a long weekend!

Well, I am definitely feeling a little beat physically today, but totally energized from our weekend!  After a quiet morning of cleaning at home, we headed out to my parent's house to pick up my brother, practice music, and then we also stayed for dinner.  When we got home, kids went right to bed, and then the three of us stayed up eating ice cream (our feast day! soooo good) and the boys played video games, while I worked on...blech...taxes.  Except, I already FINISHED our taxes for last year.  Then after we received our refund, we got a letter in the mail about our taxes from 2011, which apparently were wrong.  I finally finished reviewing every thing today and because of all the weird stuff with being self-employed while working as a pastor, some numbers got added wrong and basically we weren't supposed to get a refund last year, and now I'm paying it back.  Actually, the amount they are asking for is less than what I think we actually owe, so  at least I can just send in a check and be done with it. Thankfully we got a huge refund this year, so its just kind of like that portion of it never existed.  Still kind of a pain.  I also realized I was out of checks when I went to write one, so had to reorder those too.

ANYWAY.

Sunday we got up bright and early at 6 (after going to bed at 11), got the kids ready, had a cup of coffee and a toasted croissant (such a glorious treat after being on our fast all week), packed up the car, and headed out to catch a 7:55 ferry.   Shea always the best time on the ferry.  Here he is hanging out with Uncle Matt (who he thinks is pretty much the coolest person ever).

We got to the church a little after 9 and started setting up.  The sound team was so nice.  Actually, everyone there is so nice.  I met a lot of people and actually had real conversations with them, more than just "nice to meet you, where do you live, etc."  The music itself went really well.  Of course, not perfect, but we had a good time, I felt totally comfortable, and really wasn't worried in the least what any one else thought (which is     a strange thing for me).  I think people were pretty receptive and positive about it, and the guy who was leading worship before is really friendly and seemed very excited about us being there!  So I feel pretty positive about it all and I could definitely see us being a part of that community.

Jeremy just said to me, "You're such a bragger blogger!"  Only because I am typing on here instead of paying attention to him.  Oh well.  So I am, so I am.

Anyway, after church and the potluck, we went to Ikea.  And bought new plates.  Kind of random?  Well.  In our quest to simplify, I have decided to get rid of my china which I NEVER use.  It seems ridiculously excessive to me to have plates that sit in a china cabinet, maybe get used 2 to 3 times a year, and are basically for "show".  So, I am giving the to my sister in law who has the same set, and she is excited to have more place settings, and I know she will actually use them.  Now, we also had all these mugs that matched our regular dishes and we have been wanting to get rid of them for a while since we have never liked them or used them or needed them.  Well, the couple who wanted them was also interested in plates if we had any.  So we decided to give them our regular dishes to complete their set.  And we went and got two packs of plain white dishes from Ikea.  I really like them.  And this way they can be "dressed up" for holiday or special dinners, but also are great for every day.  Oh, and cheap and easy to replace if a child breaks them.  We only have one set out right now, the other is still in the box so if we move we can just take them as if.  We don't really need more than 6 anyway, since I wash our dishes by hand mostly.

I cleared up so much space in my cabinet, I finally have room for my jars of dry food.  Here is my happy cabinet:

Ah.  So simple and happy.  I love seeing space between things.

After that, we went to Coulon park and let Shea run like a crazy child.  It's amazing how much stuff he can do on the playground by himself now - he is getting so big!  Then we went to my sister's fiance's townhouse to hang out and have dinner.  He lives there with two other guys, but they are hoping to be able to move there after the wedding, because the guys are moving out.  They just don't know if the owners will continue the lease or not, because originally they wanted to sell.  Its a super cute little place, so I hope it works out!

We finally got home around 9:30 or so.  Long day, but good!  And I am already looking forward to going next Sunday. I haven't felt that way about church in a long time. :)

We are back on our fast again today, and I found this blog over the weekend called Empowered Sustenance.  She has  TON of grain/dairy free recipes on her blog, so I'm going to try this for dinner tonight. We'll see!  Sounds a little weird, but possibly delicious.

If you didn't think I was bipolar before...

My emotional stuff - depression, bipolar, anxiety - however you want to label it - is better than it ever has been.  My migraines, however, are driving me up and down the wall.  One day I am so pain free and energetic I can't believe all that I can accomplish.

