My Present to Me...

Last week I bought myself a camera strap from this shop and I love it. It's much more me than the one my camera came with. Very comfy, too.

Yesterday Cody didn't have school so we took the day off. It was lovely to spend a Monday going to the Parade of Homes and just laughing and joking around with each other. We went to our fav sushi place, Ichiban, watched our favorite shows The Walking Dead and Portlandia, and made home made BBQ chicken pizza.

I also had another moment of weakness in my baby hunger sickness. Cody and I had a talk about it but he seems unconvinced by my pleas to just get knocked up right this second. Mr. Responsible. In the end I decided he was right. I guess. Psh.

Valentines Day

For Valentine's Day, Cody took me to dinner at Benja's. They have such yummy Thai food! We even got sushi this time. Big deal.

Cody wore his new birthday shirt. I wore a ghost on my leg. Do you see it? Yeah, I'm pretty fancy.

I made Cody a manly man pillow case. Or at least that is what it started out as. Until the puns started flowing.

If you know Cody, you know that he likes plaid. So his pillowcase is made of plaid flannel. I drew out the deer onto some white flannel. Sewed it up and was pretty proud of myself, despite many, many frustrating sewing machine mishaps. (Do you always mispronounce mishaps when you read it like I do? Mi-Shaps).

And then I was like "Aww, maybe I could sew a little heart onto it, so he could always have my heart with him as he sleeps... or something." And then I was like "It could say something like 'I Love You." And then I was like "No! It could say 'To my Deerest'!!!!" And that was that.

I'm not the best at embroidering letters but it's the thought that counts, right?

Cody got me something I have wanted for a couple of years but it was always too pricey and not really a "need." It is a digital picture frame! I love it and I stare at it a lot now as it does a slideshow of all of my favorite photos.

Cody's Birthday

I am finally back to report on Cody's Birthday! It went a little like this:

I spent a long time on this decoration. A handmade birthday banner. It is something we can hopefully keep for a long time to make bday's special.

{Birthday Menu}

Appetizers:
Boneless Wings from Wing Nutz
7 Layer Dip from Costco

Beverage:
IBC Cream Soda

Main Course:
Jimmy Johns Sandwiches

Dessert:
Costco American Chocolate Cake
(We still have half a cake after 2 weeks. It is huge!)

Cody woke up to this yummy breakfast. And also maybe to the smoke alarm that went off twice because of it. I made him lunch and he had a bday note in his lunch bag as well. He gets well fed on his birthday.

When he got home we had dinner and he received a shirt with a fly fisherman on it and a picture of a weed whacker on it to represent the real gift. Then we tried to watch the Robin Williams version of Popeye... but that was weird. Very weird movie.

That weekend we went to the Pizza Factory and got a pizza in the shape of a 24. We went to the movies, and shopped for the weed whacker (Cody spent about 1 1/2 hours in the store deciding) and we finally got one! Take that, yard from Hades!

I think it was a birthday well done!

Home

Picture 1 - Some recent chalk board art I did. In the spring his antlers will start spouting leaves and flowers. :)
Picture 2 - My new terrarium lamp. Something I have coveted from Pottery Barn for quite a while. I finally found one at TJ max! It's so versatile and can change with the seasons.

Picture 3 - Regan, watching me take pictures.

Not much is happening. Cody is in school until 6 - 8 everyday. I am trying to figure out how to make a huge world map that is a mix between this amazing map and the below art by my hero, Mary Blair. If only I had her talent.


But unfortunately, I don't know much about painting. I need this to happen though. We have been planning out making a map for Cody's office for a while now. At first it was going to be cut out of old atlases and put together in little bits and pieces. Then it evolved into a fabric map, each state sewn together with different fun materials. Then I saw The Map of my dreams and there is no going back. It must be painted. And detailed and awesome. I am inspired and discouraged all at once because I don't know how to create something like that. I don't even know where to begin. I need help.

