Curveball, you've been thrown.

Life can sure change in the blink of an eye, aye? Back in December we had decided we were going to move next spring, as in 2011. I just miss being closer to family and most things we do end up being in Salt Lake. I thought it wasn't going to feel that far away moving up here, i mean, it is only 40 minutes. Well, I was wrong, it does. I love our house, but it is just a house. I have made some really great friends up here, most of which I hope to continue our friendships. I have also learned from the few callings i've had. But, those people will move on, and there are always more people to meet and befriend, and more callings to be had.

Then one sunday in January Sean said to me he was ready to move now. This was somewhat of a shock. Sean doesn't usually care and I end up making all the decisions. Though he's always fine with whatever the turn-out is. He just feels nothing is keeping us here and neither one of us feel "settled". We made our decision that we would put the house on the market in April when real estate gets going and my tulips would be pretty. On to praying. We prayed about it, and knew we needed to go to the temple. Luckily we go to the temple every month and in February when we went I got the most overwhelming feeling i've had since we were praying about having a baby (which turned out to be Faye). I really felt like my bosom was going to burst! I'm not making light of it at all, i'm serious. (which I need to clarify because i tend to be sarcastic a bit too much) Sean's final answer didn't come until a little later, though he knew he wanted to do it.

Now on to that curveball... unfortunately, it was thrown by the elfish Mayor of Salt Lake City, Ralph Becker, who just happens to be Sean's "official" boss. He's a great guy, lemme tell you (now, i AM being sarcastic). Yesterday we listed our house and Sean was informed he was being laid off all in the same day. Irony, oh how i love it. Sean is 1 of 67 people the city is laying off. June 30th will be his last day. Too add to his punch to the gut, he had to go to a staff meeting today where everyone was informed of his layoff among the others in other departments, and then he got to watch a video from the mayor where he told everyone they were getting 1.5% increases. Nice. Fire people and give the ones staying a raise... oh, and make the ones going have to sit and listen to it. Real nice.

I'm trying to think of ways to make lemonade, but these are some pretty sour lemons. I have only heard Sean really cry a handful of times, and today was hard to take. The thing is, i'm pretty okay. I mean, we're all healthy, no one's died. Life will go on, right? It will. I'm not feeling cyncial at all, which is major for me. I tend to dwell on the negative in such situations, but for some reason, i feel like things will work out. I thought my answer was for us to move on and to a new home, but maybe there are other plans in our future. It might also help I haven't talked to anyone yet. Don't get me wrong, i've shed some tears, but I have faith in Sean and I know we have a loving family that can help us out if we need it.

oh yeah, that one holiday

Here are the highlights:


I was so happy to find all matchy poo dresses.

Don't let this picture fool you.

Lingwall Egg hunt

Would you ever guess these 2 are a year apart? Axel is a hefty dude and Phoebe in a munchin.

Dorks

posers

buckethead

and last, but not least, my cross-eyed fool.

Sharty Party with Gingey

Faye woke me up at 5:30 this morning saying her "tummy" hurt. She ran to the bathroom and barfed. She barfed about 6 times in 2 hours. Mostly just water and stomach acid. She finally ate some yogurt and a little Cinnamin life about 9-ish. Then the sharts set in. 2 pairs of panties soiled and she suggested she wear one of Phoebe's pull-ups. Genuis! ... except that she went thru 2 pull-ups in a half hour. Well, being the cheap skate I am, I didn't want to use up all the pull-ups. Another genuis idea; pantyliners! yeah, not so genuis. The next shart went all up the back of her undies and thru the shorts. Oi vey. We're now back to a pull-up.

On a brighter note she did barf us a cute little gingerbread man:

I really, really can't handle barf. The smell, uh, uh. So as I was putting the rug and toilet seat cover in the washing machine i was dry-heaving, my sweet Faye says "Mom, don't worry, i'll get a rag and clean it up so you don't throw up". Even in barfy sharty mode she's nice. I told her I would do it and, amazingly, I did it. Not without some problems though.

They are now enjoying Ghostbusters 2 on Netflix. I used to have a thing for Peter Vankman. I don't know why because Bill Murray is so not handsome, but sex appeal he's got. (we already had this discussion on FB)

Holy Toledo!

Isn't that where Clinger is from? He made one ug-a-lee woman.



We made it to Jacob! Jacob, I tell you! We started reading the Book of Mormon as a family in January, not as a resolution, just happened to be the time I said we needed to "just do it". We've only attempted it once before and I think we only lasted a couple of weeks. Kids are great motivators. Especially when they don't want to go to bed and reading scriptures keeps them up just a wee bit longer. We've actually passed up where I was in my own scripture reading. Which is really pathetic/embarrassing considering it's been, uhm, let's just say "a while" since I started. Personal reading is not my strong suit. Sadly, I was a seminary drop-out in my junior year. I just didn't care about it and I told my mom she could either let me take something else or i'd just end up sluffing it all the time. What a brat huh? I kills me to think about the knowledge I missed out on those last 2 years, but I was a very different person and it might not have made a difference. I know so much about D&C because I loved my teacher, Bro. Barthalamew (I know that's not how it's spelled, but I enjoy it. Makes him sound like a kitty), and I wasn't quite the "cool kid" yet, so I went and partook of the knowledge he and the scriptures offered. My sophmore year was the BOM and I got a little outta that year, but that's when I starting my sluffing gig. I was really good at it.

