In My Words

It is snowing outside! Not good. I didn't bring a single winter coat to Utah. I should have known better. Just pile on the sweaters I guess. Luckily it isn't sticking very good. Still though, it is 87 degrees in Norman today.

The 2010 numbers for the fittest cities in the U.S. came out. And I just want everyone to know that Oklahoma City is the very bottom of the list. The VERY BOTTOM. Good thing I live in Norman.

We Made It...Barely

After nearly 19 hours on the road, a broken down jeep, a late night phone call to Mike's parents, and them towing the jeep back to Salt Lake....we made it here. I know, sounds dramatic. And I am a very dramatic person. So I will share the story with you. Minus the alarm not going off early on Saturday morning to wake us up, the day was going great. Mike and I were driving two separate cars but we were both feeling good and staying awake easily. I was jamming to my music, as I am sure Mike was doing also. We didn't know quite where we were going to stop, we just thought we would drive til we just didn't want to anymore. We got to the Denver area and the jeep started acting a little funny. It didn't take the hills very well. There are no hills in Oklahoma so this was a new experience for the jeep. But we were still moving along pretty good. We considered stopping in Cheyenne for the night but we both felt fine and we had enough gas to get to Laramie so we just kept going. Halfway between Laramie and Cheyenne, the jeep just decided it didn't really want to work very hard anymore. Well for those of you who have ever driven the area between Cheyenne and Laramie, or pretty much anywhere in Wyoming, there is nothing. NOTHING. And the jeep decides to die. Awesome. So we hop in our car and continue driving to Laramie, stop at the first hotel that we see (which was pretty darn nice....and had the free breakfast....you just can't beat free breakfast), and brainstorm. We noticed that from where the jeep was parked to the hotel location, was for the most part all downhill. So we called Mike's parents (at this point it was about 7:30 on Saturday night) and they so willingly hopped in their truck and trekked up to save us, knowing they wouldn't get to Laramie until 2:00 AM. They are amazing. In the mean time Mike and I decide to drive back up to the jeep because Mike is pretty sure that he can get the jeep to the hotel since the majority of the drive is downhill. So we flipped on the hazards and drove on the side of the freeway and got the jeep to the hotel. Thank goodness. Mike's parents arrived sometime in the early morning on Sunday. We picked up a uhaul trailer in Cheyenne on Sunday morning and were finally out of Laramie, Wyoming by 1:00 PM on Sunday afternoon. Longest morning ever. So Mike took it to a transmission shop yesterday and they couldn't diagnose the problem. Awesome. They gave Mike a list of "could-be's". Oh dear. So now its at a different shop today, and hopefully we can figure out what it is so that we can figure out if it is worth saving. Stupid thing. Mike's already started looking at cars on KSL. We brought two car loads of stuff to Utah, and we have to get two car loads back to Oklahoma. Which means we need two cars to do that.

On the bright side, everything else is going well. We had banana splits with my whole family on Sunday night and I finally got to see my nephew for the first time. Oh and he is absolutely adorable. And smiley. Oh I love him. And my nieces are so big. And my brother is almost as tall as me! Its good to see them all. And last night we spent some time with Mike's family. We still haven't seen his sister's family and our nieces and nephew but we are so excited to! Its good to hang out with everyone and catch up. I am back to work and being a sugar mama again, but life is good.

I am missing my Oklahoma friends like crazy.
Hope all is well.

There and Back

So my official last day of work was yesterday....and as my parting gift they gave me an iPod touch. I know, not so bad huh?

Finally finished painting. And it is gorgeous I have to say. I love the paint color.
LOVE.
I will post pics in three months when the place has been put together. So now I have been cleaning and moving and cleaning some more. I actually cleaned so much yesterday that I woke up in the middle of the night so sick. I could not get images of nasty, dog-infested base boards out of my head. I seriously hate dogs even more now.
HATE.
They just make things gross. Humans are bad enough. We don't need to throw animals into the mix. Pretty much everything is moved now except the big stuff. My lovely friend came to help me move some stuff today, saved me from losing my sanity for sure. And you should see the pile of crap that we are bringing to Utah. Wow, its a good thing we decided to take two cars or I would never had made it. And I got all my shoes that I am bring into one and a half laundry baskets! Go me!

Leaving for Utah bright and early on Saturday morning. Hope to be on the road by 6:00. Pray for our safe travels! Can't wait!

