Associates Degree

It took me 15 years, but I finally have my Associates Degree. Okay, it really didn't take that long, I just took a 14 year break in the middle. 

I wasn't going to walk because I still plan to continue my education and get my Bachelor's Degree in Accounting. But after talking with family and friends, I decided to celebrate my hard work and be a part of the ceremony. 

Two weeks before graduation, my new adviser informed me I was missing a class and wouldn't be able to walk. (This is what happens when you take a 14 year break.) It took some arguing, and I had to get the okay from the main campus in Logan, but I finally got them to agree to use an old class I took back in 2000. This issue wasn't settled until pretty much 2 or 3 days before graduation, so I was really excited when I went to pick up my hat and gown. (This issue also followed me the next semester when I tried to register for an upper division level class; but hopefully everything is set now.)

I'm glad I walked. But everything else about the night was kind of boring. We had to be there a few hours before the ceremony to line up. So I took some selfies in the hallway. It was held at the Jr. High, so my background is weird artwork that was decorating the halls. 

Dallon also graduated that night with his Bachelor's Degree in Wildlife. That's probably why I decided to walk. I knew we couldn't go watch him and have me miss out. 

It has been so much work. I couldn't have done it without Josh. Working full-time, starting a new job, and going to school all at the same time has been a lot of work and has meant a lot of sacrifice. Last year, we only went camping once. I haven't been fishing in over a year and I don't see my nephews near as often as I would like. I stress that my house is never clean and Josh jokes that he does all of the cooking. But I know that it will be worth it. With my new job, I'm already seeing the benefits and I know they will continue to grow as I finish my education. Hopefully just a few more years of hard work and then I will be finished with school. 

Our New Home

 For the last three years, Josh's job has had him working out of town, just about every week in the spring, summer and fall. The first year, he stayed at his grandparents each week. But then the next year, the company made room for him in their company house they own in Vernal.

 

Last year, we started talking about buying a home that would be more central for our jobs. I had been making a 40 minute commute for my work. We wanted to cut that down and also be able to get close enough to Vernal that he would be able to come home each night.

 

We looked at several houses, and even put an offer on one, but nothing worked out. Then hunting season came, followed by winter and the holidays, and house buying got pushed to the back burner.

 

Then this spring, our landlord told us he had a family member that needed to move into his rental. So we started house hunting again. We looked at a few, but everything in our price range was a serious fixer upper, which we had no desire to get ourselves into.

 

We kept looking online at this town home. But Josh is a country boy and we just didn't know how we would fit there. My cousin lives in one of the units, so we had seen them up close before and always thought it was cute, but never pictures ourselves in one.

 

In the end, we had two homes we wanted to look at. The town house in Roosevelt and a home in Lapoint. But because we were using the first time home buyers program, we couldn't qualify for the Lapoint one because it had too much acreage. We decided to look at the townhouse and quickly feel in love.

 

It was built in 2008 or 2009 ( I can't remember now) and had no serious needs like anything else we had looked at. All the other homes needed new carpet, paint, holes patched, etc. But this place was in great condition.

 

So we put in an offer and then road the rocky roller coaster of approval and closing for the next 40ish days. I won't get into it, but our banker was very disappointing and there was times I thought this move would never happen.

 

I started boxing stuff the first weekend after we made our offer; and when the big day came, we moved everything (but the freezer) by ourselves.

 

We've been here two weeks and its starting to feel like home.

The down stairs has a half bath. As I was unpacking, I found the owl tucks I sewed last year and decided to use them to decorate the down stairs bathroom. I found some cute décor on Amazon. Then I also plan to print out some pictures of burrowing owls that Josh has taken while he's working.

 The kitchen was one of the things we feel in love with. We've never had a decent kitchen. Just this weekend, I used several things I've never used before. I joked its because I'm still in the "honeymoon" stage, but really its because there is so much more storage room that things are easy to find.

 

 And it has a pantry!

 

Just this morning we hung Josh's elk. He declared it is now officially home.

 

A week after we put in our offer, our washing machine broke. We decided to limp along by doing laundry at our mom's and just buy a new set when we moved. This way, the furniture store would deliver & set up for free. It was kind of a pain, but well worth the wait! The laundry closet is at the top of the stairs and I'm glad we didn't have to pack them up there.