A lady I worked with at Kohls told us how it took her family 4 years to finish the Book Of Mormon. She said she knew it sounded pretty pathetic, but she and her husband decided not to keep starting over and over and just keep going. She has 4 small kids and so I know how hard it can be to get to actually listen. I was actually a little inspired and thought we would do the same. Though hopefully it won't take us 4 years! Our kids probably don't get much out of it, but I know we need to just keep trucking. Half the time we're getting mad at them and then we always laugh later that's it's like "SHUT UP SO WE CAN READ SCRIPTURES!" We don't really say that, but some nights, man they are pains. But, we are already to Jacob! I'm really quite proud of that.

Before I forget I needed to share this story with those of you who do not know my sister April or read her blog. This story is about my looney granny, Twila Rockwell, and her dearly beloved cat, Sebastian. As told by April, whom I just copy and pasted right from her blog. Enjoy:
My parents took Chloe and Ella with them to Nephi to visit Grandma Rockwell and her cats. She starts telling this story about her cat "sebastian" that died. Well her grandson wasn't coming up til the weekend and she had no where to put this dead cat. So she put it in a sack and put it in the freezer until he could come bury it. My mom said you should have seen Chloe and Ella's faces.....big eyes, open mouths. Then she made a nice little casket for the cat with a satin lining and a red bow so when my cousin came to bury it she pulled it out of the freezer and one of its legs was sticking straight up in the air so they had to break its leg to get it in the casket. My mom laughs once again as she recalls the girls faces as the story goes from bad to worse.
The girls are semi-traumatized yet entertained at the same time. The kicker is that my mom said they didn't have anything to eat while they were there just ice cream sandwiches, which i quickly reminded her probably came from the freezer that the cat was in, you should have seen my moms face when I said that. I told Ella to come home with some good stories from grandmas and she didn't disappoint.

Treasure Trove to DIe for

I went on a DI hunt last week, and boy oh boy, did I hit paydirt! Well, to me at least. I spent 40 bucks and got a crap load of goodies, or as some may say, a load of crap. A few things may look like crap, but I can see the diamond in the rough. I think I need to be grounded from there for a while. I went just looking for a frame, and left with 17 items, none of which was a frame.

This french memo board was in perfect condition. Cost; 3 bucks! I gave it to my sis April because it matches Sameroos bedroom prefecto.


This dance sign will have the "dance" vinyl ripped off, but it has endless possibilities. Cost; 1 dolla fitty cents. The snowman lantern is just what I needed to hang from my sheperds crook by my front door around Christmas time. I think it was 2 bucks.


This little gem is going to be quite handy, and hopefully cute once finished. It's a mail/bills/keys organizer. Someone was just too lazy to finish it. First I need to get 2 more little pegs, add black paint, sand it, then rub with some stain and voila, it will be done. Maybe some vinyl on the front part? What should I have it say?


These were $3 for both. Daphne already has a shelf with scalloped edges, so once painted they'll go with Daff's room.


Except for dust and one little scrape (on the side), this was in almost perfect condition, and will be great for the newly painted downstairs bath. cost; 5 doll hairs!


Lastly, this fancy little pin. I don't know how i'll wear it yet. Not only did I love it, it was 50 cents.

Classic?

I've been adding classic movies i've never seen to the Netflix queue here and there and have enjoyed many of the "old" movies i've seen so far. That is not the case when it came to Breakfast at Tiffany's. I won't say I hated it, but I don't ever want to see it again. How is this movie considered a classic? It was crap. Money-grubbing call girl falls for writer/male gigolo (who just happens to look like Ken Barbie doll). What the freak?! All the while Audrey is quite adorable with her doe eyes, fake lashes and uber-stylish 60's fashions (which was probably the best part of the film). The acting was terrible. And the asian part played by Mickey Rooney was just plain offensive.

There was no breakfast at Tiffany's. The only thing that happened there was the cracker jack prize ring being engraved with their initials. Yeah right.

The moon river song had nothing to do with the movie. At all. That part felt so out of place and felt like you had started watching another movie entirely.

Can someone explain the appeal of this movie to me?

You want a classic? Get Harold and Maude. There's a good ol' classic.

My Precious

Here she is; Precious Pearls by Magna. Ain't she a beaut?

Doesn't this picture remind you of Peewee's bike? the streamers blowing in the wind. The tiger horn on the front that he pretends to brush it's teeth. I wonder if Faye will ride it to joke shop to buy trick gum, headlight glasses and a boomerang bowtie... does that come in red?
Sean and I had just been talking bout how Faye was getting too big for her bike, and how she needed a new one but I didn't want to spend a lot of money. Well into Target I walk yesterday, and there it was. Right in the front of the store. Only $50! Even better, I had a $10 gift card from filling a prescription last month... even the bestest, I was going there to refill that same RX and had another coupon for a $10 gift card. So the bike cost me $30. Can't beat that. And even made by the prestigeous Magna, wowzers!
She asked me if it was part of her birthday present (which is in October) and I said "well, maybe it should be". We don't normally buy our kids things unless it's a birthday or Christmas, or some sort of holiday warranting a gift. So I told her it could be a really early birthday present. She was just fine with that. Now, i'll just have to remember that in 6 months.