In a random burst of motivation, let's go on a tour!

I'm alive.

I had you worried didn't I?

Things have been grand here in the world of me. Homeowning is good, work is good and family is great. 

We've been in our house for 6 months now and we're still loving it. I never did upload pictures for you so let me give you an imaginary tour... 

Hello, welcome to my home. Come in, won't you? What's that, you love the metal pine cone light that hangs above the entry? Don't lie, it's ugly. As soon as I find something better it's coming out. But if you actually like it then maybe I'll let you have it. Here, have a seat on the couch in our sitting room. I call it that because there's a couch here and that's about the only thing you can do in this area. That and stare out the window at my purple tree. Yes. My tree is purple, I don't know why. Anyway, stop staring at my tree and look at my dining area! It's the one with the gigantic table in it. We bought the table because we like having people over to eat. No, we don't eat them, we eat food with them! And right beside the dining area is the kitchen. It has lots of cupboards and I like it. I've discovered that glass top stoves are a pain to clean though. If ours ever dies while we're here I totally want a gas stove like we had in our first place. 

Alrighty, now that we've made it through the kitchen you'll see our side entry and a set of stairs leading up and a set of stairs leading down. This is a bi-level split and you know what that means: stairs, and lots of 'em! Oh you've decided to take the stairs going up, excellent choice. Here we have Astrid's room which has a window that faces west. That means that when we're trying to put this girl to bed the sun is shines right in to light the whole place up. Thank goodness for blinds and blackout curtains. Across from Astrid's room is a bathroom. Yup, I don't think I need to elaborate. And then at the end of the little hallway that I forgot to mention you were in is our room. Don't mind the mess. There's a door that leads onto our deck (which we'll explore later) and there's also an ensuite bathroom and a nice big closet for all my crap to go into. There's some awesome shelving in there too which I love!

Okay that is it for the upstairs so let's get back to the main level and decide where we'll go to next. Excellent choice, downstairs it is. As we come down, you'll see we're in a big room with carpet and a couch and a comfy chair and a tv. There's windows level with the deck so you can look out and see everyone's feet when people are out there. Yup, nothing too exciting about this room except for the fact that in the summer time it is considerably cooler than the upper levels making it a nice retreat from the heat. Wait a minute there's a door here, is it a closet? Nope, some more stairs! (Bi-level split, remember?)

So we journey down the stairs into the unfinished basement. The bare concrete gets pretty cold on your bare feet, hence the pair of flip flops near the stairs. But those are for me, not for you. You should have brought your own flip flops. Right at the bottom of the stairs is a closet type area under the set of stairs that led from the main level to the living room and then at the end of that little space is the entrance to a huge crawl space which is the entire area under the living room floor! This is gonna be awesome for Astrid to play around in when she gets older as long as we don't accumulate so much crap that we fill it up. Okay, coming out of the crawl space and continuing our tour of the basement we see another bathroom, no elaboration needed. Then there's the laundry room/furnace room, a spare bedroom and then what I like to call the Spare Oom. I call it that because of the giant wardrobe the previous owner left behind. One of these days it's going to open up right into Narnia, I just know it. 

And that completes our tour of the basement so let's head up the two sets of stairs to the main level and go out that side door onto the deck. Don't be alarmed, but we don't have a backyard. Just a deck. It's a big deck though, so don't feel too sorry for us. Oh yes, if you recall, while we were in my room which is upstairs, there was a door leading onto the deck, remember? So the door leads out onto a little deck and then there's a whole new set of stairs leading down onto the main level of the deck. I feel like whoever was building our house was in a competition with another guy building a house and they wanted to see whose house could have the most stairs without any of them leading to nowhere. I have a feeling our house won. ANYWAY, back to the deck: Joe felt like the whole thing was too empty so he just had to buy a BBQ. (I wasn't super thrilled about the purchase, but whatever. It was going to happen eventually). Right behind our deck is our garage. There's a couple steps (yes, more stairs) leading down to the door and inside is our Jeep which we named Bagheera. Having a garage is nice because in the summertime it keeps the jeep out of the sun which keeps it cool and in the wintertime I don't have to scrape the windshield! Wahoo! 

And this concludes our tour of my house. Maybe I'll post some pictures later and you can see if you imagined my house right, haha. Oh and because of my little tangent about the stairs, I just went and counted them and we have 21 stairs inside the house and 17 stairs outside. Can you beat that?

