Click-It or Ticket or Die!

So just after I posted my last post on Friday night I got a phone call, from Doug. He and his brother had gotten in a car accident on their way to Denver. They were going along on the highway and a deer jumped out in front of them. Jared (brother) was driving and instinctively swerved out of the way, the car flipped over and rolled 4 or 5 times. Both Doug and Jared were wearing their seat belts so they did not get thrown out of the car. A semi-truck driver saw it and stopped, he thought they were probably dead. They both were able to walk away just fine. They declined an ambulance (later the doctor at the hospital basically told Doug he was stupid for not getting one). Scott (another brother) drove up from Salt Lake and picked them up (40 miles out of Evanston, WY) and drove them to St. Mark's Hospital in Salt Lake. Doug got x-rays and a CT Scan and everything looked normal and fine. He just has a long cut on his thumb, they just used liquid band-aid to secure it together, no stitches even. The Highway Patrol guy told them they will probably go on the "Seat belt Survivor List" because it is honestly a miracle that they are alive, let alone healthy and well. So to all of you who don't wear your seat belts religiously, think twice.

On a lighter note, Jared still drove to Denver with their other brother David. By the grace of Jimmer, BYU won the game, and it was exciting. Doug stayed home and slept all day while I was on my field trip. He is doing fine, just a little sore all over.

That is the closest I ever want to come to being a widow until I'm at least 70 years old. I want a 50 year anniversary, and by-golly I better get what I want.

Madness, March Madness

I--Lizzie--coming from a household full--except for Dad--of girls, has never really lived through this so-called "March Madness" business. Last year wasn't too exceptional, I hardly remember it. But this year, Jimmer Madness has made March Madness even more mad. Doug and I went to Las Vegas for the Mountain West Tournament. It was lots of fun, even though we lost in the finals. Sidenote: San Diego State fans are awful! They are so crude and rude, which is exponentially elevated through copious amounts of alcohol.

Now the madness begins. BYU was given the number 3 seed and is playing in Denver tomorrow. Today Doug's brother suggested they drive to Denver for the game. So Doug is in a car and I am watching Bones and blogging (I might've gone but I have a field trip tomorrow that I will discuss later in this post). Doug texted me this picture. He was so proud. He hooked his computer up to our tv and had all four basketball games going on at once.

So for my Animal Husbandry class we have two field trips. The class is 3 credits, but we are only in the classroom for 2 hours a week. We go on field trips to make up for the extra hour/week we're not in class. I'm really excited for them. Tomorrow we will be going to my professor's house--he has an alpaca farm--and a dairy, and somewhere else. We will help him shear an alpaca, draw blood from a ram and alpaca, and a few other things. The next field trip will be April 14th, we will go to a sheep farm, turkey farm, and turkey production plant. The sheep farm will be in peak lambing, so chances are I'll get to see a lamb being born, and cuddle with a few. Maybe that's where the saying "In like a lion, out like a lamb" comes from... lambs being born, coming out at the end of March...hmmm.

The only thing that makes me less excited about my field trip is the fact that currently an injury to my lower back limits my movement and ability to wrestle goats. Wednesday night we had a Relief Society Activity (I'm on the committee and had to help set up). I pulled out the giant rack of chairs, stacked to full capacity, from the closet. The job fell to me because everyone else there was pregnant, and we didn't want any early labor. Apparently, I failed to properly brace my legs as I pulled the 1,000 lbs of chairs out of the closet. I woke up Thursday, jumped out of bed, and promptly collapsed to the floor. I crawled back into bed thinking, "Shoot me now. I can't work like this, I can't shower like this, I have to turn in a project today. Shoot me now." Doug went to work and left me at home to recuperate, until the afternoon when I had to go to class. I worked on my project practically all day (don't even get me started on that stupid class). I had a little incident in the bathtub, mainly I was lying down and couldn't sit up for a little while. I am doing better today, but I doubt I will be 100% by tomorrow.

I also chopped off my hair on Monday. I was getting so sick of styling it everyday, so most days I didn't. It got in the way all the time. Doug would put his arm around me and pull it, it would get staticky, tangled, not worth it. He didn't want me to cut it, but every time it got in the way I would say, "If I had short hair, this wouldn't be a problem." Finally, I got through to him. It's shorter in the back than I've ever had it. It's a fun new challenge.

