walk to the post office with Shea (this is a big deal, because even though the post office is not far away, we live at the bottom of a HUGE hill that is insane to climb.  I'm out of breath by the time we get halfway to the top).

I don't really have pictures of the whole house yet, but I have a few to share!  There is so much work to be done, all of these are really "before" pics, because we haven't painted, torn up carpet in areas, or anything like that!  Our guest room and bathrooms need the most attention fast.  We are having a family birthday party for Shea next Sunday and hopefully we'll figure out a door for the guest room and the bathroom with a shower before then (somehow we only have one door in the house...).

Anyway, here are pictures in no particular order:

This is the first half of a baby gift I'm making for a friend.  I am in love with it and want to make a million more for my daughter some day :)

This is the AMAZING homemade bread I made last week.  I have never had a loaf turn out this beautiful and tasty!

Shea and I were playing dress up with the winter hats and gloves and dancing to raffi.  Oh, he poses now for pictures, I LOVE it.

He had gloves on his feet and it looked like flippers!  So funny when he was dancing, we were laughing so hard.

This is our CRAZY yard, but beautiful view of the water from every window.  Yeah, I seriously don't know what the owner was thinking when she landscaped.  A lot of work out there to do.

Sorry, too many cute pics of Shea :)

Shea actually took this one of me!  He took like ten of them of me, but I'll spare you.

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies about to be baked, mmm...

Our little cozy area by the woodstove.  This thing heats the whole house!  Yes, we need to paint and get new window treatments, those are GROSS!

Formal living room...which we are NEVER in.

Dining area.  This table will be refinished and the chairs are going to be painted and reupholstered, but I love them!  This is my crazy built in I can't wait to paint and figure out what to put on it.

Our weird kitchen.  New appliances = awesome.  Curtains instead of cabinets = not cool at all.  Lots of work to be done in here.  We're going to add an island I think where the table is and put down new flooring (underneath the table the tiles don't match).

Our bedroom.  Simple and not bad looking.

My sewing closet.  Both the desk and dresser were here - the dresser is PERFECT for all my craft and sewing supplies.  I'm going to paint the closet and make it a cute little nook.  This is also in our guest room.

Anyway, there are still more areas, but there is so so much work to be done, I'll just have to update you as I go :)

Otherwise, I've been working a ton still, but have a little more time off when I want it, which is nice.  I applied for a job nearby as a receptionist today, and it sounds like I might be getting a call from a place I sent my resume into a couple of months back.  My friend Susan works there, and her boss just asked her today if I was still available for an interview!  Hoping one of these works out so I can at least have a set schedule!  Jeremy still hasn't found consistent work, but God has been providing lots of little jobs here and there that are bringing in some money.  Life is good and we're making it just fine out here! :)

Eyebrows and shopping.

Yesterday I had to get my yearly exam, no fun. I had decided that after I went to my appointment though I was going to go get my eyebrows done as a little treat. Well that "treat" was super painful. I went to a place called Brow Art that does threading. I don't know if you girls know what threading is but it is awesome...awesome and it hurts. Start at 6 min 30 seconds to see a short little clip of what threading looks like if you are so inclined. It is supposed to hurt less the second time. Lets just say she did a lot of shaping at took a lot of hairs off... and my eyes were watering the whole time it hurt so bad. So worth it though. Never had this good of a shape in my life!

The leaf bowl and scarf are ones I bought for Gabe for Christmas today. I need to show them to you here so I can tell you they are for Gabe, not me, because I am super tempted to keep them both! Haha.

I also bought a bench for the end of our bed. It has a ton of storage inside (which I don't need right now but will need when I have to give up my craft room for children). It was hard to get a good picture but you get the idea. I have always wanted one of these and I finally have a big enough bedroom! Oh, we had to get rid of our foot board because I got a new bed frame that is way less squeaky. The way the new frame attaches makes it so you can't have a foot board. So worth it to not have a squeaky bed anymore.