 

Upstairs is a full bath.

 

It also has a walk in closet!

 

The spare bedroom is still a work in progress. It will be our work room. I will craft in one corner and Josh will reload in the other.

 

Josh has had to work out of state a few times, so he's not been home at night as much as we hoped, but still, he will be able to come home more often then he used to. I love that my job is literally 2 miles up the road. So far, we've adjusted to town life pretty well. I LOVE my kitchen. The cats seem to be adjusting well. We've decided they will be indoor pets from now on. Sage has loved the move. We let her come inside each night and we are working on house training her. I also get up every morning and walk her. After years and years of renting, it is exciting to be home owners.

My New Office

The first of June is when I officially moved into my new office at Moon Lake Electric. I have loved my new job. Working the front was ok, but being a billing clerk seems to be a little more fulfilling for me. At the front desk, I would have busy days, but then I would have slow days, and those would drag on and on. Now my days seems to pass quickly because there is always something to do vs. waiting for people to come in and need to pay their bills.

 

 

 

I also love that is has a real desk, instead of working on a counter top. And its not so much in the public eye, so I felt like I could decorate it more to my taste. I had some pictures up front, but now I have even more. I joked that some people have beach themes, or horse themes, or contemporary  themes with certain colors, etc. My office was going to have a nephews theme. I don't think anyone knew how much so. I wanted to be able to see a picture of them, no matter which way I turned.  

 

As I was packing for our other big move, I set some stuff aside to take to the office. Then I was able to find a few picture frames at a yard sale. The biggest addition was a picture frame collage I found on Amazon. Every time I look at it, I think "this is my happy place."

 

 

 I also decided to keep my office a little girly by adding a few flower decorations. But mostly, its all about the nephews. This is one proud aunt and she isn't afraid to show it.

 

 

Whose the man!

This post is all about bragging about my man. :)

Four weeks ago Josh started a new job. The company does land surveys for the oil field companies. (These surveys are how the oil field companies keep the environmentalist happy.) He wears a cowboy shaped hard hat (I'll try to get a picture soon.)

After just eight days on the job they gave Josh a $2 raise. Even though the pay period was technically over, they still applied that raise on his very first paycheck.

Today they upgraded him from a field tech to a biologist. This means a few things. He is now the crew leader when they do their cactus surveys. He now gets to do hawk surveys and they will pay the gas. AND he just got another raise, this time it was $3!

I love you babe. Thanks for working so hard for our family. You mean the world to me and each day spent with you is better than the day before. Forever isn't long enough to spend with you.

End of National Adoption Month

I have LOVED blogging about adoption all month long. I love adoption and wanted to end the month with a bang.

Did anyone catch on to THIS post on Thanksgiving? Particularly the letter E for emails? I won't make you click back. Here's the line I was talking about:

Emails from C - If I go a day or two without them, my mood starts to turn sour. I LIVE for these emails.

Let me tell you, I am not the best secret keeper, but this time I am pretty proud of myself. On October 20th we received an email. I called Josh to inform him we had another scam. That's what they always are. Then I started to count weeks and it actually matched up. This was a possible lead.

Every time we get an email from a potential birth mother my first reaction is to find the LDSFS office nearest to them and send them the contact information. That seems to be the fastest way to weed out scam. I didn't get the urge to do that this time. This time (after that first 5 minutes) I started to get excited.

Five weeks! Five weeks of bliss. For the most part I managed to keep my secret. At first we told two people, our caseworker and a friend of mine that has been blessed several times through adoption. After that I did pretty good. We were already emailing C when the paper interviewed us. When people asked how things were coming, the best I could do to not outright lie was say "I'm happy with how things are right now."

In the last two weeks we started telling friends and family. I was able to have some good visits with others who are waiting. I wanted to make sure they heard it from me and not somewhere else. I was had last Monday when a friend asked how things were. We had just started telling people and I hadn't said anything at work yet. But I paused too long and she knew something was up.

We have been emailing back and forth with C for over a month now. But the highlight happened on Sunday. After exchanging several hurried emails we decided to just call her. And we plan to meet her SOON. Santa's schedule is messing things up, but we are going to meet her hopefully in the next week or two.