In like a lion...

Viva Las Vegas... almost. We're going for the Mountain West Conference Tournament (Men's b-ball) but any excuse to go to Vegas, miss school, and gamble (maybe not the last part) is good enough for me. Doug bought tickets to all the sessions, on Thursday BYU will only play in one session (don't know which one yet, so to be safe he bought tickets to both). So once we find out which session we aren't going to we can sell the tickets. B-ball fans pay big bucks for tickets. Just Wednesday a guy at Doug's work gave him (Doug) his (guy's) season tickets for the game. We sat in row 15 center court= awesome. I could see the wood grain in the court. The game was sold out (students were camped out in tents in line for their tickets since Sunday night) so we sold our old seats (row 110 or something like that) for $45... each!! I sorta feel sorry for the sucker who bought them because we lost, horribly.
Sidenote: We've been talking about grammar in my English class. I know I've been going parentheses crazy, but according to her you can, "break the rules as long as you know the rules, and you aren't just arbitrarily doing it." To be honest, I don't know the proper way to use parentheses yet, but they're really fun, and helpful to keep you (the reader) following what I (the writer) am thinking.
Well only 49 days until graduation, but who's counting? Doug and I found an apartment we would like to live in and put a deposit down. That was last Friday. They still haven't called us back to tell us how the background and credit check went. It should be fine though, right? This is the website in case you were interested. We got the 3 bedroom townhome with a garage. I like the extra space, and I wouldn't mind living there for a few years or so until we can get a home. Compared to all the other apartments we looked at this one had the most space for the least cost. Not to mention they are brand new, still being built.
Viva Las Vegas!

Smart or just lucky?

Is my cat really this smart, or has he just gotten lucky?

Picture this. It's Monday night/Tuesday morning, a.k.a. 2:30 a.m. I am asleep until... something is pushing on my chest, I faintly hear a motor boat, wait, could that be purring? Ahh, wet something touched my nose. That is how Milo woke me up. Doug's reaction was better, Milo tickled his (Doug's) ear with his (Milo's) whiskers (Doug only has whiskers when he doesn't shave for a week). What are the cat's doing out at 2:30?? I know we put them away. There were only 2 explanations, we have ghosts, or Milo opened the door himself. I haven't had any other "haunting" experiences, so it must've been Milo.
He has opened the door once or twice before (we have lever handles, not round doorknobs) by jumping up and accidentally catching the doorknob. This hasn't happened for months, so I took it to be accidental.
Now it is Tuesday night/Wednesday morning 3:30 a.m. Can you guess what happens? If you said the cats got out again, you'd be correct. I promptly put them back in their room, climbed back into bed (still warm, mmm) and was drifting back to sleep when... I hear a click, squeak, and... purring. Urgh. He did it again!
Now tell me, is this an accident? I think not. I was tired, and not thinking well, so I put the cats in the garage for the rest of the night (garage door has a round doorknob). Thinking more logically now, we lock them in their room. As in, we have to open the door with a key. Is this normal? I mean, Milo doesn't even have to jump anymore to get the doorknob. All he does is stretch out his slinky of a body, and tahdah!

Other than that, our lives are the same as always. School (boring) work (boring) and dishes (boring). Sidenote, I made a sugar scrub from here. I made it just like the recipe, and it worked surprisingly well. I smelled like a cookie all day (best day ever).

Happy New Year's Eve-eve

Christmas vacation has been great. It's been nice not worrying about school. Work has been pretty laid back. Since so many people were gone I was obliged to be a delivery driver. I had gotten my BYU Driver's Permit during the summer so I could drive to Aspen Grove (about 2 hours round trip, anything to get out of the Laundry). I was one of the few left over break who can drive. It wasn't bad except for the snow, cold weather, and heavy heavy bins full of laundry. Did I mention the size of the trucks? They're huge! With side mirrors that stick out like whiskers, and no rear-view mirror. I thought I was going to take some poor missionaries out with them (mirrors) as I was driving down the sidewalks of the MTC (one of the perks of driving is you get to drive on sidewalks). No more work for the year, and thankfully no more driving.

Doug and I got new cell phones for Christmas. We're having a lot of fun with them, me mostly because it's my first smart phone. I don't know if I'd be happy with a regular old phone anymore. I'm spoiled.

