New Year's Goal? Check.

So if you read my last post, you know that our only goal for 2012 was to buy a house. Well, pending any extreme acts of God, we should be closing on a house in 4-6 months. Long time away right? Well that's where the acts of God come in; the house is in the process of being built. It's a new townhome in Draper, right off of I-15 and Bangerter. We went to check them out, and when we walked in it felt like home. There were only 2 units of the model we wanted available, and they were taking reservations. We didn't want to pass up such a good deal, so we put earnest money down. Eek!
The townhouse is technically 3 levels, but one level is an unfinished basement. All 3 of the bedrooms are on the top floor, along with 2 bathrooms and laundry room. The main floor is the kitchen, 1 car garage, living room and half bathroom. Outside it has a 10'x1o' concrete patio, and then a bit of grass surrounding. We will probably get it fenced in. I've been longing for just a little backyard and some privacy. I want to be able to open my blinds and not have people walking right by the window in the backyard. It's just enough outdoor space to fulfill the need, but not so big that it will be a huge landscaping project (we'll save that for later on when I don't have a job and can spend my summer in the garden). We picked an end unit, from the floor plans it looks like it has extra windows, but I guess we'll find out.
We have already been pre-approved for a loan, and we're just waiting for the realtor to call us so we can pick which upgrades we want: paint colors, carpet, and cabinets. Doug doesn't sound that excited about all the decorating stuff, but it's better than Christmas in my opinion.

2011

2011 Condensed:
Doug and I got to see Jimmer play Cougar Basketball in person on a few occasions, one including a trip to Las Vegas for the Mountain West Tournament. We moved into a new apartment, that has had mice in the garage, a water heater that wouldn't work, and dog poop in our front yard, but has provided lots of space for the cats to run around. Doug is lucky to be alive after a rollover accident back in March, and Lizzie is happy to still have a hubby around. Doug lived in New York for almost 2 months while Lizzie stayed home and held down the fort. We welcomed 2 new nieces into the Jaffa family tree. Lizzie has had 3 different jobs, and has really enjoyed 2 of them. We bought a second car (finally) and it has been so nice. We managed to kill all of the houseplants we acquired in each of our interior plants classes, probably around 10-12 total. Oh, did I mention, WE GRADUATED COLLEGE!? Yeah, that was pretty cool.

Our main goal for 2012:
Buy a house

Happy New Year

Ketchup? Catsup? Oh, catch up

Let's catch up:

• Doug has been home for 2 months now and we're getting into the swing of things with "real jobs."
• We got the title for Aunt Eula's car, and Doug has been driving it to the Trax Station in the mornings. Thank goodness, it's so nice having two cars.
• We found MICE in the garage! I thought Doug was joking when he said he saw one run past him. Eeew, makes my skin crawl just thinking about it. We got "sticky traps" from apartment management, but the traps are empty, go figure. I refused to park in the garage for a couple days, but it's gotten too cold outside and I'd rather encounter a mouse than scrape my windows. I know, we have cats and cats are supposed to catch mice, right? Well, tell that to Milo and Pepper; freeloaders.
• I got a new job. Yay! Okay, it's not really that exciting, I'll be answering phones and entering orders on a computer, whoop-de-do. But it's a $2 increase in pay and I'll be getting a full 40 hours a week with my weekends off. Let's just say I won't be too sorry to leave my current place of employment on Nov. 4th. (Happy Birthday to Sarah)
• I got called to be the Mia Maid advisor in my ward. I really enjoy it! I taught a lesson two weeks ago, and will teach this next Sunday again. I went to mutual (it's a lot different being an adult). It's weird how much the Young Women program has changed in the 4 years I've been gone, and yet it's still so much the same. It makes me try harder to be a good example because I know they look up to me.
• I want to dress my cats up for Halloween. Milo as Puss in Boots, the new movie has inspired me. "Look at your cat. Now look at me. Back to your cat, now back to me. Sadly, your cat is not me." And Pepper as a pirate. She has a goopy eye (from a cold) and I really want to put a patch over it because it makes my eyes water looking at the poor thing. So naturally a pirate is my costume of choice.
  