Today, still on the higher steroid dose with three more days before going to the lower dose.  A few hours ago I got the beginning pangs of a migraine and was in total denial, but after a while I knew for sure.  I took Imitrex two hours ago and it didn't abort the migraine (if it doesn't right away, it probably won't) but I'm allowed to take a second one if necessary, so I did, as well as some Aleve.  Pile on the anti-inflammatories! and the anti nausea...and the other stuff I'm taking..

It's almost midnight but I took a four hour nap today so I'm not that tired..plus I just took a ton of pills (with an anti-nausea in the middle of them) so I'm going to sit up and digest everything before I lay back down.

Girls I'm so sad and frustrated.

Steroids are amazing

After I told my doctor the Imitrex didn't help my last migraine at all and it lasted for almost three days, he called in a prescription for a stronger steroid that I'll be on for two weeks instead of five days.  I don't know if that's what finally broke me out of my migraine, but after 72 hours of suffering, I took the pill and my migraine had disappeared within a couple of hours.

So last night I stayed up till 3 am reading on my Nook.  Wasn't tired.  The only reason I stopped reading was because my Nook battery died.  And then, even then, I kept waking up all night.  I guess that's what happens when you sleep all day.  =P

And today!  I went to work and made up two hours of time that otherwise would have come out of my PTO allowance.  I already had to take a floating holiday for Friday to recover from this migraine, and Monday was a paid holiday too, so I only worked 24 hours this week, haha.  I have about 50 hours of PTO and 1 floating holiday left to use; was hoping to save them all up for a vacation but I'm going to bite the bullet and use them for sick time if I have to.

Today!  I:

-Watched one of the discs of Season 1 of Friends (I'm rewatching the whole series, slowly)
-Made yakisoba for dinner, plus chopped and froze enough vegetables to make it again soon
-Tidied the living room and the kitchen.  This is a huge deal, because there has been out-of-place stuff there for months!
-Dishes are almost done (they were done earlier, but then I started cooking)
-Laundry is almost done (in fact all the clothes are done, I just have a sweater to wash on delicate.)
-Cat litter is scooped.

Wow, I haven't had a day like this in a long time.  My legs are actually sore from running around the house the last two hours - does that say anything about my activity levels lately?

Joe will be home any minute and he will come home to hot dinner!  I am so proud to be able to serve him!  And then after dinner he'll play games and I'll read my Nook.

Books

(There, I broke up the monotony of one of my blog posts)

 I'm reading "Unbroken."  It's a WWII story of a guy, Louie Zamperini, who gets an Olympic medal in track, and then gets drafted into the Air Force for the war.  And then he gets stranded at sea for 37 days, I think..and now at this point of the book he's a POW in Japan and I'm only half done with it!!  It has some war pictures too, making it all more real.  It took me about half an hour to get into it, and now I am absolutely riveted and couldn't stop thinking about it all day.  I wasn't sure how many actual pages it was, since I read on my Nook.  Yeah, on Amazon it's 500 pages.  I'm over halfway done, mostly from reading yesterday!

I also read "The Help."  Amazing book that made me tear up more than once.  Just when I think I've read enough about black perspectives in the South in the '50s (I feel like that was all I read in American literature), I get another one that stuns me.  It's about black maids in the '50s, right around the time Martin Luther King Jr. made his speech.  The other thing I like about it is, it talks about cleaning, and these women seriously mopped these huge houses every single day, and would spent hours ironing a complicated piece of clothing, and make the dinner and watch the kids...it was crazy.  It's historical fiction and a really easy read.

And I read a book about Living Well with Migraine Disease.  Somewhat informative but very repetitive toward the end.  I wanted to tell the author, "I read the first half of the book.  Don't think I'm stupid and repeat everything just in case I wasn't paying attention."

I read The Book of Tea by Okakura Kazumo (I think?)  Very philosophical about tea and how it shapes our cultures, and how our cultures shape it.  Some good quotes, but probably wouldn't read again.