Cheryl was kind enough to give us her old Christmas tree (they got one that was prelit). We put it up and decorated it... And then the cats got involved. Sadly we had to take it down early. We feared they would strangle themselves on the lights.

It was pretty while it lasted. Hopefully by next year they'll have grown up enough to stay out of it.

I had a great birthday. We went to IHOP (because I love breakfast food). I got pumpkin praline pancakes. Delicious! Then we went and saw Secretariat at the dollar theater. It was a really good movie. Doug wanted to change Milo's name to Secretariat after. It hasn't stuck. Then I reread all of the Hunger Games books (because Doug got me the first one for my birthday and completed my set). What more could I ask for? It was a perfect day.

School starts again on Tuesday for the last time! I can hardly contain my excitement. Hooray for 2011! I thought this year would never come.

Pictures!

I opened my computer to do some homework, but got distracted. Oh well, you will reap the fruits. I have lots of pictures, not only of my cats! Shocking, I know. But, I'll start with the cat ones. This first is a video of them with the ping pong balls. This is at the bottom of the stair by the front door. They spent over an hour down there playing. Of course when I pull the camera out they get shy.

Right when Doug got home today and sat down Milo climbed up on him. So cute.

Then Pepper wanted in on the picture action.

Milo has huge ears. Sidenote: I took off their collars because one morning I let them out of their room and Milo had gotten his jaw stuck in it, don't know how long he was stuck, but the collar was soaked with saliva and his fur around it was soaked too. Poor guy.

Enough of that. Now on to my plants class. Every week we get to bring home a new plant. I gave Doug the first one to take to his work. Plants in the workplace increase productivity, health, and all over well-being of the employees. The next week we made European Gardens (a bunch of plants in one pot).

This one has a Madagascar Dragon Tree (the big spiky one), Fittonia (the one with pink veins), a Rubber Plant (in the back can't really see it), and I don't know the name of the dark green with purple or the other green one.... yet.

The week after I got this cute Neanthe Bella, it's in the palm family. To spice things up my teacher had various plastic animals to put in the pot. I chose the frog, and named it Doug II.

Then today we got to make Bonsai trees. Ours are just small young ficus trees. I got to make two, one variegated and one not. I braided the trunks of the variegated one. I'm excited to continue to prune and shape them.

And all of them together.

Can't think of a title.

So after a year I finally added myself (Lizzie) as an author to this blog. Before, I would have to sign out of my account, sign in with Doug's (since it's under his email) and then post. Before I could check my email, I would have to sign back in to my account. Doesn't sound too bad until you have to do it all the time. I'll use that as my excuse for not posting very often.

After that preamble I'm sorry to say I don't really have anything in mind to blog about. I'm just that bored. Doug is at the football game. I'm home alone with my cats. I really am the cat lady. How far have I gone? Milo was sick, I took him to the vet, and didn't even hesitate to fork out $120 for it (exam, de-worming pill, anti-biotic shot, and anti-biotic medicine). The recent fire in Herriman caused me to ponder on what I would take if I only had 5 minutes to evacuate my home. My cats, my marriage certificate, and my memory box. I love my cats.

Milo is even helping me write my blog. I won't go as far as having a Facebook page for my cats, or even their own blog (though some might argue I'm turning this one into an ode to them).

On a different note. I'm thoroughly enjoying my plants class. Each week we learn about caring for indoor plants and in the "lab" we plant one and get to take it home. So far I have a Lemon-Lime Dracaena, a European Garden (basically a bunch of plants in just one 8-inch pot), and I'm propagating a Spider Plant from some clippings. For Halloween we have to take a hollowed out pumpkin (I'm guessing we'll plant a plant in a pot and then stick it in the pumpkin). How festive. I like Halloween. I would like to decorate more, not the creepy-fake-spider-webs everywhere, but classy Halloween decor.

Doug and I finally got a ladder (to put a new battery in a smoke detector). But I was able to put up my vases, that I've been collecting, on the ledge. They look nice, but I need more. It's a long ledge.

Just an F.Y.I. I bought Tootsie Pops the other day, they have Raspberry and Banana flavors! I didn't get to try the Raspberry, someone ate them all before I could. But the Banana tasted just like the banana twin popsicles. I would highly recommend them.