And there goes the truck.... for now ...aka... Thank you Maytag

Wow!!! It has been awhile since I have posted hasn't it. So much has happened. I just finished my first semester of collage in two years. Three A's and a B+, the B+ was in math so that's OK. The kids are great and actually getting along, its fantastic! Oh and our plans to buy a new truck in April have been pushed back for now. Here is that story.


It starts on Christmas day, or yesterday when Ben walked out to the garage and smelled a horrible smell. That smell was the compressor of the deep freezer going out. Thankfully it is cold outside and we had been putting money away for a truck, so we had it to buy a new one. that problem solved.

This morning i noticed that my washing machine ( the one that has been fixed twice already and Maytag refused to replace) was getting loud. Sure enough the bearing is going out again. I called Maytag to confirm the warranty that they said they were going to extend and guess what... the proper paperwork was never filed by Maytag. Sadly after dealing with this company multiple times and even being told to F@#$ off by one of the customer service people, I am not surprised. So I will run the washer until it dies then buy a non-Maytag washer.

But I refuse to think negative, the freezer broke in the winter, and I had the money to replace it, and I have at least 6-8 weeks to save money and review washers. So I am going to be grateful for small miracles... and NEVER EVER EVER buy another Maytag again!

Rasberry Jam and the crawlies

It is that time of year. The time of year where you realize that your jam supply is running out and you know you didn't make enough strawberry jam when strawberries were on. Seriously, we are down to our last bottle. So while Ben and I were out and about today, we bought both peaches and actually found some raspberries!!!!

I was very excited. Not only have I not done raspberry jam for about two years, We actually got a fairly decent price on them. So when we got home( after hunting for some regular neck lids, which Wal-mart doesn't have), I started to prepare my raspberries for jam. As I was washing them out one of the worst creatures alive came out. Yes, I am talking about the spider!

It was bright yellow and soon got flushed down the toilet! But the situation made me wonder, How many spiders do we eat when we eat jam? Makes you wonder. I bet some of you will never eat jam again after reading this. Your Welcome!

August

I love this time of year... The sweet smell and back to school supplies, the light and the end of the tunnel... the knowledge that soon my children will have other things to entertain them besides me. I love back to school time. In one week my children will have to get up, put on the cloths that we have bought for them and go to school and I will get to go to the hair salon and get my hair done without worrying about what my kids are doing. Its a wonderful time of year!

What I did on my summer vacation!

I have been bad! I haven't posted since June. I have thought about it... Really I have! But thinking about posting a new update is about as far as I have gotten! It has been a crazy and fun filled summer!

Brandy came to visit in june. That was a blast and the time flew by. Her kids were a hoot.

July it was off to Rock springs Wy. to see my family. Then my sister Tracy was kind enough to take my kids for me so that me and Ben could have a couples vacation. We went to Oregon, a place that I have always wanted to go. It was a blast!!

After we got home, we took the kids to hoogle zoo. That was a bit of a disappointment because they were doing construction to it seemed like half the zoo. But the kids had fun and that works.

Paint quest

I think the paint quest deserves its own blog. When I was newly married my husbands opinion of paint colors was very important to me. It soon got to be a big frustration. Ben thinks that the world should be painted in white. I believe that if your going to paint, paint in color! So after years of having the " do you like this color argument" I finally decided to just get what I like, and if he " hell No's it" well then that one is out. We are repainted and redoing most of the house. And I have chosen all the colors. No hell No's yet. My front room is now a brownish pink on one wall, with a bisque color on the rest of the walls and trimmed in a coffee brown. It looks great. The kitchen will be green trimmed in coffee brown, my bathroom gray and purple, my bedroom, purple with a light purple, etc. Not one of these colors are white. All of these colors have names of course, and I will post before and after pictures soon!

60 lbs and counting

 

Yes, you have heard me correctly! I have lost 60 lbs! Only ten more to go and I will have lost my year goal.
34 more total and I will have lost my total goal. I really need to work on my abs and arms but that's coming.

We had the pleasure of having Brandi and her two kids up here. It was nice to have another adult here to talk to and her kids , well Jade, entertained mine for the last three weeks. Brady and Ciabo were in a best friends/ worst enemies situation. They either played or they fought, and they really egged each other on. We dropped them off to Logan today so that Brandi could get her rental car and drive down to St George. My three and I were all pouting when they left. They were so much fun to have around and we didn't want to have to share them. I did a little retail therapy and bought the second and third Harry Potter movies in blue ray. It helped a little and I was going to get them anyways.

After we got home I decided to paint my bathroom. No this wasn't a wild hair idea, I had actually planned to do this before, even bought the paint already. My bathroom was blue and white. My husband runs a salvage yard. White isn't a good color to have in my house even if you don't add in the children factor. The new colors will be purple and gray. I just painted the trim and will have to go over it again but bring it on. It kept me from pouting for a while.

