Cars and Teeth and "Street Drugs"

Chad's been paying this week for his wide open schedule these past couple of months. And while I'm normally jealous that he gets to go to school, study a bit, then pick me up, I am not jealous this week. Yesterday afternoon may have been filled with 30 mentally challenged girls all coming in for foot care at the same time but Chad definitely won the "busy week" award. And it's only Wednesday morning.

Saturday night we realized that we had no hot water. Stellar. After calling the wrong emergency number on Sunday Chad finally got a hold of someone on Monday. So after dropping me off at work and going to school he drove back home to meet the maintenance guy. Then he went back to class. Then he went back home to test the water - nothing. Then he came back to town and took me to a chiropractor appointment. Then he went back home to meet the wonderful man who fixed our water heater. And then finally picked me up from work.

At one point during the summer we had a tank of gas last over 2 weeks. Clearly this will not be one of those weeks.

Yesterday he took the car in to get checked out. In addition to what we thought was wrong there are, of course, multiple other problems that need to be fixed. We can live without our sunroof opening or the back windshield wipers working but I would like our car to stay together as we drive down the road.

We also found a physicians volunteer clinic that does dental work! What?! So Chad stopped by yesterday before the car headache to get some paperwork and is turning it all back in today with proof that we are poor enough to go there. Hopefully they can see him soon and fill in the hole in his tooth and let him chew on both sides of his mouth again. The wisdom teeth are a whole other issue that we hope to resolve soon as well.

Again, thank you student loans.

As a side note, Chad asked the receptionist about me going to the clinic to get some pain medication for my back since I don't have a primary care physician. She informed Chad that they do not give out "Street Drugs". So apparently I'll have to go without the crack I thought they could hook me up with. So close...

Boooooooo

I may not be back in school but Chad is and.... Boooooo!

Yes, I'm being a whiny baby. Yes, I am at work all day. And you know what I have to say about that?

Booooooo!

If anyone's figured out how both you and your husband can stay at home, sleep in every morning, eat brownies sundaes and redbulls everyday for lunch (without becoming obese), travel all over and then make it home in time to eat ridiculous amounts of mexican food, snuggle with a puppy and stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking and giggling, all without jobs of course, please let me know.

Until then, we'll keep working at attempting to be responsible adults during the week and acting like the above  on Friday and Saturday.

Ok, and most of Sunday too.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

My phone won't like up with the computer otherwise you would be seeing an awesome picture of a little present left for Chad by Rukia. Apparently Rukia had to go. She decided she couldn't wait for Chad to get out of class and went poo in the house. And then she covered it up with one of her stuffed animals! HA! I love that she felt so bad she covered it up. My dog's the best. Aren't you sorry you didn't get a big picture of dog poo with this post?

Moving on!

Awkward:

• Me running on a main street. I'm trying to run home from work twice a week now. Chad has late classes and instead of waiting after work for an hour for him to finish class, come pick me up, drop me off, then turn around and go back to school, I figured I could run the 4 miles home. Except the 4 miles is on a main road, and the first half is all uphill. And I hate running on a main road. I feel like I need to be running or walking. I feel like people are watching and judging and I end up looking even more crazy I'm sure. I sprint, then walk, then sprint, then walk... all up a giant 2 mile hill. Adding to the crazy... I had to run home with my phone in one hand, a giant wad of keys and my phone charger in the other. Nice.
• Making Chad late for his class last week and missing the announcement that his test was"take home", or online. He tried taking it at the testing center but they didn't have it - duh. A week and half later (his teacher was out for a week!) he was finally clued in. His teacher is super nice though and he can take it online at home this weekend. Wife fail.
• Walking around like an old, crippled lady, holding my back. Oh my back. It's the worst. Sitting hunched over a desk all day is not exactly helping the cause either. Usually after a few minutes I can manage to stand up straight, but until then it's a sad, pathetic situation.
• Our crazy cat. She gets so excited sometimes and starts purring and rubbing her face and body all over the back of the chair she likes to sit on. Well, it's all fun and games until she starts to fall headfirst and desperately tries to cling on with her back claws (no front claws for her) and just proceeds to slide face first into the ground. So graceful... so cat-like.
• Going to Panned Parenthood for the birth control. I ended up in a little room talking to some 21 year old "dude" about my birth control. Tell me that's not awkward. Then he explained how to use it, um... yeah, I know how, I've been using it for, oh, just a couple years. I'm sure they have to explain, but still, super awkward.
• My outrageously high blood pressure at Planned Parenthood. I freak out at new situations in general. So sitting there with the above mentioned dude wasn't helping the freak out. It was so high he thought something was wrong with the machine. Nope, just me trying to stoke out on you. Then he thought it would be better if we took it again. Yeah, nope. Just makes it worse. So how was it the second time? You guessed it, even higher than the previous stroke level.