Next week is Cody's 24th birthday. I am busy planning and creating things for that so I will update on how it goes.

Surrendering

Since getting married 3.5 years ago, I have been urged by my husband and sister to combine accounts like a normal married couple. It is “the way it’s supposed to be,” and all that. I was not keen on the idea of this because I thought it would mean Cody analyzing every move I made with the bank account. How would Christmas work? Birthdays? He would be able to see where and how much I was spending which would ruin surprises for sure. And in the end, I realized I just didn’t want Cody to see how much I spend on unnecessary things.

But after several months of living from paycheck to paycheck, not knowing where our money was going, not knowing how the heck we were going to afford saving for a family, we decided to try a budget. We attempted this several times in the past couple years, actually. We would write everything down, trying to figure out how much money we needed for what. And in the end, on paper, we would have money left over. But in real life? Not so much. That extra cash did not seem to exist in real life. It was just… elusive. And we had no idea how to make this budget thing work. So it failed.

Finally we said “Ok, we will combine our accounts as soon as we get our (my) debt paid off.” I have a credit line that I had been a slave to for quite a while. When I could pay a few dollars off, by the next week or two I had dipped right back into it. One step forward, two back. I kept chipping away at it but it seemed that we would never get there.

And then a happy surprise check came in the mail one day last month. We were able to pay off all of my credit line debt, credit card debt, and a few other things, start a savings account, and create a combined account with BOTH of our names on it. Oh, and we also went out to dinner. Haha. It was such a huge, unexpected blessing!

But as all of this was happening, I was still skeptical of being under surveillance. Not knowing how much I could spend on random things. Somehow draining our account by accident and getting in trouble and ruining everything.

And then Cody, my cute, cute hubby, spent many hours of his time on creating a master budget excel sheet. Now there is a plan. A real plan that actually works. And I have to admit, I LOVE it! Even though I have a limit on my spending, at the same time I somehow feel like a rich person. Especially compared to where we were a few months ago.

And I don’t have to worry about any surprises being ruined! Cody figured out a plan full of fancy excel formulas. Our checks are deposited into the main account. Then we take out $300.00 ($300.00!) a month for emergencies and for our future family fund. This is a huge deal for us because until now we haven’t had any savings at all most of the time.

The bills come out of this master account, and a certain amount of money is deposited into our own accounts that we are allowed to spend on anything we wish. It is a very strange feeling to be able to spend a little cash on something I want and not feel guilt.

Actually I still feel guilt, but that is a gift I received from my …let’s just say “fiscally responsible” father, and I am working on squashing this habit.

So I am happy. We have had a weight lifted off our shoulders. And to think I was resisting this!

a groovy christmas

This year for our Christmas card we decided to channel the likes of the brady bunch and Ron Burgandy.

I think detail is what makes things special, but you couldn't really see it all in the card we sent out. Because I am a lover of vintage, the only thing we had to purchase for this photo shoot was Cody's jacket. Everything else in the picture is from my own collection including the mushroom painting done by my grandfather in 1977, the Merry Christmas cross stich, the 70's ornaments that belonged to Cody's mother, my favorite lamp, the mushroom figurine from a local antique shop and candles found in this very house. Behind Cody is a Bobby Goldsboro record (which we have never listened to but bought because of its obvious awesomeness), and next to me are the Carpenters Christmas albums. Behind them is a black sabbath record. Just for fun.

My dress is my favorite, even though Cody thinks it's ugly. It is a vintage 70's boho pioneer (?) type dress. You know, from back when people thought dressing in long pioneer style dresses and bonnets was stylin' Which is was. I'm sad that you can't see my dress in this photo very well.

Oh yeah, and the chair that someone abandoned in this house a friend was renting out. Jealous?

Here is a version of the card we sent out to family and friends last week.

And don't feel bad for my husband. Just envy him.

I think we're haunted...

Ok.

I know that there are perfectly logical explanations for the goings on that I am about to divulge, I just don't know what they are.