Here is the awesome plant Paul got me as a surprise present after I randomly mentioned how they looked cool one day when we were driving by Safeway. I love that man. :)

My parents are coming this weekend and we are going to paint the family room! No more blue, bring on the Benjamin Moore's "Nimbus". I am so excited to paint and to get rid of the little nail holes in the wall I was never able to fill because I didn't have the paint to cover up the wall filler....

Updates...

So Monday I went crazy in the kitchen. I cooked pizza balls using homemade pizza dough, wrapped them individually and froze them. I made chicken enchilidas, and cookies. Now this doesn't seem like it would take that long but since everything took the oven I was in the kitchen for a good two and a half hours straight cooking and cleaning and cooking and cleaning. It was so worth it though. The enchilidas and pizza balls are wrapped individually and easy to take in lunches. So yummy!

That night Paul and I laid around on the couch with our kitties, eric decided to be ferocious then sleepy...ok I think he was actually yawning in the first picture.

I am still on my organizing kick. We have a ton of this ikea tupperware because it is super cheap and I don't care if it gets ruined and cracked as we freeze and heat things up in it. My pyrex I care about. Anyway, it was all kinda just thrown on the top shelf in the cupboard and today I fixed that.

These drawers in my kitchen have been bothering me for quite some time. Today after swimming I stopped by Fred Meyer and picked up the metal and clear plastic organizing bins and went to work. I got rid of a bunch of stuff we don't use and organized the stuff we do. So so so much better now! I wish I had a complete before picture, it was awful.

I stopped moving around the house for a moment and my crazy kittens came and laid down immediately. Such lovers.

I am finally finished organizing my craft closet, I love it so much now! It makes me happy to open the closet. And it makes me happy to see my little projects bin all cute and stuff. :)

And here is all my binders, a crazy amount of binders. Somewhere in the middle of high school I got smart and when my mom bought me school supplies I got these plastic binders instead of the cardboard ones that break halfway through the school year. I still have them. Most of them are empty right now but the ones that are full are all labeled. The "our story" binder is notes Paul and I wrote back and forth while dating, movie tickets from movies we saw and so forth.
And here is my craft room, in its completed form, I love it. I could spend all day in there with a warm blanket and a cup of tea or coffee!

Love you girls!

Salsa making and organizing

Paul and I made Salsa with the in-laws on Saturday. I was still kinda a sickie so after I minced garlic and pulled the leaves off the cilantro I went to the couch and took a two hour nap...while Steve and Paul played xbox and Kathy continued to cook...at least I think that is what happened. I was sleeping.

We made 49 pints of awesome Salsa.

Everyone in the Fernandez family just loves it when I take pictures, so therefore I take my camera everywhere. I mean, they don't really like pictures, so they aren't going to take them, so I must right? Don't you like my reasoning?

I know I used one of the same pictures twice in my collage, but um, it was necessary.

Misty is such a goofball. She was an indoor cat for a few months..but then she was naughty and peed on the futon so she got kicked back outside. She still loves her cuddles and pets and lovings. :)
I hung a little pendant banner above the tv, I still need to make a bigger one but this one at least covers up the screws in the wall from where my jewelry box hung. And that no-mark, well it hasn't worked yet. I sprayed it on the bed once and a few hours later Eric peed on the bed. It says to apply it for a whole week twice a day. I will do it for a while and then let him in the room. Meanwhile I am emailing the lady we got the cats from and my Aunt is talking to the foster care coordinator at the Humane Society where she helps foster animals. That lady had 9 indoor cats...I think she knows her stuff.

I still have been on the organizing kick. I just can't help myself. I organized the closet even more, making labels for all my binders except the empty ones. I know the labels aren't evenly placed (I did those a while ago) and yes they kinda bother me. Someday I will fix them!