What do you do when your give a damn breaks

I have been doing awesome with so many things. My dad losing his Job and that mess, My weight loss, Working all the time, etc. It has come to a point that I just don't have the energy to care about most things. Some people call it being neutral. I say my give a damn broke. The fact of the matter is that on some issues, things have piled up so much, I don't care anymore. I have lost all compassion for it. Sad, yes. Typical, yes. I'm still losing weight like no other, I haven't lost passion for that, I am still enjoying my job, kids, etc. For other things I don't care. Sorry.

Other updates

Now that I have complained about my apparent non nursing skills, thanks dumb ass. I am ready to talk about other news.
Skylar turned 11 last Friday. I cant believe how big the kids are getting. My baby will be 6 tomorrow. I know that other peoples babies are older, but this is my blog so I'm talking about my baby. Time seems to fly now that I'm getting older. For instance, I'm still trying to figure out what happened to April.

We ended up with 19 baby goats born, 15 lived. We bottled fed 6 of them. we have 10 living females which will be added to our herd, 5 males, which will be sold at the auction.

I have lost a total of 54 lbs. 24 lost this year. Good times.

nurse or not a nurse

What kind of skills would you consider to be nursing skills? That is the question I ran into today. My coworker was told that she wasn't a real nurse, only a diabetic nurse. Whats the difference? From what I recall a diabetic nurse was a real nurse. BTW this was told to her by a CNA. Seriously, i don't think this guy realised that us diabetic nurses can stick a tube in any opening of your body and happily create more.And we wont even feel bad. Plus this is not something I would say to someone who is about ready to handle sharp needles. This guy need a sign. DUMBASS

Farm life

I have been waiting forever for these babies to be born. We figured they would be born in March, but noooooo.  The goat above is Daisy. She was born yesterday. Her mom ( nanny ) ended up having quads. Two died in child birth :(, and one was got by a predator last night, most likely a fox.  No we are not happy and traps have been set to prevent any more of the babies from being taken.

This little girl is Genny. She was born today along with her sister Fawn. Their mom (Molly) is a pure bred Nubian and this is the first time that she had kidded for us. Mom and babies are doing well.

This is the best picture I have of Fawn, she wouldn't look at me.

A slightly better picture. Aren't they cute!

We have six more goats pregnant and I will post pictures when they get here!

Baby goaties year two

So some of you heard about the fabulous Billy who we lent to Becky last summer. Well Billy is now proven or at least will be within a couple of days/ weeks. Out of my 8 nannies, 7 are pregnant and the other most likely will be soon.  If she isn't already. So I figure I will be getting between 8 and 12 new baby goats. Some will twin out. We are also hatching out chickens and ducks. But I have to have a talk with my roosters though. When we candled we had 10 infertile eggs. With three roosters that shouldn't be happening. Apparently the roosters would rather fight that breed. That doesn't work well with my plan. Hopefully I will have pictures soon of new goaties!

Where I stand

Its the last weekend of the month, its also the end of the first quarter of the year. Wow, that went by fast! Where do I stand with my goals you ask. Quite well.
 I have lost not 10 but 15 lbs. I have finished tying a quilt for my bed, I have started walking at night and worked on my house, and am working out at home. I have not taken many pictures or have worked on the outline of my book.
This is how my first quarter has gone.
January I worked... a lot!!! I had one paycheck with 93 hours on it.

February I got my computer virus, lost a couple of patients and got 63 hours on one check.

March- things are mellowing out. I have averaged out on hours, got dental insurance and have had a minute to enjoy life. I got the flu/ cold which knocked me out but I worked through it.
So now the question is What will April bring!!!

Wow! It hit 50 degrees! Woo Hoo!!!

Yes, You heard me right! 50 degrees! What did I do to celebrate? I cleaned my cars. I mean vacuumed, scrubbed, the whole nine yards.  I now have three clean vehicles. The car might stay that way for a while, but I drive that every day. The van will stay clean until the kids get in it. The Isuzu will stay that way until I start driving it again in the winter. Its a vicious cycle. But it made me feel good. three hours of scrubbing my finger nails off. I'm glad I took my acrylic nails off. After today, they would have fallen off.

Some people need to be slowly roasted over a hot fire!!!!!!

This has not been a good week for me. I worked 6 days in a row, two of which were very long, Got to have my boss follow me, oh and least I forget, got infected by a malware virus, which resulted in me getting my computer reformatted. No I am not happy. I personally feel that people who do this have nothing better to do with their lives and need to be sent cleaning up the sides of our highways where the will actually contribute something to humanity, or slowly roasted over a very hot fire. I'm good either way.