And I read Chosen by Ted Dekker.  I think it's meant for teens, but it still had me reading deep into it.  I think it's related to another series he has, the Circle series for adults, but in that one apparently there's a time gap, and he wrote these books for teens to fill in the gap.  I didn't know that when I got it, but I'll still finish the book.  Fiction is supposed to be entertaining and teen books are easy reading!

So I'm still wasting time but I don't feel like I'm wasting it.  I can pull myself away from a book.  I realize when I'm tired and need to sleep, when I'm reading a book.  Overall, my time is much healthier.

Oh and one more brag


Edit: scrolling down I see I left this hanging but I don't know what I was going to type.  Must have gotten distracted!

Finally!

Yesterday I had a really hectic day at work.  The two guys I work with were REALLY not getting along.  We have deadlines for when orders need to go out, and one guy was working on picking his and needed help to finish.  I ask the other guy to help him and he said he couldn't pick because his back was hurt (which was true) but also because he couldn't work with the guy.  So I was like, fine, I'll do it.  Oh man, it was a huge scramble.  The order was over 15,000 lbs of cleaning products...we worked through lunch and I realized at 2:15 that this order wasn't going out.  So I talked to our customer service lady and we moved the ship date to Monday.  Then I had two hours left to eat my lunch and get the rest of my work done that I hadn't got a chance to get to.  I never really understood why people were so excited about Fridays until I got this job.  At the end of the day I just want to drop to my knees and say TGIF!!

After that full crazy day, Justin picked me up, we got home.  I checked my email and there it was, an email from the school I'd been interviewing with:

Hi Candice,

I'm more than happy to offer you a position at Connect starting March 11th.

Praise the Lord!  I needed that so much!  I finally feel like I got the job, and the end is in sight!!  I am going to be a teacher!  I have wanted to get to this point every since I started tutoring in 2006.  Finally!

To celebrate we went to a thrift store (Justin knows me so well) and I got some really cute boots and some tops for teaching.  Then we went to all you can eat sushi, overly stuffed ourselves, came home and watched a new episode of Project Runway.  It was so wonderful to have a weight lifted off and know that I'll be teaching very soon!  Justin and I realized this morning that yesterday was also 8 years since we started dating.  haha we had no idea back then how significant our relationship was going to be!

Happy Saturday everyone, I just had to share my good news!!

I can't think of a title

Why not start this post with a picture of my child in an adult raccoon costume?  This is actually from right before Christmas, but I only JUST took all my pictures off of my camera.  Why?  because I literally had no space on my hard drive.  So we finally went to Costco and bought their 4TB external hard drive.  No more picture storage problems for a long time, I think.

Anyway.  HELLO!  I have loved reading all the posts, even though I haven't gotten any time to do much posting.  Between school, children being sick, baby showers, mom's group and preparing for leading worship the next week, I have felt like a mad woman.  In a good way, I suppose.  I think mostly I feel crazy because Hailey has NOT been sleeping well lately and I have not had much chances of getting naps during the day, so that has really been wearing me down.

I can hardly remember anything going on.  SO I'll just post the pictures I have and see if that jogs my memory, ha.

I'll start with TODAY!  Because after Jeremy came home early from work, we went out to run some errands and get out of the house, and when I returned there was a box on my doorstep!  From who?  ANGELA!  So unexpected and totally made my day!  Look at all the fun goodies she sent me :)  And she had the sweetest little notes attached to everything.  Loved it!!  And how in the world did you know I've been wanting one of those scraper/paddle attachments for my KitchenAid?  I totally forgot about wanting one until today!  Can't wait to try it out!

Last week, we had pajama day at school.  It is amazing how exciting this is to a three year old.  Here is Shea, all ready to go!  He was running around like a crazy person, he was so excited.

It was a super easy school day.  We made pancakes, built a blanket fort, read books, and played in costumes.  This week, since my mother in law was out of town and couldn't watch Hailey, Tawny just dropped John off at our house and we did school at home.  The kids sat on the couch with Shea's cars as we sang praise songs and read some books.

Later, we built a race track (it was R week), had a nice long recess outside (so nice out that day!), had a snack, and did some workpages.  It was actually really nice doing it at home.  Baby got to take a nap in her own bed and was able to stay close to me.  Shea loved having "home school" too!