Tornado Alley

Well we made it through our first tornado here in Oklahoma. And it was pretty scary. Everyone here always says that tornadoes don't hit Norman. Well they lied. Because we had a tornado yesterday. The weather yesterday was really warm and humid but extremely windy. The dogs outside were barking like crazy so around dinner time we started watching the news. There were tornado warnings all around Oklahoma including Norman. I was in the middle of cooking dinner and we kept running outside to look at the sky because the clouds were crazy/cool. Finally the siren went off and I started freaking out. Mike just wanted to be outside to watch everything. No way was I going to let him do that. Then the power goes out so we grab our handy flashlight/radio and sit on the floor in our closet listening to the radio. The tornado at that point is traveling on Highway 9 which is about a half-mile from our house. Yep, freaking out. Luckily we had no damage to our stuff and we are fine. And the power did come back on after being off for about 3 hours. It was super scary but it is also one of those things that its hard to believe when you can't see it. I never actually saw the tornado so I wasn't so scared at the time. But watching the news and all the video feed, if I would have seen it in person I probably would have passed out. According to the news there were about 37 accounted for tornadoes that hit yesterday, and so far, 6 known deaths. The damage around the state is significant. And I plan on taking a small drive later today to see the boat shop down the street that apparently had boats thrown all over the road. But I am glad that we are safe and I know that the Lord was watching over us. Here is a picture of the actual tornado that traveled along Highway 9. Yep, that thing was a half-mile from where we were, huddled in our closet.

Quick Update

I know, I am a super bad blogger, but I have been swamped lately.

So a quick update.

Our anniversary was awesome. Mike showered me with roses and took me to an awesome, fancy restaurant here in Norman called Benvenutis. I love him so much. We couldn't really do anything super cool because he is in the middle of studying for finals. Give it 2 years though, and who knows what crazy stuff we will be doing for our anniversary.

Change of plans. We ditched the storage unit. (After losing $290...I know, I am still getting over it.) But the place right next door to us went up for lease. We couldn't pass it up. We have to move all our stuff literally about 10 ft to the house next door. We pay a bit more in rent a month, and now we will have to be paying rent and utilities all summer but we just couldn't pass up the opportunity of staying in the neighborhood. Downside: I am pretty confident that the renters before us smoked. I know, gross. So I have washed the walls, and last night I painted base boards (skipped Zumba for it....sad day) and hope to be painting walls by tomorrow or Monday. We are kinda running out of time. It seems like it took forever for summer to get here and now that it is almost here, I could use a few extra days. It seems like everything hit at once.

Today is unofficially my last day of work! This is so exciting. I am still going to be coming in next Wednesday to do payroll but pretty much today is it! The CFO took all the accountants and I to lunch yesterday. And today all the office personnel are going for my last day. Which means, I almost reached my goal of getting someone to buy me lunch every day this week. Wednesday got skipped, but other than that, I had 4 free lunches this week. Go me. One of the days we went to a restaurant called "Shorty Smalls". The only way to really describe this place is hillbilly. Anyway, it was at Shorty Smalls in which I tried my first deep fried twinkie. I suggest that if you ever eat this, you only eat a bite or two. My boss ate a whole one and he threw it up by 4 o'clock. I only had a bite. I actually liked it. As long as you get a piece that has some of the cream from the twinkie in it, its not too bad. I can't imagine eating an entire thing. My boss blames me for him throwing it up, he keeps saying I made him eat it all. Sick, I would never, ever make anyone eat an entire fried twinkie. And for those who are curious, online sources say it has 425 calories.

Mike is working his butt off for finals and I feel like the girl with a roommate again but I know that its all for the greater good of our family. I am proud of him for working so hard and if it means that for a couple weeks every semester I don't really get to have a husband, I am totally okay with that because he is getting an education to support our family. I love him so much and can't wait until this summer when neither of us will be studying. This summer....or even semester for that matter, neither of us will be in school, and this is the first time that has happened in 3 years. Woohoo. Best summer ever.

Not so quick, I know.

Happy Day

Three years ago today, I made a promise to my best friend for time and all eternity.
I love him with everything fiber of my being.
His love brings out the best in me.
I am so happy.
Happy Anniversary baby.
I love you.

Happenings

Its been a while. I finished a book. "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin. I recommend it to everyone. It just goes to show that people can do great things with effort. Greg Mortensen has been added to my list of heroes. It couldn't have been more perfect timing, since I was in the middle of reading this book....but Greg Mortensen came to the Lloyd Noble Center last week and spoke. And it was free. So I took off work early and went to hear him speak. And I even got Mike to go with me. Honestly, Greg Mortensen is an awful speaker. You can tell he is uncomfortable being the center of attention and doesn't like large crowds. It was great to see first hand since that is talked about a lot in the book. Somehow though, he still did a fantastic job. Its amazing what some people can accomplish in life. Read the book. You won't regret it.

On Saturday night, Mike and I got to go to the Ford Center to see the Lakers play the Thunder. We had 2nd row floor seats. Now obviously, we aren't used to going to Playoff games and having that great of seats, so we had no idea what to expect. Did you know that people with floor seats get a complimentary buffet before the game? Yeah, we didn't know that either so we had already eaten before we had gone to the game. But it was a complimentary buffet at the Thunder game that we will probably never be able to experience again so we had 2 dinners on Saturday night. Drinks were free too. Well non-alcoholic drinks were free which is all that matters to us. It is a whole different world sitting on the floor though. The guy next to us was wearing a superbowl ring. Los Angeles Raiders back in the 80's. Still though. And everybody knows each other. They all hold season tickets and are best friends with each other. And they all just get wasted all night. The girl sitting behind us couldn't even stand up by herself. It was really funny. Mike, a typical law student, says to me, "I should be networking....". Haha. And then he proceeds to convince me that getting season tickets down on the floor would be an investment because of the networking and the connections that you can make with people. I don't know how convinced I am considering that would be super super expensive. Lets pay off law school loans first.