In my attempt to not reformat, I got to talk to a slew of individuals who should not be in computer support. My basic conversations included them telling me I cant fix my own computer and I needed to take it to a " computer expert" where they can charge me 180-200.00 to fix my computer. Don't ever tell me what I can and can not do thank you. needless to say these conversations didn't end well. I reformatted. Ben said I took the easy way out, I think I prevented my computer from being thrown out a window.

The Plan

This is a whining post... Readers beware!

The Plan:

Today is Thursday... My day off. All week I have been planning to go to Ogden and see my sister and my new niece, then go to Logan and attend a staff meeting and drop off a gift to my bosses baby shower. Afterwords I will go home, relax and plan dinner.

The Reality:

This morning I woke up with a upset stomach among other things. Ben informed me I was pale. Guess what I got. Yup the stomach flu. I even know where I got it. So now I don't get to see my sister, because I don't want to get her sick. I won't be going to Logan. I get to stay home and be sick. yip friggin ee

Do I really need a 23 inch moniter..... hummmm

So every female knows that it take at least one month to recover from the Christmas holidays. Money wise I'm speaking. This if for a couple of reasons. 1) the money you saved for the holidays are all spent 2) for some reason your gas and power bills go up 3) you are coming down from the spending spirit. So for me January is void month so to speak. I haven't saved any money however all my bills are paid. It also doesn't help that I have had to replace all my scrubs due to weight loss and had to get a new keyboard as mine had a mishap.  Ben for some reason doesn't understand this. Yes I have explained this too him.

Anyways, things are looking up and February is looking to be a good month. 1) I have worked loads of overtime 2) all the bills are paid.

I asked Ben what he wanted for his birthday. He replied that we have no money. See where this gets frustrating. I have explained this to him over and over again. So I explain this to him again. His response " I don't know, what do you want for yours?" Well I know what i want. A new monitor for my computer or a new lens for my camera. Both cost the same. He just looks at me... " do you really need a new monitor?" Well no I don't; however, it's my birthday wish... right.

Other news... I have lost 40 pounds and am on tract to lost the last of the 10 lbs that I planned on losing by the end of March. Yay!!!!! From the looks of it, most of my house will be under construction this year and I actually have colors picked out for the front room, my bathroom and my bedroom. We are getting rid of the green and going to a coppery brown in the front room. I think there will be two rooms in the house that won't be painted or redone in some way. Brady's room and a downstairs bedroom.

Spring is not here!

OK, I'm tired of winter! Seriously! I hate the cold, snow, etc. I'm not a big fan of summer either. Too hot! I love the spring and the fall. In the spring, the flowers are blooming, it cool but not hot. The fall, the leaves are changing color and the kids are back in school. Good times. BUT!!! right now I am stuck in the house with three kids that have cabin fever and are currently driving me nuts! I NEED SPRING!!!! Or I need to visit TJ, Diana and Dee in Phoenix. I'll hitch a ride with Becky, she won't mind... I think. I keep telling them I'm coming, but this thing called work keeps preventing me. Dang responsibility.

Happy New Year

It's the beginning of a new year. After every that happened last year I wonder how this one is going to treat us. No last year wasn't too bad, not after I switched fields. I am hopeful for the new year though. I have thought long and hard about what I want for New Year's resolutions and how to pull them off. This is what I came up with.

1) Lose 40 lbs this year. I aimed for thirty last year and lost 32. Not bad considering that I started in September. I have decided to do this in three month segments with goals set in between. Actually all my goals are in segments. I'll get back to that later.

2) Work on my book- I hope to get an outline done within the next two months

3) Finish the quilt for my bed, work on the kid's quilts

4) get my math and chemistry done and pave the way to get my RN

5) Paint my kitchen

6) work on my photography

7) ride my remaining horses, work with my horses

8) Go on vacation

9) get better at making bows for my girls

10) learn how to knit

11) learn more about blog layouts

12) Actually plant an herb garden

13) work on the house

14) Learn some stress relieving exercises and relax

15) go to the gym

As I said, I plan on doing this in three month segments

Jan - March- lose 10 lbs, hit the gym once a week, exercise at home once a week, get started on my quilt, finish the outline of my book, work on house, figure out what herbs I want in my herb garden. Take lots of pictures.

April - June: Lose 10 lbs, hit the gym twice a week, work out at home once a week, start walking at night, finish quilt for my bed, work on actual content of book, study for math, go on vacation, plant my herb garden, take more pictures, start on the kid's quilts, start working with the horses

July - September: lose 10 lbs, walk every night, take kids hiking, paint kitchen, more photography, continue to go to the gym, take care of herb garden, start classes for math and chemistry, work on book, work on kids quilts

October- December: Lose 10 lbs, keep on walking, more photography, work on book, finish kid's quilts, hopefully finishes math and Chemistry.

I also plan on blogging at least once a week to update my progress. It's a good plan, by this time next year, we will see how I did!