Puppy Pandemonium

Remember how I said our new apartment is pet friendly? Tiny, but pet friendly? Jefferson and I were thinking of getting a puppy. Okay...that's a lie. We thought of getting a puppy and actually went and got one. We decided on a Golden Doodle. Never heard of the breed? Take a Standard Poodle and a Golden Retriever and you get:

We really liked them because they're smart and don't shed like a Standard Poodle, but they're sweet like a Golden Retriever! We found a batch of twelve golden doodle puppies nearby and went and took a look at them today. We decided on a little girl one. We've already named her Kimber, and on the drive home I wrote down a grocery list of all the things we need for her.

The part I'm most excited about? Having someone to come home to everyday, someone who's excited to see me, wants to go outside and not sit in and watch TV all night long. Jefferson will be in school this next semester (my plans for school this semester kind of fell through, so I have to wait til winter) and he'll be schooling til 9 o'clock at night or so. What does that leave me to do for four hours when I'm home alone? Well, aside from keeping the house spotless, sewing like a banshee, and having friends/family over, we'll now have a dog who needs to go out and exercise! There'll be no excuse for me to blow up like a blimp (which sadly is what happened this past winter).

And the best part? We're keeping it a secret. Our parents know we want to get a dog, they just don't know we already got one. Jefferson and I kinda want to keep it that way, too, at least for a little while, that way we don't have to deal with the lectures and all the trying to talk us out of it.

All in all, we're really excited to bring Kimber home and add her to our little family!

We're Moooo-ving

After having lived at our current residence for a year and then some, Jefferson and I decided this month that moving closer to work and school would be a good idea.

It was only reinforced in our minds by our landlord. More and more lately, he'll come and knock on the door, stick his head in, and then complain about the dishes in the sink, or the conditions of the bathroom.

Listen, bub. I'm at work nine hours a day. When I get home, all I want to do is cook something quick and go to bed. I'm sorry I'm not a little old lady who has nothing better to do than pick up after her husband, clean house and darn, but I'm a working woman, so back off!

He told us just the other day that we're the worst tenants they've ever had in terms of cleanliness. I wanted to smack him upside the head! As long as we're not damaging your property, the state of our home is none of your concern! Grrr!

After house hunting for a week or so, Jefferson and I decided on Lookout Pointe Apartments in Provo. Pet friendly and with a pool, we were more than happy to sign the lease on that bad boy and inform our current landlords that we're outta there!

That night, we went home and started sorting through all of our junk (we actually titled the spare room the "junk" room because that's all that's in it!) and we're thinking of having a yard sale soon!

Jefferson and Hobbles

I pretty much felt like Susie in this comic yesterday while I was at the doctor's office. Yeah, you read right, but I'll back up a step and explain how I got to the doctor in the first place:

Jefferson is always trying to get me to do stupid stuff (and by "stupid" I mean "most likely to end in injury of some kind"), things like scuba diving, wake-boarding, and skiing. His latest thrill? Longboarding. Ever since he got home from Asia, I've been trying to work really hard on being willing to try new things, so when Jefferson suggested we go longboarding at least once on our three day weekend, I cautiously agreed.

Bad idea. I didn't even make it down one run before biffing it and seriously injuring my foot in the process. As my friend Syd said in an email, "What were you thinking going longboarding??? Sweetie, your equilibrium is not that good! You are so very clumsy sweetheart!!!" Now she tells me! :)

After I bailed off the board, I landed on the outer edge of my right foot, twerking it at a funny angle and then falling in the opposite direction, only twerking it more. And if that doesn't help matters, after all that, my board came crashing into the same foot! Hello instant pain. At first impact, I knew for sure I'd broken something, but I wasn't sure if it was my ankle or my foot...then again, maybe I just sprained something, I thought.

I struggled up the hill back to the car. Jefferson was all encouragement, but after my foot had enough time to swell and the pain localized in my foot not my ankle, I wasn't so sure about the whole "maybe I just sprained it" thing. Once we got home I tried to step out of the car unaided and my suspicions were comfirmed: it hurt like the dickens! Jefferson tried to massage the swollen blob that had become my foot, rubbing it with IcyHot and tenderly moving my ankle around. No dice.

"Do you want to go to the doctor?" he asked, noting my tear-stained face nearly an hour after the initial accident.