Awesome:

• Getting the Wednesday off before Thanksgiving so I can spend it with my sister and her in-laws in California! Woot! Never been to California and we are super excited. We are even bringing the pup with us :)
• Homemade Broccoli Cheese soup.
• Coming home to a clean living room and most importantly a clean kitchen with the dishwasher running :) Point for the hubby!
• Red Bull with lunch today.
• Snuggling with all of our, all of a sudden, super needy animals. Usually they're just needy.

 

Let's hear it! Any awkward moments to share this week?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Poor Rukia was such a matted mess from all the camping and running around this summer that we had to cut her hair in shifts, she would get tired, we would get tired or we would have to buy new clippers because her hair kills them! So she ran around looking like a darn fool with itty bitty little front legs and giant fluffy back bear legs. Luckily we've got her all evened out now!

Awkward:

• Driving in the parking lot of the grocery store next to the store and watching a shopping cart with a baby in it roll out into the parking lot.... right in front of us. Luckily we were paying attention. The dad and sister both ran out after the poor baby. We just laughed and waved while the dad looked mortified. I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy watching awkward things happen to other people ;)
• Picking the size sticker off of one of Chad's shirts while we were out to dinner. He had worn and washed  the shirt multiple times.
• Trying to figure out what the heck these weird fruits/vegetables were in our Bountiful Harvest baskets. I tested my mom and brother with pictures and we still were stumped. Finally my mom figured out they were black radishes after seeing them on an episode of Chopped! Thanks Chopped! Still doesn't help me figure out what to do with them though.
• Becoming addicted to Frasier on Netflix. Frasier? Yup.
• Watching a guy struggle to bike up a hill/mountain on the side of the road, smoking.
• The leaves are still green and it was 80 degrees yesterday. Eighty. I'm freaking out. While it's nice to not have to wear a snowsuit in October, I can't wrap my brain around the fact that today is November! We will be taking trip #2 to try to find Fall this weekend. Wish us luck!

Awesome:

• My husband bringing up a jar of peanut butter, the bag of chocolate chips and a spoon to bed. Mmmm.
• Chad showing up at the testing center to take a test and they told him they didn't have it! Huh?! While he'll eventually have to take it, it was a nice ending to a hectic day!
• Finding semi decent apple cider at WalMart.
• No Dr. toady or tomorrow!
• Sleeping in until noon on the weekends :)
• Hiding from Trick-or-Treaters and eating all the candy ourselves! While I may not be able to go trick-or-treating I can now go out and buy whatever candy I want and eat it all!!! Bah-ha-ha-ha!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Last night we took our absolute favorite drive, and went down to Vegas to pick up Nikki and Matt from the airport. The drive is awful people. For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to drive down 1-15 and into the wonderful city of Las Vegas let me paint you a picture. Imagine a road that goes on forever in the middle of the desert. No towns, no people, no cell phone reception. It's a blast.

Also the Las Vegas airport is always on time. Always. Which is normally a really good thing. Unless you have Chad and I picking you up. In which case you will be waiting for us. Always. People probably think we secretly hate them and wish they wouldn't have come, that's how late we were last night. Whoops. In fact our not so secret plan is to trick Nikki and Matt into living with us forever! HA! So if you do come out to visit us and we are 40 minutes late picking you up, I'm sorry, we really do love you, we just have poor planning skills. We are working on it. You should probably just send us a fake itinerary just to be safe ;)

You can't beat the sunsets on the drive to Vegas

Awkward:

• As we were standing in the line at the gas station we overhear an exchange between an older gentleman outside and the gas station worker. After a few hello's back and forth to confirm that both parties could in fact hear each other the man finally asks his question:

"I'd like to pay inside please"

 

Without missing a beat the woman says, "Well come in then sir", "Oh... Ok, I guess." It was fantastic. The face she made as she realized that was what all that work was for was even more fantastic.

