Monday, February 21, 2011

Memory Lane Monday: Sod & Rocks


It's been a while since I've wandered down memory lane but I wanted to get back in the habit...so here it goes.

This memory came to mind after a lesson in church today.  It was all about the importance of work.  As others in the room shared funny/heartwarming experiences my mind wandered back to my younger years.  My parents definitely taught us the value of work.  I remember when we re-did the backyard at our house in Pleasant View.  My dad tilled up the current backyard grass (I don't remember why...maybe we put in a sprinkler system?  Maybe it wasn't even?  Maybe my dad just wanted to?)  and we as kids were responsible for picking up rocks out of the dirt.  The land where our house was built was on foothills of a major mountain and so the ground was naturally rocky.  Each day we EACH had to fill up a 5 gallon bucket with rocks.  There were four of us and this was our job for a few weeks.  Do the math...that's A LOT of rocks.  (Although in the last couple years I learned that my brothers sometimes CHEATED.  They would go behind my dad's shop and scoop up gravel from there, fill their buckets and then show dad they were done.) 

After the back yard dirt patch was sufficiently de-rocked we went about the task of getting the grass.  Now there is something you must know about my dad.  He is cheap.  Ok, not cheap...frugalVERY frugal.  He heard that his Alma Mater was tearing up their football field and somehow got the deal that if he cut the sod himself he could take the grass for free.  So one Saturday morning he loaded up the four of us, a couple of family friends and one of his brothers and hauled us to the field to cut and load the sod.  I should mention that he used one of these (because it was cheaper to rent than a motorized one...but I shouldn't complain.  It was better than using shovels...which we also tried) to cut the sod:
We would roll the strips as they were cut and then put them on the trailer.  Ya.  It was like a labor camp (did I mention I was a teenager?).  At the same time these strips were being cut other people were chopping out hunks of sod with shovels.  Once we had enough cut we headed back up to the house and the real fun began.  The rolls were easy...we just stuck them in place and rolled them back out.  The hacked up pieces were trickier...it was like a giant sod jigsaw puzzle.

At the time I was mad at having seemingly the ONLY parents in the WORLD who made their kids do slave labor(doesn't every kid think that?).  But now that I'm grown I see the value in the work we did.  When Nathan and I owned our house in Logan and put down some sod there...I knew what to do because of my previous sod laying experience.  It's also nice to sit around with my brothers now and joke about picking up rocks.  Work really brought our family closer.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Keep spreadin' the word...

Guess who has another online profile??

Click here to see it.

Eventually all this exposure has got to catch the eye of someone...right?

Friday, February 18, 2011

Milestone

I got so busy I forgot to post about a pretty major event.  Can you believe these two lovely ladies each crossed major life milestones?


That's right...only a little over a month after that sweet baby girl turned 30, her awesome mother turned 50.
Happy Belated 
Big Birthday Mom!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Free Shuesday!!

I have blogged about my {love} of shoes before...and even blogged about my love of DSW.   I am not sure when I started loving shoes (mom...help me out on that one??) but for as long as I can remember I have been infatuated with them.  My count varies and new lovelies are added to the mix and others are retired or donated to Goodwill...right now I sit at 86 pair of shoes.   Yep...86 pair...not 86 shoes, counted in shoes it would be 172.  Whoa.   Wanna see a pic of some of my pretty ladies all in a row?  I know you do!  Here you go:



Most of the time my love of shoes has been detrimental to our bank account.  But today my love/obsession with shoes has proven to be very fruitful.  I played Free Shuesday on DSW's Facebook page today and won a $50 gift card!!!  What's that you say?  You've never HEARD of Free Shoesday??  Why that's horrible.  Let me be a dear and fill you in on the deets. 

Every Tuesday at noon (eastern time) a trivia question is posted on DSW's Facebook page.  The first 20 people to respond with the correct answer are awarded FREE shoes (in the form of a gift card)!!  Simple huh?  So you should jump on the free shoe bandwagon and try to win some shoes next Tuesday.  Then we could go shoe shopping together...well, if you lived close. 

Ahhhh....nothing like free shoes to make your whole week look brighter!

Monday, February 14, 2011

No more Sunday Night Blues

Right now I'm chilling on the couch with my beloved and my fur baby...watching a little Extreme Makeover Home Edition.  You know the best part??  I have no pit in my stomach.  No Sunday Night Blues.  No dread over going to work tomorrow.  That tells me I made the right decision.  And what's even better?  My sweetie has tomorrow off!  So we're able to spend the day together and have a make-up day for our Ninth Wedding Anniversary...since our celebratory plans for that day were foiled by Snomageddon.  

Life is good.  

Friday, February 04, 2011

Snomageddon 2011

You may have heard about the inclement weather we endured this week.  It was quite unfair of Mother Nature actually...you see, Tuesday was our ninth wedding anniversary and we had big plans to go out on the town but the 3rd largest blizzard in Chicago history had to blow in and leave stuck at home.   It worked out ok in the end.  We grilled steaks and had a movie night...followed by a snow day.  We lost cable and internet for 20+ hours, and the power flickered quite a bit.  Let me tell you... 24+ inches of snow sure makes for beautiful scenery...and sore muscles from all the shoveling.


But it wasn't all work...I just had to try a running jump into one of the large snowbanks. 
Oh, and Winston also got dressed to play in the snow:

But soon after this picture was taken he started wrestling his hat...so when he played in the snow the poor little buddy was naked. 

Here's a few more:

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Da Bulls

Last week Nathan and I were the lucky recipients of two free Bulls tickets...thanks to one of our new friends.  Gotta love friends with hook-ups.  :)

The United Center is HUGE.  We've been to games in the Delta Center (Sorry...it will take a long time to get used to calling it the Energy Solutions Arena) and the Boston Garden (where the Boston Celtics play) so NBA arenas aren't a new thing...for some reason the United Center just seemed so huge.


We tried to snap a good picture of us...either we need to invest in some longer arms or overcome our fear of asking strangers to take our picture.  Ignore my pasty white skin...that's the curse of working 50 hours a week in a room with no windows.   (Speaking of that...only 6 working days left!!)


It was kinda surreal to see three former Jazz players in Red and Black...but good to see them nonetheless.  Korver even hit a few beautiful 3's just for us.  Ok, maybe not just for us, but we can dream, right?  It was kinda cool to see the retired jerseys hanging...Michael Jordan...and Jerry Sloan especially.  But seeing those championship banners hurt.  Bad.  Especially the 1996 one...that was stolen from us.  I saw it with my own eyes.



We enjoyed our first Bulls game and hopefully we'll see the United Center again soon...maybe this time they'll be playing the Jazz!

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Nine

Nine years ago today Nathan and I knelt across the alter and were joined as one.  We've seen a lot of road in our nine years.  

we've called 4 states home
lost 6 children
moved a total of 6545 miles
been in 4 car accidents
owned 1 dog
been owned by 4 cats
held 16 jobs between the two of us
 

Here's to many, many more years.  

Love you sweetie.