A Whole New World

Well it's finally happened. Joe and I are living together like a proper, grown up married couple. We've got ourselves a cute apartment in GP and things are going swell. We moved in over the Christmas holidays and by New Year's we were settled in enough to have our first house guests over to ring in the new year.

Our place doesn't have internet yet, so that's why you haven't heard from me sooner. Thankfully we live close to the library so it's only a 15 minute walk for me if I want internet. If I were really thinking, I would have taken some pictures of the place with my phone so I could share it with you! But alas, you'll have to wait for the awesomeness.

I don't have a job yet, but I've been in contact with the clinic I worked with over the summer so I'm just waiting for the boss to come back from holidays to hear the verdict. Hopefully something works out. With me being jobless I've gotten my first real taste of housewifery. I send Joe off to work in the morning with a smooch and then I have the house to myself to clean and launder and play xbox and by the time Joe gets back in the evening I have a delicious dinner ready for him and me. Being home all day can get a little boring (hence why I'm here at the library), but I've found housework to be surprisingly fulfilling. It actually feels good to clean the house and keep things tidy. (If only my mother could see me now!)

Anyway, I just wanted to drop a quick line to let you all know what I've been up to. I'll probably make another trip to the library next week and when I do, I'll be prepared to share pictures and bring the world up to speed on how my December was.

Until next time, stay warm, my lovelies!

The Month of Change

It's that wonderful time of year again.

October!!! 

My most favourite month for selfish and non-selfish reasons:
a) My birfday. I just turned 23, boo yah.
b) General Conference! If you've never seen it, you should! There are four 2-hour sessions. There were two today and there will be two tomorrow (Sunday) at 10 am and 2 pm. To tune in live via the internet, go here.
c) A billion other birthdays too, including Joe's and my dear friend, Trudy's!
d) Hallowe'en. I love any excuse to put on a costume!
e) It's pretty. I love watching the leaves change colour as long as I don't think about the imminent winter on its way.




This year, however, October is special to me for another reason.

Remember when this happened?

Today is the anniversary of the fateful day I crashed our favourite car. Although it was an awful experience, I am grateful it happened (and more importantly, grateful we came out of it okay!) and it is the reason why I am where I am today.

Did you ever wonder what made me choose to move up to GP this summer? It was this stupid accident. Before the accident, I was completely set against living in GP, even after I graduated. It was just too far away from my family. I wanted to at least move to a middle ground where we'd have family 3 hours away on either side of us. After the accident, I changed my mind. Joe had stayed home for a whole month and given me a taste of what it's like to live like a "normal" married couple. When the time came for him to go back to work, I was so sad that I knew I didn't want to do long distance any more. Initially I wanted to quit school after that semester and move up with him that year, but that was just the concussion talking. Luckily I came to my senses and knew that I needed to finish school before moving up with him. So the next best thing was for me to move up to GP for the summer. And I am so glad I did. My summer there changed my attitude about the city and made me realize there are good things there too.

So for my Lethbridge friends and family, now you have something to blame for me leaving you. And to my new GP friends, you now know what brought me into your lives. I just hope that for future life changes, God chooses a more subtle way to point me where I should go.

Two Hundred

I've started a couple posts recently, but haven't uploaded them because my last post was my 199th published post and I wanted 200 to be something special. I finally decided to write something and get it over with. So without further adieu, I give you my

For those of you who've been reading since the beginning, I thank you. We've been through a lot together here on the blog. You were with me when I used to talk about boys and how stupid they were. When I went on my trip to Australia you eagerly anticipated the days when I'd post pictures. Hey, remember when I created my 101 things to do in 1001 days? It's over now and I think I may have gotten like, half of them done...  And oh my gosh! You were there when I went on my first date with Joe (!) back when I called him Johnny.

There are so many memorable moments. I'm just going to put a bunch of labels at the bottom of this blog post and you can feel free to browse through them at your own leisure. 

Thanks for reading everyone! And here's to another

I don't plan on ending this thing any time soon, so I'm sure we'll get to 400 :) Who's with me?

All is Well

I don't have to go into the clinic until the afternoon today, so I've spent the morning chilling in bed with Joe. He's been put on nights for this shift so he went to work last night and got in around 8 this morning. He's sleeping right next to me as I type in bed.