• Chad accidently threw our debit card away after we were done eating at Cafe Rio. Even more devastating, he also threw away the punch card. NOOOO! So when we realized what had happened we turned back around, made sure they hadn't emptied "our" garbage, threw on some gloves and got to diggin'. It was super fun guys! Nothing better on a Saturday night then getting down and dirty in a mexican resteraunts trash can. A nice worker even helped us dig. Fortunantley we were able to find the punch card! Oh, and our debit card too ;)
• Chad's partner in his rock climbing class trying to drop him. Yup, not cool lady. Luckily the teacher was there to help her get a hold of the rope. Chad said he was coming down and he was coming down fast! Apparently she's getting better. fingers crossed
• Chad letting me know he needed to bring a side dish for their Wednesday night activity. He was asked to bring jello. LOL. Oh Utah, you and all your jello makes me laugh. I was tempted to make something with tuna fish or carrots in it, yum...

Awesome:

• We got invited over to a couple's house last Sunday for dinner! What?! Look at us being social and everything. While I may be trapped in the nursery, Chad is out there making friends for us. They were way nice and we had a great time!
• Chad found out he did even better on one of his tests than he though, and he though he did good. Love surprises like that!
• Since we are having guests we now have a clean house. Nothing like people staying with you to motivate you to clean!
• I have tomorrow off, today is my Friday!!!
• Giving my Dr. a Pirate "Outfit" from the dollar store for "Talk like a Pirate Day" yesterday and watching him run around the office in it. Nothing better than a Dr. with an eye patch and hook hand. Then watching our office manager prance around in it as well!
• Hmmm...what else... NIKKI AND MATT ARE HERE!!! It's gonna be a good week!

 

What was Awesome or Awkward about your week?

The Crazies

Yesterday was a doozy.

Chad had school all day, it's his long day, and 3 tests to take. One was taken in class, which was nice, the other 2 had to be taken in the testing center.

I get out of work at 4, but he doesn't get out of his lab until 5. So I wandered around KMart (KMart is the worst, and ours is filthy). Then I walked back to work and he picked me up. I dropped him off at class and ran home to let out Rukia. Then back up to campus to bring a very loopy Chad some dinner.

You know how you start to go crazy after so many hours of class/studying/testing in one day? Yeah, he was there, and it was his first time experiencing the fun of it. After he ate I dropped him off at the Testing Center to tackle his last 2 tests and I went grocery shopping. Then I just wandered around stores until he was done. While not super stressful on my part I was definitely tired from being gone all day. If he didn't have the crazy before he definitely had them after 2 tests.

While I don't have pictures of Chad looking crazy while studying I have a plenty of me

After killing his tests we headed home around 10pm. Blah. We were welcomed home by a certain cat who didn't feel like using the litter box. Excellent. She really manages to have perfect timing. When we first got her she would jump up on the bed and start purring. I would wake up, look up at her and then wonder why my feet were getting so warm. Yup, she peed on me. This happened multiple times. What a sweetheart. Luckily we have moved past that. And while she cops an attitude at times at least she stopped peeing on me. I don't know how this turned into me talking about cat pee for so long....

Chad continued to be a champ taking out the trash, picking up, throwing in laundry from said cat incident, and taking out the dog. I crashed. Yup, the one who was in school all day, taking tests until his brain turned to mush was the one who kept on going at home while I promptly died. And I mean died. Like, fall asleep while your husband is talking to you, died. And that is reason #89237 why I love my husband.

Work it Out

I haven't been in school in September in a couple years now. I would be lying if I said that I miss the tests and homework, studying and papers, boring lectures that would drag on forever, and the stress of it all.

I do however miss the fresh start that the school year would bring. The newness of it all. The clean planners and new notebooks, shiny pens and organizational materials up the wazoo. Well, I may not be starting school it's still a great chance for a fresh start. I've already got my shiny new calendar up in our kitchen and now it's goal time peeps. Why wait until January? There's nothing better than new goals to kick your butt into gear and start fresh! And it's a good chance to review the resolutions that I made at the beginning of the year. Some are going awesome, some have died, and some just need to be revamped.