We got storage units over the weekend. I guess that is what we have decided to do. And the climate controlled storage units for the the whole summer were still less than what we pay for one month worth of rent. So we will be saving a lot of money. Its just a lot of work. And I am sad to leave my house. I love it. So every day we have made a run taking whatever the jeep will hold. The first thing we moved was my cedar chest so that I could do it myself and cover it so that no one will scratch it or ding it. I am super paranoid about it. I am still upset about having to move my piano since I spent all that time painting it and then knowing that it probably won't make it through another tuning. The strings are really old, and the first time we had it tuned, so many strings broke. But oh well, I guess I don't really have a choice. But I have so many great friends who have offered to help pack and move stuff, which I may really take you up on your offers depending on how the next few weeks go. Anyway, such is life.

I love my husband.

I love my life.

Always and forever. XO

Discrimination

Well its 4:48 in the morning and I am blogging. This has nothing to do with my addiction to blogging. I promise I am not psycho enough to wake up this early just to blog. I have had 4 hours of sleep and I think thats about all I can force myself to get for the day. I will thank the rain for waking me up. But now that I am awake, my mind starts racing and there is no way I am going to fall back asleep. 


When we moved here, we were leasing our duplex from a regular property management company. After a few months of being here, our duplex, as a whole went up for sale. Mike and I actually considered buying it and now regret the fact that we didn't. Our duplex was sold to the Housing Authority which is like a low-income housing assistance program. I was actually kind of excited because I thought that our rent would go down. That was wishful thinking. I thought, for some reason, we would be beyond the stage of actually qualifying because we already lived here. They wouldn't kick us out, would they? 


To qualify for Housing you have to make between a certain amount each year, and (here is the kicker), you have to have at least one child. But for some reason, I still thought that they would work with us. 
Wrong.
Mike called them yesterday to see about renewing our lease seeing as how we would be in Utah when our lease actually came up for renewal. Well its a good thing he called. Because apparently they aren't going to let us stay. No baby means no house. Awesome. I hate them. They did say they would work with us and if we break our lease early they wouldn't penalize us and they would still give us back our deposit. Or they could extend our lease by 3 months. So...we leave for Utah in 3 weeks, which means we have 3 weeks to figure out what we are going to do. I hate my life. So I packed 5 boxes yesterday. And it was the worst day ever. 


I love this house. I don't know how many times and to how many people I have said that I love this house. When we moved in I had the intention to be living here all 3 years of law school. If I would have known ahead of time that Housing would be buying our duplex and that we would be pretty much kicked out, I would have never moved in. 


And now poor Mike has to figure out how to ace his finals and move all in the next 3 weeks. 


So thats about where we stand. I am super upset. Obviously, if I am up this early blogging about it. We are considering just sticking all our stuff in a storage unit while we are gone. It will be tons cheaper and I won't have to worry about having someone monitor our house. But we will keep looking for a place. I am spoiled and high maintenance though and want nothing less than what I have right now. So we'll see. Maybe we'll just stay in Utah once we get there. Hah.

On the brighter side though, for my going away present at work, they gave me Thunder vs. Laker 4th game FLOOR SEATS playoff tickets. Mike is so excited. I am excited too. We decided we both would probably have rather had the cash....over $1200....but this will be fun. Probably never have this opportunity again so we will enjoy every minute of it.

Thoughts

I can't believe its less than a month until we leave. 25 days to be exact.

My favorite current lyrics are: "I'm Awesome.....No Your Not Dude, Don't Lie". Hah.

I started playing my piano again. Oh how I have missed it.

I bake too much, causing myself unnecessary weight.

My little brother turns 13 on Friday. I can't believe my baby brother is gonna be a teenager.

To my sisters: I may force you to sing with me at mom's piano nearly every time I see you. Be prepared.

I really hate finals. Even when I am not taking them. Mike becomes the mystery man closed up in the other room. Good for him though. Study hard babe.

The phrase I currently hate: ".......you know, and this, that and the other......." Wait......huh?

I cannot wait to snuggle up to my new nephew. Dibbs on holding him ALL summer.

Why people built roads here the way they are is beyond me. Seriously.

When co-workers continue to tell me about their marriages, I realize how wonderful I really do have it. I mean, I knew I had it good, I just didn't realize how many people have it so awful.

Mentally, I have checked out of my job. With the new lady here now, I feel no ambition. Its pretty bad.

I ♥ Mike.
M+A=4 EVER.

Peace.

Good Food, Good Friends

This weekend we went to a birthday dinner at a restaurant here called Coach's. Our friend turned 27. We are lucky to have good friends here in Oklahoma. It was a super fun night.