And some pictures of my girl from this month.  Poor thing has been really sick lately!  She had a cold...then got better...then caught another cold, but this time has a really bad cough with it.  She hasn't been able to breathe at night and just seems miserable.  The only thing I can do to help is try to hold her upright, but she isn't able to get comfortable sleeping with me in bed, so this means me being up a lot at night bouncing her back to sleep and trying to clear out her nose.  I hope she gets better soon, because I need sleep!

A couple of weeks ago I finally started cloth diapering for real.  I got a little discouraged at first, because all the diapers I made for her didn't fit and they seemed to take so much effort to make.  Well, in my quest to reduce waste this year, diapers is a biggie.  I grabbed a disposable, traced a pattern, and after one adjustment they work PERFECT!  I got the diaper fever and whipped up 10 of them in 2 days, using just flannel and old receiving blankets I had.  I also made flannel reusable wipes with all the scraps.  I still need to make at least 10 more diapers, which I have cut out and ready to make.  I went and bought a flannel sheet at goodwill to make them with, so this is staying pretty inexpensive and has been working great.

For lent, Jeremy and I decided that we were going to go on a veggie/fruit ONLY fast.  Yeah.  Crazy, right?  Especially since we had just gone grocery shopping and realized lent was like...the next day practically.  But, we are allowing ourselves "feast days" from Saturday dinner to Sunday dinner so we can participate with family and church things without being total weirdos and stay humble (no, "I am so amazing I haven't eaten bread for 50 days!" stuff, ha).  Let me tell you, I have never fasted from anything for this long before.  I thought it was going to be a lot harder too, but ends up I love vegetables and have gotten to figure out a lot of fun recipes to make with them.  I do miss milk and cheese and black tea and coffee and all those wonderful things though, and I was basically drooling while I read Angela's post and saw her cupcakes and cookies and coffee.  Especially since I made a huge batch of iced coffee which is just sitting in the fridge right before this.  But its not bad, and both of us have already lost a little bit of weight, so thats a nice by-product.  Can't lie though, I am looking forward to Saturday night, and having a coffee!  Although for this time period we are being really strict about it, we are hoping it will translate into a bit of  a lifestyle change for us.  We both feel a lot better eating these foods and not all the processed junk.  I basically just go buy fresh produce and that is what we eat for the week.

I finally made tomato soup from scratch too!  Easiest and tastiest thing ever.  I will do this from now on forever.  I stopped buying canned tomato soup because it has msg and high fructose corn syrup, and the natural stuff is too expensive, but it used to be a regular lunch for Shea, so I was at a loss about what to do some days for him to keep up a variety.  The picture below is the "before" then I pureed all the veggies up in my blender and it is heavenly.  Plus, Shea doesn't know there are "green" things in it, haha.

1.) I also got a new flannel shirt. 2.) and eight mason jars for $1.60 (which I now use instead of tupperware),  and 3.) Shea has been rocking his new hat and scarf from old navy, which we scored for under $3!  He is so funny in it.

Oh, almost forgot this one.  I made this little top for Hailey last week while I was sewing.  I love it on her and must start making more clothes for her.

In other news...the no shampoo thing is still working out OK, but I've decided I want to make a homemade coconut milk shampoo to try out.  I just miss the lathering of my hair, but this one is pretty cheap to make and also no crazy chemicals in it.  Today I made homemade body wash which I am super excited to try out! It smells heeeaaavenly and I spent like 2 bucks and it made over half a gallons worth!

This Sunday is the first week I go lead worship at the church in Renton.  I am getting pretty excited about it.  This week I won't be playing with their team - just my brother is coming to play bass and Jeremy will play his djembe.  Then the following week I'll be playing with the band, so I've been trying to get all the chord sheets and stuff ready for them so I don't have to scramble next week.

Anyway, 9PM...I should go to bed since the kids are asleep, so I better go quickly clean the kitchen and get things ready for school tomorrow.

Life lately.

Since we have been back from Hawaii time has been flying by.  I feel like I work, have a few days off and all the sudden two weeks has gone by!  It has been good to get back into the swing of life, picking up a few work shifts, doing regular household chores, and cuddling with my kitties. There is nothing like vacation that rests you up so good that you can enjoy your day to day life that much more.  