If I hadn't decided to move up here for the summer this would not be happening right now. Joe would be up here by himself while I would be back home doing who knows what. This was such a good idea.

Things have been good here in GP. For Joe's first shift with me here he ended up getting sent down to the states for nearly the whole thing. I was feeling pretty bummed out about it by the middle of his shift, but then I  stopped moping and got busy.

I love working in the physio clinic I'm at. I get to see clients with my mentor, T, everyday and every case is so different that I couldn't possibly be bored doing this job. T is really great. She's good at getting me involved and testing my knowledge. My anatomy is a little rusty, but she's patient with me. It was nerve racking the first time she left me alone with a patient to do a couple simple exercises. But I'm slowly getting more comfortable and gaining a little confidence. Yesterday I helped a guy find his hips. It sounds silly, but he really had no idea how to move them.

I'm also having fun at the rugby club here in GP. There aren't nearly as many girls here as there are back home, so we do a lot of work with the guys. The men's coach makes a huge emphasis on fitness which is good because by the time I played my first game I wasn't dying like I thought I would be. There's a good group of people here at the club. I'm having fun playing with them. Joe's even made it out to a couple practices, which is awesome!

Basically, things are good for me right now. I know I made a good decision to come here because I am happy. I miss my family and my friends, but not as much as I thought I would. (no offence! I still love you all!) My first month has flown by and I am really enjoying myself.

A New Adventure...

We finally did it. Joe and I are finally living together -- for reals! Mind you, this is only temporary, but it will be permanent once I graduate.

GP's not too bad. This has been my third day here and I feel like I'm adjusting quickly. Yesterday was pretty windy and it reminded me of home. I feel like it was GP's way of welcoming me to town. This place isn't all that different from home anyway. Except instead of coulees there's muskeg and instead of it smelling like a brewery near my house it smells like freshly cut lumber.

We're living with some friends of Joe's. They are renting a house for themselves and their daughter so we're splitting the rent with them. We pretty much get the downstairs area to ourselves. I videochatted with my family last night and showed them the new digs.

Today was a good day for me. It started by going out to the physio clinic I'll be doing my applied study at for the summer to meet my mentor. Then Joe and I went to the field behind our house to get a workout in. While we were there I ended up meeting some girls who play for the GP rugby club and were coaching the high school girls' team. So I got to help them coach and now I know where to go for rugby practice. Then Joe and I ended our day by seeing the new Iron Man movie which I enjoyed much more than I thought I would.

It's certainly shaping up to be a grand adventure here in GP so I'll be sure to keep you all posted. Peace!

Babies: planning vs fever

Johnny thinks I got the baby fever and he thinks I got it bad.

I would have to disagree with him.

He only thinks I have baby fever because I keep coming up with random baby names and asking him what he thinks of them. For me, this is nothing new. I've been thinking up baby names since I was 12, what girl hasn't??

Last week in my Women and Health class we learned about childbirth and I decided that I wanted to try to have a home birth. Johnny fought me on this saying that something could go wrong and I could die or the baby could die if we weren't in the hospital. Which is exactly what I learned about in my class. Society has made us believe that having babies is dangerous for women when really, having babies is exactly what our bodies were designed to do! Either way, this new learning has only led Johnny to believe that I want a baby so bad right now.

Today I had the random thought about using cloth diapers and asked Johnny what his opinion was on the matter. I think cloth diapers would be a great idea because it would save us money from buying a new bag of diapers every week. And it would save on waste because we wouldn't be throwing the diaper out every time the baby gets it dirty. I think this is a genius idea, but as you can guess, it only makes my husband think that I am desperate to be a momma.

Personally, I think this is all just good planning on my part. We already know we're going to have kids one day, so why not start planning for it before it even happens? Yes, I do want a baby, but not today or within the next 9 months. I want to finish school and I am fine with waiting until I graduate before we take that next big step in our lives. It almost seems like there are tons of people we know having their first babies right now, and I am perfectly content to watch them go through the process and learn from their experiences before we do it for ourselves.

What do you think? Do I have baby fever? Or is this totally normal for a girl in my situation?

Yesterday

was such a good day, I don't know why I didn't blog.

One of the best things of yesterday was that I wrote my first final already. That's one down and three to go. I can do this.

Another awesome of yesterday was my nap. Oh my word, it was glorious. I had no idea I could still nap for a solid 2 hours!