• Doug and I really enjoyed General Conference. All of the talks were so inspired. It has become a mini tradition to make Carrot Soup at General Conference. (We make carrot soup pretty often anyways, but it goes so well with being spiritually fed.) And what's General Conference without a family nap in between sessions?

I'm the one under the cats, in case you couldn't tell.

And that's the past few months in a nutshell for ya.

Home, Home on the range

Today is my day off and I thought I should do a little updating. I'm not feeling very well, I've come down with a cold, so I'll take a break from my relaxing to inform all of you of our recent happenings.

First off, Doug is home! He flew in last Saturday, thankfully before the airports shut down because of Irene. He got in at around 10 a.m. so we got to spend the whole day together. I couldn't have been happier. He was really tired, he only slept 2 hours the night before because he was keeping up on the news to see if his flight would be cancelled. So he took a nap for a couple hours. Then we went and looked at Aunt Eula's Blazer she was selling. She just bought a new car, it's really pretty, and was selling her '01 Chevy. It took a few days for us to decide, but ultimately we bought it. I've named him Winchester, Chester for short. We're still waiting for Aunt Eula to go back up to Grouse Creek to get the title, so we can't really drive it yet. Sad.

We wanted a second car for Doug to drive to the Trax station. He needs to be to work in Downtown by 7, so he leaves the Trax station by at 6. The station is about 2 miles away from our house, and the road to get there doesn't have any streetlights or anything. We live out in the boonies where there are just factories and distribution centers. We had originally planned on him riding a bike, but I don't feel comfortable when it's so dark and early in the morning. (Just this morning he said he almost hit 2 deer on his way there.) So the Blazer works out great, it will only get about 4 miles of use a day, so gas mileage isn't an issue, and Aunt Eula sold it to us really cheap. So since we don't drive it right now, I've been dropping him off and picking him up from the station. It will be so nice when he can drive himself. More than once I've been in the middle of making dinner when I need to go get him.

Speaking of dinner. I've been trying to make more home cooked meals, you know, to get into a good habit of it. I need good basic dinner staple recipes. It's hard to cook for two, especially when we don't care much to eat the same leftovers for two or three nights. Any suggestions?

Other than that things are the same old. Milo and Pepper and little rascals as always. Pepper knows when it's bedtime and when I'm going to put them away for the night. She runs under the table in the corner where she knows I can't get her. One of these days I need to use her intelligence for some entertainment. Maybe train her to do a puzzle to get food or something. That would be fun.

That's about all the time I can manage to spare from my relaxing and recuperating. Til next time, enjoy finding me good simple recipes

Round Two

This will be a mushy gushy post. Consider yourself warned. I just want to gush over how great my hubby is, you all can be jealous. On our last anniversary I posted things I had learned over the past year. Now it's been two years, and I've learned even more.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate. If I'm feeling upset about something he can't guess what it is, I need to tell him, and vice versa. If I want him to do the dishes, or take out the trash, I need to tell him and not be upset when he doesn't just notice.
• It's important to think about the other person's needs, and make sacrifices to fulfill those needs. Doug needs the security of being financially stable; I don't like working, but I want to help him out in the way he needs me to.
• Marriage is just as much work during school as it is being graduated, just less homework.
• It's fun living with your best friend.
• Patience. Nothing is perfect right at first. But it always gets better.
• Love is shown in lots of ways, find as many as you can.
• Hearing, "I love you" never gets old.
• The time you spend being angry is all wasted, and you can never get that time back. You'll regret it later.

Doug is the perfect man for me. He puts up with all of my idiosyncrasies. We got cats because I love animals, they can be a real pain, and financial burden, but Doug puts up with all of it. He doesn't mind that some nights I just don't feel like cooking, and he'll eat Ramen Noodles. He listens when I'm upset, and bless his heart, he always tries to fix the problem. I love how he will randomly burst out in song. I love how generous and caring he is to me, and to other people. He is so good at looking past my faults, and forgiving me so quickly. He doesn't hold grudges, something I can learn. He tries so hard to be a good provider, and make sure our lives are comfortable. He's the cutest, sweetest person in the whole world, and he's all mine. I can't wait for him to finally come home. But it's true, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Happy Anniversary (on Monday) Doug. You're the best.