Fall Goals:

• Wake up at a reasonable hour to get ready for the day, eat breakfast, and relax before the crazy starts. Are you sick of hearing about how we can't wake up in the morning? We'll see if we can't fix that. I wouldn't hold your breathe though.

• Take more pictures! Chad's all over this but I want to get better at photography as well.

• RUN! I looked into some half marathons around here, there are plenty. Problem, they all cost around 50 bucks a pop. That's $100 for the two of us, aren't you glad I'm here to do the math for you. That just ain't gonna happen. Having a race to run is a great motivating factor but I guess we'll just have to run to run.

The Color Me Rad run takes place in a month and I wish I could run in it, doesn't it look like a blast?

• Keep the kitchen CLEAN. Evey night, clean it up girl! Because there's no way I'm making dinner the next night in a dirty kitchen. And since our "grocery budget" doesn't allow us to eat at Cafe Rio every night I need to keep this goal. 

• Look cute on the weekend. I'm hoping this will get easier as we ease out of the 100 degree weather. It's impossible to look cute when you are drenched in sweat. I pull my hair into a high ponytail, ditch the makeup, and wear as little clothing as I can. And I don't care what the heck that looks like. I'm gonna attempt to channel my inner style blogger and see if I can't jazz up my weekend look a bit.

So basically.... I want to become a early rising, well dressed, put together photographer who runs marathons and keeps a spotless house. That shouldn't be too hard right? HA.


Yesterday I managed to be sleepy, late, scrub wearing runner with a spotless kitchen with dinner on the table. And while there were no pictures of said events I think 2 outta 5 really ain't too bad for a Monday. Plus, I only said I was going to look cute on the weekends :)

Do you have any goals? Are any as ridiculous as my goal to get dressed on the weekend?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Don't be Jealous

Awkward:

• While waiting for Chad to get out of class I overhear a couple getting in their car. "Babe, babe, babe..." Was three "babes" necessary to get her attention? She gets in the car and then he does it again, 3 times, and then again. I've never heard the word "Babe" be used so much in such a short span of time. I was openly laughing at them. The girl looked a little annoyed. At him, not me mocking her boyfriend.
• The names out here still crack me up. My new favorite, some 18 year old guy named Vegas. Classy job with the names people.
• Chad was running low on time for lunch yesterday so he heated up some leftover pasta, threw it in a plastic baggie and at it in the car on the way to school. No fork needed, just slurped it out of the bag.
• A Doctor dropped by yesterday to tell he was new in town and was an allergist. What he actually meant to say was he was crazy. He told me he could cure any allergy using acupressure. Most allergies he can cure after 1 visit: allergies to your children, vericose veins, Autism, and Poor Memory. I didn't realize these were all allergies. Or that you could cure them with some pressure along your spine, once. Thanks for brightening my day!

Awesome:

• Getting compliments on whatever you're trying on in the dressing room. Isn't that the best? Chad liked it to, so with 4 yes votes it came home with me. Love the sales at TJMaxx!
• We are only seeing patients 2 days this week! So happy :)
• Am I the last one to find out that Jillian is coming back to Biggest Loser in January? Overly excited for that one. Dissapointed I have to wait until January though. Hopefully it's better than the crapfest last season.
• Bunheads. It's like a crappier version of Gilmore Girls. But, after you've seen every episode of Gilmore Girls a bazillion times it's nice to mix it up a bit. Granted, it's not as good, but it's good enough!
• They have a sushi bar at our new favorite grocery store. It's just like the Kroger sushi. Now granted this isn't what we've been looking for, and Chad refuses to eat it, but I like it. I get the ones with the fake crab in it and while it's not fantastic, it doesn't leave me feeling sick and satisfies that craving. Once again, good enough!
• Chad's rock climbing class. Every Wednesday he picks me up from work dirty, exhausted, sweaty and very excited. Not only is this class perfect for him, he's making a lot of new friends to climb and bike with.

Workless Monday!

Happy Labor Day!

I'll take any reason for a day off work! We were originally planning on going camping this weekend. Up to MOAB, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, somewhere sweet.