That "our story" binder is a binder full of notes Paul and I wrote back and forth while dating, to do lists we made for our weekends together, tickets to plays and movies we have gone to and so forth. It makes me so happy to look through!

And here is Alex, my awesome most amazing craft organizing drawer. I love it. I finally organized the bottom two drawers (the paper one and the one with stickers) as they have been so so so messy since I got the drawers. So now instead of a bunch of papers and stuff thrown into two drawers I finally have a organized craft station!

Eleanor likes to help me organize. I kept moving papers all around the room. Making this pile and that pile. Scrapbooking one thing and throwing another away. That bin with a few folders in it and a present was shoved as full as it could be with to do projects and mending. I finished everything! The binder and folders are stuff for my residency program, the the present is for Gabe's birthday which is in a month. :)

And here is my pantry. I mainly took this picture because Amber was asking me what kind of bins I had in my pantry to organize. Sadly they don't sell these bins at Target anymore. Walmart stopped selling them too. I was so bummed. And the cereal, that is just to show you one of my obsessions. If we get down to like five boxes I feel compelled to go out and buy more, because I don't want to run out. Yeah, obsessed. And Paul buys cereal too. We can't help it. But we eat it all and always, always buy it on sale. :)

Oh and those jars are from ikea. My mom keeps snack in jars like that and my grandma keeps cookies in them so it was only natural for me to want to do something of that nature. Oh and the bins on the pantry floor, hello awesome organization space! It would be gross just to put things on the floor but these bins give me so so so much more space! :)

I have more pictures on my camera that I want to share but I figured this was enough for one post...and I was too lazy to get them off the camera and collage them. Sorry for the crappy lighting and stuff in a lot of them. It was like 7 before I got around to taking pictures and it is already dark by that hour. Lame.

Loves.

Temp, sick, yuck.

These last few days have been kinda crazy. Thursday at work I watched a man die, Friday we had to call a Rapid Response at 11:50 at night for a lady and they ended up intubating her. I left at 12:30am. I got home at 1am. That whole evening I had a temp of 99.6 or around there, that's what it was when I got home. I didn't want to check it when I was at work because I didn't want to get sent home...so I worked stuff, feverish, cold chills. 12 hour sudafed didn't do a single thing, but hey I have three days off now and I learned a ton at work.

Before I went to work Friday I didn't feel as bad though. Paul and I thatched our whole back yard (pictures below) and then we made my new bookshelf for my craft closet! Do you see that piled up mess I had in there?! Ew. It has been bothering me for quite some time now. I still have some organizing and shuffling of cute items and books to finish it off and will post a picture when I am done with everything. :) Those black milk crates that are in there went to my laundry room and it looks way better in there now. I left my camera at my in-laws though so pictures will have to wait till tomorrow after I get my camera back at church.

I have seriously been on an organizing kick lately. The more I organize the more I see that I have to organize. It's actually super fun! I picked up this cork board for 6 dollars at Ikea so Paul would have a little message board in the closet. A place for his mail and unfinished lists. I was tired of seeing them on the side table and this seemed like the perfect solution.

Then there is our thatched yard, super ugly I know. We are now aerating and watering and will seed and fertilize tomorrow probably. Well Paul is doing most of the work, I am still a sickie. My whole body aches, I am stuffed up, on and off headache and I am tired all the time.

Oh and there is my never ending shopping and to do list. It is clipped to my old work clipboard since I don't need one now. It used to house my report sheets, highlighters, papers, stethoscope and stuff. I now wear my stethoscope around my neck, and carry pens and stuff in my pocket along with my report sheet. I love having my clipboard for around the house stuff!

Today Paul and I went over to my in-laws and made tons of salsa!! We canned 49 pints total. I slept for 2 hours during making the second batch. I felt better for an hour after making it up then felt all achy and tired after that. Oh well, I will get better soon! I don't work again till Tuesday!

Oh btw work is going amazing. I am loving the experience, liking the staff, and learning so much!