Let me preface by saying that I live in my grandparent’s house. I moved in after they went to a rest home, and they both passed away shortly thereafter.

Last night was a very restless night. I woke up to the light of my touch light, which is all the way over in my bathroom, but I can see it clearly from where I sleep. This happens sometimes, always in the middle of the night. Just every once in a while it comes on, on its dimmest setting.

Usually it does not bother me, I push my first thoughts of ghosts out of my mind otherwise my imagination will get out of hand. Besides, what ghost would do that? I can't think of any dead people that I know who are obnoxious enough to do that. I think that it was probably just some kind of weird power surge (I don't know what a power surge includes, but why not?) or maybe a short of some kind.

But why is it always in the middle of the night? The time of day that my mind is most likely to run away with me. And last night it was on its brightest setting which hasn't ever happened before. It has to be touched 3 times for it to be on the brightest setting. So of course, being the person that I am, I was a little unsettled.

But I pushed it out of my brain long enough for me to fall asleep again.

And then, it happened again. I woke up an hour later to the same thing. This time I was a little freaked out, and I unplugged the dang thing.

I go to sleep and proceed to have my least favorite type of nightmares. The ghosty type. I have these pesky dreams sometimes, and some of them are so real that I still have not completely convinced myself that they were actually dreams. The last one basically consisted of me waking up in my bed, feeling something invisible getting into bed with me, and then pressing me down so hard that I couldn’t move any part of my body, I couldn’t even breathe. I woke up with my heart beating out of my chest. That one was real, real freaky. And hopefully just a dream.

The one I had last night was more obviously a dream, but still flipping scary. It usually occurs to me that I am dreaming whilst in the dream, but last night that did not happen. I had the ability to feel ghosts, I would run into them sometimes in my house. I was like the ghost whisperer, but without actually being able to see them, and without the easy charm of Jennifer Love Hewitt. Anyway, there was a particularly annoying ghost, and my mom told me I had to herd it into this closet, board it up, and never go in there again. I was thinking “can’t ghosts just float through the walls and boards?” But apparently not. Anyway, it was a very stressful and long and scary dream.

So, I am willing to believe that my stupid touch light is just on the fritz. However, that does not explain the remotes in my living room.

Every 6 months or so, one of our remotes goes missing. Perfectly regular and unexciting, I know. BUT. The first time it happened, I looked everywhere. It wasn’t anywhere in the living room. So for some strange reason, I decided to look clear across the house in the bathroom cabinet. And that is where it was. I figured that it was either my sleepy sister or her son that had done it on their way to bed when they were staying with me a few days prior. She swore that it couldn’t have been her, she doesn’t sleep walk, or anything like that. I still thought that it was probably one of them.

And then the next remote went missing a few months later. We tore the living room apart. Our couch swallows things, so I looked in every crack, under the couch, behind the couch. It was driving me nuts. It was nowhere. I swear to you, every crack of that couch was searched thoroughly. It was missing for a few weeks. Then our other remote went missing. I looked and looked. And guess what I found? The first remote, in a very shallow crack in the couch. I almost lost my ever-loving mind. Again, I SWEAR to you that I searched that couch, that CRACK SO well. The remote was not there. And then suddenly, months later, there it was. Practically lying on top of the couch.

That was the point that I felt something strange was going on. Anyway, I later found the second remote. Now our PS3 remote is missing. This time, we literally took the sectional couch apart and lifted it off the ground and moved it. There was a lot of stuff, but no remote. Again, we have looked everywhere possible and it is nowhere to be found. I know that people lose remotes. But my remotes seem to fall into the netherworld when they go missing. When I lose stuff now and I look everywhere and can’t find it, I always look, while laughing at myself, in the bathroom cabinet. I haven’t ever found anything in there since the first time, though.

I guess I will just have to wait for the PS3 remote to reappear on its own. Or, you know, with a little otherworldly help.