Call me Crafty

So my super cute sister-in-law had a baby shower July 16th. I didn't think I would be able to go because of work, but fate was on my side and I wasn't scheduled to work that day. I've been thinking about things I could get her, I'm kinda new to the whole baby-shower business. Since money is a little tight I decided I would make something cute. Then the search began for something cute, trendy, and easy to make. My mom told me about tulle tutus, which I had never heard of babies wearing. I looked them up, and they look really cute, and are probably the easiest things to make. To prove it, I semi documented the process of making mine.

As you can see, I'm very professional. My mac is my cutting surface, the remote is holding down the tape so it doesn't move, and all my sewing stuff is in a Nike box. The only legit thing in this picture are those scissors. I bought two rolls of tulle, 25 yards each. I cut them 18" long. Since my cutting wasn't very precise I almost ran out. So you can either buy tulle by the yard, it's pretty cheap, or get bigger rolls. Cut the strips 6" wide and then however long you want. I liked how 18" looked.

I cut the elastic waist 19" at first, but then ended up cutting off about 1.5" at the end because it looked huge, and I ran out of tulle, and didn't want to buy more. The elastic is 1" wide and it's the non-folding kind, so that you can tie the knots tight without it bunching up. Then I just took a strip of yellow and a strip of pink tulle, and tied them in a square knot around the elastic. As you're tying the knots it helps to keep the elastic stretched, so I put it around my thigh and it worked great.

This is the tutu all done, and a little out of control. I made the headband out of stretchy lace and leftover yellow tulle. I cut the tulle into circles and then burned the edges to make them curl. I sewed a little pearl button in the middle then sewed that onto the lace. And there you have it.

(That was back in June, I just didn't want to post it until after the baby shower.)
Update: I also made another tutu for my other sister-in-law who is also having a girl. Hers was light pink and red, it turned out cute too. Sorry I didn't take pictures. I did it late at night and the lighting was terrible. But they are so easy to make. I suggest you try it out. You could also attach the tutu to a onesie, so it's more like an outfit. Or it would be cute to attach little things to the tulle, like rhinestones or little flowers.

My Kiddies

I like cats because they are cuddly. They aren't bony like dogs, they can just curl up in your lap and their body will conform around yours. I'm lucky to have Milo, he's affectionate all the time. Pepper can be a real brat sometimes, but she has redeeming moments. Like when Doug pours a bowl of cereal downstairs, she hears it from upstairs, and she comes running down to lick his bowl when he's done.

Don't get me wrong. I want a dog. I want to be able to train something, and not just spray it with water when it jumps onto the counter (I honestly hope my dog won't jump onto the counter). I like the idea of taking a dog places, hiking, to the park, camping, etc etc. But for apartment living I think cats are the best choice.

I just had to include this picture. I was making bread yesterday and Milo was very concerned about the noises. He would jump up, and circle it, look in, meow, circle it meow, etc. Then the cuteness was over and I had to spray him square in the face with water.

In other news, the Mavs won the NBA Finals, and we couldn't be happier. Doug, because he's not a big fan of "King James," and me because when Doug's happy everything is good. There's nothing worse than having a depressed hubby because his team lost.

In other other news, Doug and I did some great shopping over the weekend. He needs dressy clothes for his new job, so we've been on the lookout for good deals. JcPenny had their ad in-store and in it was a coupon for $10 off a $25 purchase. It just so happens that dress slacks were on sale for $27 (normally $60). We each grabbed a pair of pants, each with a coupon in hand, and after a couple of trips, walked out with 3 pairs of slacks, and two dress shirts for $81. With the 4 coupons it was $40 in savings! And it was not dishonest in any way, the coupon only said "one per customer." We were each customers, and there was no daily limit. Yay for coupons!