Please pray for us and even more importantly, please pray for her. We don't want to share her name yet, but just pray for our birth mom C and heaven will know who you are talking about. Please pray that she can find peace and comfort as she struggles with her circumstance and the decision she needs to make and please pray that if she does choose adoption, we will be the family she chooses.

*To read the sad ending to this story, please read Unchosen.

Introducing Tyler

Our new nephew is here. He was born early this afternoon.

I had an AWESOME experience today

I decided it fit better on my infertility blog, so go read about it HERE. It involves the dentist, and don't get to excited while reading it because it doesn't lead to a baby, but it was still the most awesome experience I've had in a long time.

A few updates...

I HAVE MY CAR BACK!!! I picked it up Thursday night and I am so happy. I missed it so much. Every day I would frantically look for my car keys thinking I had lost them! I am trying to make sure I don't hit any more deer.

We have not heard back from the possible adoption situation. I debated all weekend about calling them, but it really was a bit out of our comfort zone cost wise, so I've decided to let it sit. If we hear from them we will move forward. I know several people think we should pursue this further, but it doesn't feel right. But it was fun to submit our paperwork. It made me feel... excitement. At least I now know someone has seen our profile. Also on that note, I just looked at our Parent Profiles info. Our letter has been viewed almost 1000 times! Our contact us page has been view 85 times and we've even been added to someones favorites list twice! At times I feel like it is a waste of money, but we are going to continue to keep it running. I also want to thank everyone for their prayers last week. They were defiantly felt. After we mailed our paperwork I thought I would be a wreck wondering about it, but I felt so calm. Thank you so much. We are still pondering something else at our home so please keep those prayers coming!

I am trying (but not hard enough) to give up soda pop. On average I was drinking 2 cans a day of Diet Dr. Pepper. I am drinking lots more water and so far I have managed to drop to one soda a day (with my lunch) and I have been able to give up Diet. Dr. Pepper for...

AND

Sadly, I am not impressed with my results. But I promise that once I run out of those to increase my efforts. I don't want to quit cold turkey and I am telling myself that I can still have one on special occasions, like dates (fun) and dividends day at work (not fun), than maybe I can really do this.

Truthfully, I did quit once. It was years ago. I went 18 months without carbonation or caffeine of any form! I even had a Dr. Pepper that sat in my friend for 13 of those months before I finally threw it away. My employer had a machine out in their shop and for months I begged the Pepsi guy to put Country Time Lemonade out there. Seriously MONTHS! Finally he did. I walked out with my two quarters and came back with... Dr. Pepper. But if you had to work there you would understand I why I needed to be drugged in some form. Even if it was only a soda.

I think I am finally figuring out this blogging thing. So far I have 6 comments on my Attention kittens post. I want more! Please leave a comment, even to just say hello. I want to get at least a dozen comments. Also if you are following my blog, be sure to click follow. I want to see my readership increase! If you have anything you would like to see me blog about, just let me know. I love to talk and I love to write!

A Pray of Faith and a Kiss for Good Luck

A few weeks ago we had someone email us. It was an agency and they were having a hard time finding a couple for a birth mom. It was out of state and it was a LOT of money. It was so hard to tell them no, but it just didn't feel right.

Let me make it clear that we are not looking for A baby, we are looking for OUR baby.

Last night I had a dear friend email me about a possible situation. It is in Utah and it's not quite as much money (although it is still about $12,000 more than we had originally planned to spend when we chose our agency 2 years ago). This situation feels...different. It's hard to explain. But we went ahead and mailed them some of our information after sending them an email that we might be interested. I also just spoke with them on the phone and I am working to get a few more things together for them. I was too nervous to ask how many other couples they are looking at. He did say that they are trying to get a number of profiles together to present to her on Wednesday.

I want to get excited, but for now I am in neutral. After all the excitement in February that wasn't real, I have to shift to neutral. I don't want to get excited only to hurt again. Please pray for us, but also pray for this birth mom. She is making an incredible decision right now in regards to her child. She needs all the prayers she can get. Pray that she can make the right decision, even if it isn't us. I know of several couples who received the same email I did and I forwarded it to a few more. They all deserve a child just as much as we do.

We also need some prayers for other reasons, but they are too personal to share. Please just pray that our minds can be in tune with what is best for us and our family.