Yeah.... we stayed home instead.

The last time we went "camping" without a real game plan we ended up at Nikki and Matt's for a few days. We camped on their couch and played lots of Pretty Pretty Princess. It was a good time.

Unfortunately if we decided to bail on this camping trip we weren't going be an hour from someone we know. We would be out in the middle of nowhere with the bears. And the mountain lions. Plus we were planning on doing some night photography but the full moon killed that dream. We are re-planning for when the moon is cooperating and we aren't so exhausted. If Nikki and Matt were closer we would have totally "camped" there again this weekend.

After our crazy last week it was nice just to stay home. I cleaned, Chad studied. We watched movies, gave the pup a bath, took a long Sunday drive and just relaxed. It was awesome.

 

Rukia frekaing out from her bath. Girl hates to be wet.

We weren't able to go to the annual Labor Day party in Wacousta, we are a little far away, so we are having our own "party" just the two of us. Veggie burgers, potato chips and dip, deviled eggs and Strawberry Shortcake. Any excuse for potato chips.

Happy Labor Day!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

This week hasn't been the most exciting. We've mostly been trying to keep up with our new schedules. One car worked out just fine the past two semesters but it's getting a bit more complicated now that Chad is taking 16 credits. It's also hard for him to pick me up from work when I get bored waiting around and start to wander to nearby stores. Granted, I did text him, but I didn't know his phone had died. Woops. It made for a stressful Tuesday night. We think we've got our schedules figured out so hopefully next week will run a bit smoother.

As for this week it's mostly just been running around, lots of driving back and forth, schopping for school supplies, more shopping for last minute surprise school supplies and killing bugs. We are happy that Friday is almost here.

Awkward:

• An old lady showing up to her apointment 15 minutes early and deciding the best way to pass the time is to sit and stare at me. Seriously, a whole 15 min of some old lady stranger just staring right at my face. Every once in a while I would make awkward eye contact and smile. She would keep her same straight face and not budge. No smile, no "hi", nothing.
• We are becoming true Utards Utahns :) I couldn't help myself! I want Cafe Rio EVERY SINGLE DAY! I swear, instead of a grocery budget we now just have a Cafe Rio budget. I discovered their nachos last week and OMG, they are fantastic. They always look at me strange when I ask for hot enchilada sauce on them, but by the time we're done they always decide it was a great idea. Your welcome Cafe Rio.
• The Vulcan Dental Arts sign outside of a dentist office. Is this for real? Am I missing something here or is this Dentist way too hardcore of a Trekkie? No way I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out here...
• Learning that if we decide to go back country camping in Bryce Canyon we need Bear Proof Containers. Stringing food up in trees doesn't work anymore because the bears are becoming used to people!?! What!? I wasn't preparred to deal with cockroaches so I'm sure as heck not equipt to deal with freaking Bears!
• Our very last patient at the nursing home weighed at least 600 pounds. He was sitting on his bed with his feet dangling over the side. He decided he was going to lay back as the Dr. worked on his feet. He layed back and his gown went back with him exposing everything. Giant balls all the way to his knees. TMI? Yeah, it was too much for me too. Be happy you didn't have to see it. I'm just glad he wasn't wearing any shoes that I had to take off. Phew...

Awesome:

• Raspberry Lemon Truffle Cupcakes. From Kneaders, duh. What baked good to they make that doesn't taste like fairies dancing across your tounge? Even better than the cupcake place here that won Cupcake Wars.
• The giant Costco size bag on M&M's sitting in the kitchen at work. I always have a pocket full of M&M's at work now :)
• Three Day Weekend coming up! Woot! Chad's school schedule has really thrown us off so we are excited to rest, do something fun and study/clean. Well, we are excited about the first two.

Monday, Tuesday Fail

I had a beautiful post for you Monday. It was glorious really.

Ok... it wasn't that exciting really, but it had a rockin' recipe for Blueberry Muffins. My mom's Blueberry Muffins. Our Christmas Blueberry Muffins :) Mmmmm

Thanks to CTRL Z you don't get to see it. Stupid CTRL Z. Instead of undoing the last thing I did it just undid everything, leaving me staring at a blank page. Excellent. Then blogspots handy dandy autosaver saved my blank page. Thanks so much.