I LOVED vacation but I missed crafting.  When we got home I started using my silhouette more.  I made this little mobile for the wall by having the machine cut out the hearts, then I sewed them together, then attached them to a (wet) stick I found in the backyard.  So far the kittens have left it alone for the most part, and it is still intact and on the wall. 

We have had a few sunshiney days and I try to enjoy every minute of them when I am off of work. This particular day I had a ton of paperwork to do, so I was in my craft room all day long, and the cats loved it.  The craft room gets the warmest when it is sunny out because there are two windows and sun streams in both, I love it! 

Since I have moved to days Paul and I have a new little ritual.  If I work and he doesn't he (usually) cooks dinner.  I LOVE this.  This particular night he made sauteed pork and rice, it was so yummy and we had quite a few left overs.  He texted me the next day at work to say the leftovers had spilled all over the carpet. So sad :(  At least he knows how to resolve the carpet and it was perfectly clean with no stains.  

Crazy story about my friends engagement ring.  She took it in to have resized and they returned the wrong ring to her a month later and didn't tell her they had switched it.  The new ring (on the right in both pictures) was a whole half a karat bigger but the quality of the diamond was much worse and it wasn't set right.  It was probably worth less money than the previous ring.  Sara was upset they had done this and her and her fiance went back to Kay's jewelers and kindly asked (demanded) to have their money back.  Sara now has an amazing new engagement ring that she loves even more than the first.  Kay's lost her business forever. 

Paul and I decided to go out on a Valentines day date a day early, so we wouldn't be eating out with everyone else.  We were super classy and went in sweats to our favorite cheap mexican restaurant where you can get two amazing and huge burritos and a drink for $15.  This whole eating out a day early thing didn't work so well though because I had a particularly tiring shift on valentines day (and Paul was off) so we ended up going to a Thai restaurant when I got home because he didn't want to cook and I didn't want to clean.  

Eric is in love with this shoe string.  He drags it everywhere in his mouth and goes crazy if you try and take it from him! 

My parents came this weekend and my mom and I went and got our hair cuts together!   I hadn't had a hair cut in soooo long.  I had been wearing it in a pony tail for the last few months, and it feels so good to have it down and cute again.  I had a new hair stylist (my last one left to be with her baby, second time this has happened to me!) and she was amazing.  She has only worked there since December and said she wasn't having babies any time soon, so I hope to keep going to her.  She spent and hour and 15 minutes cutting my hair! 

Friday after work I decided I deserved a little shopping spree.  I went to Gap and Banana Republic at the Supermall and spent the $25 gift card Paul had given me as a little treat.  This cardigan and shirt cost $15 total, I love super sales, and using a gift card to get them! 

Yesterday at work I had to take care of an extremely rude and racist patient.  She didn't mind white females, well you may get called a bitch a few times but that is NOTHING compared to the other crap that came out of her mouth.  She told me her mother was going to get me and that Dr. Oz was against me.  Anyway, I had to sit in there for 15 minutes to relieve the 1:1 sitter and wear this beautiful isolation gown.  I sat there thinking about how awful she had treated some of the CNA's and how no one, no one at all should ever have to hear those things said about them.  I hope they refuse to take care of her in the future. And then I ate a cupcake and tried to forget about her.  It didn't work. 

I started watercoloring and made this little picture for my friend Ciara who just became a Nurse Nonpracticing at age 25.  I am so so proud of her and put this little ditty together as a congrats present.  It arrived at her place today and I can't wait for her to come home from work to it.  I need to start sending out little gifts more often because it is so fun! 

Ps, sunshine on an unmade bed makes me smile.  My bed used to NEVER be unmade, but now that Paul gets out of bed after me it seems like it is never made, oh well, who sees it that cares besides me? No one.  So now my bed is made on my days off.  It sometimes bothers me, but not when there is sunshine streaming into my room, I just want to jump in bed and snuggle under the sheets! 

AARP keeps sending Paul letters and invitations, how old do they think he is??  I have been cleaning up little areas around the house and found Paul has about a million name tags (he has a ton more that don't say assistant manager on them as well).  Before he was married (or dating me) he was always losing them.  Now I put them away on a regular basis and when he brings them home I make sure they go to their home.  I bet he has 5 more at work too! 