And the cherry on top of my yesterday cupcake was that it was Johnny and I's 8-month anniversary! I am only making a big deal out of it because 8 is one of my favourite numbers and I have to wait far too long for our 8 year anniversary to make a big deal out of that one. Next month will be our 9 month anniversary which is 3 quarters of a year. I'm even more excited for that number because 3/4 is my favourite fraction.

I told Johnny about this on the phone last night and he said that since 13 is his favourite number he claims our 13th anniversary as his anniversary. He is going to treat me like a princess on all the other anniversaries, but for the 13th I have to treat him. To be honest, I'm scared I'm going to forget all about it. Should I start planning now so I don't have to worry about it down the road? I'm sure we'll have at least a couple children by then, so life will probably be more hectic. It'd be better if I just saved myself all the stress in the future and planned it now.

I seriously cannot wait for us to grow old together. I can't wait to see what life has in store for us and the things we will experience together. I once heard that you know you're in love when you imagine yourself spending forever with that person and it doesn't seem long enough. I must have it bad for Johnny, because to imagine an eternity with him only seems like the beginning...

5 excellent reasons why I don't have a car

Within the past two days, this topic has been brought up by a couple people so I figure that means I should blog about it.

In case you don't already know, Johnny and I have one car between us. And while he's gone at work that leaves me at home with no car. If I didn't have my way, Johnny probably would have bought me a car months ago. This is why I'm still car-less:

1. I am perfectly capable of taking the bus. As a girl who is chronically late to everything, the bus is nice because it gets me to where I need to go with time to spare. As long as I don't miss the bus, that is ;)

2. I own a bike. And during the 6 months of the year when it isn't snowing, I can ride anywhere I need to. Except the west side. I haven't gotten up the nerve to take on Whoop Up yet...

3. My parents live in town. And they love me. So if I'm in a pickle, they are pretty willing to help me out.

4. We have other plans for our money. We want to take a couple trips, we've been thinking of buying a house and Johnny has a good chunk of his student loans left to pay and I still have a bit of school left to finish. If we drop 6000 on a little car for me, that's 6000 less for the loan, for a trip and a down payment on a house.

5. I'm cheap. If I was ranking these in order of most influential, this is reason number 1. My motto is, "If we can live without it, we don't need it." The cave men got along fine without cars and so will I.

For now, these reasons work for me so I will continue to get along without a car. If we were to move to a strange city hours away from my family, we would buy another car. If we had a kid, we'd have a car. And if we had a million dollars, we'd have another car. And a private jet.

lonely, but loved

It's ranting time!

This is something that has bothered me since I got married. Actually no, it's bothered me since Johnny got his job with Halliburton, but it's bothered me more since we got married.

I hate it when people ask how I like living alone while Johnny's off at work.

Seriously, people do that.

Yes, my husband works out of town for two weeks at a time. Yes, it sucks but it is just a fact of life because this is how we are surviving right now as newlyweds. Yes, it is a sacrifice but it won't last forever so don't pity me. I grew up with my father working the rigs, so I knew precisely what I was getting into, yet I still chose it.

I am actually grateful that Johnny has the job he does. Even though it can be really tough to say goodbye to him and to have to handle the house on my own while he's gone, it really makes us appreciate the time we do have together. Because of this, I can proudly say we've never had a fight because our time is too short together not to enjoy it.

So for the people who want to know how I like living alone while Johnny's gone, know that I love it. I love it because it means I am married to a man who is sensible enough to stick with his well paying job to provide for our little family, and for that I am so grateful.  Even though the time apart can be really tough, there's enough love between us to make it all worth while.

if he doesn't find me handy, he'll at least find me handsome.

I've become a muffin pro, I make my own meals and I can fix the dryer. Look at me go!

About a month ago we had to get our dryer replaced because the original conked out on us. However, when I went to use the new one for the first time, I discovered that the tubey thingy on the back was not securely attached so it came off and the dryer ended up blowing hot air into our bathroom/laundry area! If the only roll of duct tape wasn't in the car with Johnny at work I would have fixed it right away, but it was and so the job got put off. But on Monday, November 21st, I - Leinani, a girl with zero experience fixing dryers - rolled up my sleeves, rolled out the duct tape and fixed that sucker! 

Here's the original patch job... No good. 

My patch job! awesome! 

Yeah! 

I think Red Green would be proud.

Yeah!