While I could have just re-wrote the darn post it seemed like a lot of work. Plus it was 11pm and that's when cranky, sleepy Danielle comes out to play. It's best if she just goes to sleep/relaxes and doesn't actually try to do anything productive. It's best for everyone, especially Chad ;)

Yesterday I also had grand plans at writing something super awesome. Except I really didn't have anything super awesome. And.... Chad and I didn't make it home for good until 9pm. We finished eating dinner around 10. Tuesdays are shaping up to be killer days. Hopefully we'll get into the swing of things and our schedules will smooth out a little bit.

I hung out for an hour after work until Chad's class ended and he picked me up at 5, I then dropped him off at school and rushed home to make dinner and wait for the maintenance man who never came. I was welcomed with lots of tiny little ants all over the counter and stove top. Sweet. I sprayed them all with whatever chemical concoction was available and just left them there to die. Gross, I know. Our once small ant problem is spreading around the kitchen. Grrr.

I went to pick up Chad at 7 and after running some errands and getting some more school supplies we finally made it home. The ants were gone. Seriously, all of the previously killed ants had disappeared. Now there were still a bunch of live ants running around but my dead ones were gone. Where did they go?

The ants are just the tip of the iceburg though. We've got these beauties outside on our patio.

Not the best picture but that is a black widow. Chad got some better pictures on the real camera. sorry :(

And cockroaches that keep sneaking into our house. They like to run in when I open the door. Gross. I've also been informed that scorpions will come out to play as the weather cools down. I am not preparred for scorpions. Or running into one of these for that matter.

Yup, that's a freakin' tarantula. We ran into him hiking at Zion's. He was actually pretty cool.

I was not properly prepared for the bug situation here. Because, for real, it's a situation.

We discovered poor Rukia had ants all over her last night. EEEEWWWW. We finally figured it out when we saw her food bowl c-o-v-e-r-e-d in them. No wonder she wasn't interested in eating any of her food.

Chad stayed up late last night trying to remedy the situation while I passed out early. There is lots of RAID in our future.

Not only did he attempt to fix our ant problem, fingers crossed it works, but he put dinner away, took out the pup and hauled the trash outside for pick up. After being in class from 9 until 7. All while I slept. Did I mention that he also made half of our dinner? He's great like that. :)

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

It's somehow been a looooong and sleepy week. I can't seem to get myself to wake up during the day. I'm sure my employer loves this. Other than that (how is being sleepy news?) we've had a pretty "sleepy" week in general...

Awkward:

• Trying to get our dog to go out and play in the rain/hail with us. She was not into it.
• Penny deciding she's too good to use the litter box. The bed is much better for things like that. The bed or Chad's drawer full of athletic pants. Oh yes, those are much nicer.
• Trying to make homemade brownies. The batter tasted SO good. The brownies were anything but. We threw them out. Now I'm on a quest to find brownies that taste at least as good as our favorite box mix.  
• Being too tired and too lazy (neither one of us can wake up this week!) to make an actual dinner. Getting 3 Cheeser Bread from Hungry Howies and Cinnamon Bread Sticks from Pizza Hut instead of preparing real food. Also awkward? Eating shaved ice while we waited and then making brownie sundaes after "dinner".

Awesome:

• We finally checked out the Farmer's Market held downtown every Saturday. Guess what? Produce actually tastes like something, yummy somethings. Walmart had me believing that all fruits and vegetables are tasteless, watery and gross. We'll be going back this Satuday as well!
• Storms! We have had some crazy storms here. Lots of rain, wind, and even hail! It was great to have the weather cool off a little and enjoy the rainy weather, of course our house didn't flood so we could enjoy it a little more.
• Chad's summer semester is over! His classes were early and annoying for the most part. We are both happy they are done and he can take a break before he starts the full time madness in the fall.
• Artsy Fartsy Craft Projects. They are fun and they were easy, pictures coming.
• DownEast Outfitters. They have all kinds of cute clothes. But the real deal is the small Men's section they have. They must not have a lot of men shopping there because their clearance section for guys is unreal. Like, a pair of jeans for $5 unreal. Chad got 2 shirts, a pair of jeans, and a light blazer for under $15. Seriosly?! That's better than the Salvation Army!