Another picture of the food Paul made, and a picture of me at costco,  I went for some fruit and spent over $100, I hate it when that happens.  At least everything was healthy besides the pizza and I finally bought a blender (I have been waiting for Costco to have a good semi cheap one so if it breaks I can return it even two years later).  Oh and I got two boxes of plastic bins to organize in.  They are the best. 

I have started making greeting cards from the scraps of the silhouette.  This is the quote I used for Ciara and when I was pealing the outer layer off I thought to myself, this would make an awesome card.  I did this with hearts earlier as well.  I love how they turned out!  

I had coffee and a cookie for breakfast one day and it was amazing.  I wish I could do that every day and for one stay full and two not get fat!  

I had to call into a conference for my grandpa who is in a rehab facility right now after losing some strength after a hospital visit and I colored throughout the phone call when I wasn't taking notes.  I forgot how much I love coloring.  I hope when I have kids they love to color because it is oh so therapeutic for me!  Oh and I dressed up for the first time in ages to go to church and it was oh so fun to wear cute clothes instead of yoga pants or scrubs.  Cute clothes aren't as comfy though so I think I will stick with the yoga pants 98% of the time. 

More watercoloring.  My m om got me into it, and I just ordered my very own set of watercolors from amazon that should be here any day now.  

On Saturday we all went to Seattle to have dinner with my brother for his birthday.  We went to this awesome little Italian restaurant at like 7:30 pm (we had to wait for Paul to get off work and parking in Seattle was a doozy).  It was so fun to all be together and just hang out while enjoying absolutely amazing food!   My brother grew his hair out on accident.  He said when he does get it cut it will be short.  It is not long (and curly!!- we never knew!) because he wanted it long, it was because he was too lazy for a hair cut. Now he is going to look crazy to everyone once he gets short hair again!  

And that my friends has been my last two weeks.  I work Friday- Monday now and am prepping myself to be very tired.  I have to psych myself up for my "long" stretch of work.  I know normal people work 5 days in a row, but wow, I just can't imagine! 

I have loved reading all your guy's posts as of late! :)

Winter Can Be Beautiful

Hello again,

We just had a long weekend since Monday is a holiday in Ontario (Family Day).  We rented a cottage with Justin's family for the weekend two hours north of us.  It. was. heavenly.  I hadn't realized how much of a break I needed.  I needed a longer break from work and from house responsibilities.  I had a discouraging week last week, so it came just in time.  I found out I did get the teaching job (hooray) but they never gave me a start date.  So I asked them for a date so I could put in my notice at work.  They emailed back and said they would let me know as soon as a class was available for me to teach.  So I found this out on Feb. 11, and I'm like:  what the heck?! I've been in the interview process with them since Jan. 15!!  (I'm still ticked off).  I think it wouldn't be so bad if I had known it would be awhile, but they made it sound like they needed someone right away (their ad said end of Jan/beginning of Feb).  I feel like I can't wait around forever, so I'm going to keep on applying to teaching jobs.  Work was especially tough last week and I just want out of there so bad.  I know at this point that things will be ok, but I'm feeling discouraged right now and I just have to remember that God has me right where he wants me.  This Christmas I had my eyes opened about what it's like to trust God like a kid trusts their parents.  As children we completely trust that our parents will take care of everything.  I feel like I'm being put to the test in this, so I am working at and praying daily for this childlike trust.

Even in the midst of this struggle I can so see God working around me.  In this last week I have had significant conversations with two individuals; one from church and one from work who are going through tough times where they feel they've called out to God and he is not answering. I feel like I've been able to say encouraging things and at the very least pray for them.

Just writing about all this is putting me in a better mood and giving me perspective!

The winter cold was getting me down too, but this weekend up north was just beautiful.  We don't get as much snow down here and the city makes it all dirty.  Here are a few pictures:

Standing on frozen lake, our cottage looked out onto this view. 

I forget how fun it is to go sledding!  I went down several times, but didn't get a picture of it, Justin enjoyed it too.

Even though it was gorgeous, I couldn't help thinking about what everything would look like in the spring.  Can't wait for those first few crocuses to pop up!