Money's been a little tight this month after we bought a jeep, and our insurance doesn't exactly cover doctor's visits, but I just couldn't bear the thought of struggling for months trying to walk on my foot if it truly was broken. I voted "yes" and after being carried up the stairs to the car and hopping into the foyer of Springville's instacare, I was starting to feel a little better about my decision. That was until I noticed that Jefferson had conveniently brought his camera along.

"You'll thank me later," he said...yeah...that hasn't happened yet, but since we have them, I might as well show the damage:

(photos to come)

Six Jerks in A Jeep

First it was a motorcycle.

"Oh Honey, if I could just have one of those, I'd die a happy man!" he said. We settled on a scooter. Less than six months later, scooter's sold and it's "Oh Honey, if I could just have a jeep, I'd die a happy man!"

Yup...we are now the proud new owners of a Jeep Wrangler. Yay?

"Quake"-Boarding....Wait, Wha....?

Say hello to hubsand. This photo was taken last September, which was also the last time I tried wake-boarding. It was the last time we went boating that summer, and let me just say it was pretty miserable: Freezing water, freezing winds, lots of mosquitos. Add that all together and that spells fun to you people?! Apparently, and the worst part? Somehow I got talked into giving it a try. (What can I say? I've never done well under peer pressure.) That was the first bad idea. The second one was swearing aloud every time I face-planted it (which was every time, let me tell you.). Who knew sound traveled across water so well?

Seeing as how my previous experience on the wake-board was so lovely, you can understand why I wasn't exactly thrilled to be going today. We had a really fun group planned, in-laws and our friend and Best Man at our wedding, Christopher, who is one of our closest and best buddies, not to mention a riot to hang with, oh and did I mention he's single? *cough-cough* ;)

Anywho, after a couple of solid hours wherein I refused to get in the water, much less strap a board to my feet, I finally got up the courage to just go for it. Thirty minutes later (no I was not swearing yet) I still hadn't cleared the water and my arms were starting to wear out from being dragged behind a boat! Jefferson saw that if I didn't get up soon, I was going to get frustrated again and probably never set foot on his parent's boat ever again, and being the sweet man that he is, he thought it would be a good idea to jump in and assist me. Oh boy. How do you tell someone who loves you very much and just wants to help you that you don't want their help and you'd much rather do it yourself? Well, no matter how you put it, it doesn't sound good, but I gave it a shot anyway.

Remember what I was saying earlier about how sound travels across water really well? Yeah...the entire boat heard me stumble over myself saying things like, "honey, I love you, but I need to do this myself." But it wasn't that I didn't want his help, it's just that I'd tried his advice the last time and it wasn't working for me to so very good. (I mean, what works for his 6'7" stature isn't really gonna work for my measly 5'6", am I right? Two totally different centers of gravity.) Finally, he got the message, clambered back into the boat and not too long after that, POP goes the Genny!

I got up! Whoopee! Oh no! Now what do I do? I've never gotten up on the actual board before! AHHHH! *glub-glub* And that's how the remainder of the trip went. I would get up, just to get scared, drop the rope and sink like a rock. Thank goodness for life jackets!

Hubby's Homecoming: Part 2

Whew! All went well! I drove to SLC Airport (the second time ever that I've done that, and the very first time I ever did it without someone in the car to tell me where to go!) and I only got lost once, and even then it was only for a few minutes.

However, my worry-wort self left an hour too early, so I had to sit in the Park & Wait for a while. Good thing I brought my kindle, right? After an hour of sitting in a too hot to be comfortable car and trying really hard not to sweat my make-up off, Jefferson called me saying he was ready to be picked up.

I shot out of that parking lot like I had a fire underneath me, and rounded the pick-up lane, my eyes peeled for my sweetie. You won't believe me when I tell you, but it was like a scene straight from a movie: dark suit, fedora, shirt and tie, standing with his hands in his pockets next to a month's worth of luggage. *insert whistle here* Hello, Cary Grant? Tony Curtis? Anyone?

I hopped outta the car, grabbed a suitcase or two, and after they were loaded, Jefferson grabbed me and made sure I got a movie worthy smooch right there on the sidewalk.

What happened next is so typical of men: Jefferson had just had a 24-hour airplane ordeal, he was exhausted and not to mention totally jet-lagged, but he still insisted on driving us home!

When we walked through the door and he saw the couch in the kitchen and a black sheet cutting the kitchen off from the rest of the house, he could guess what I had planned, but at least he was sweet enough not to mention it. I guided him, blindfolded, through the living room and into the bedroom/bathroom area which was alsocut off via black sheet from the living room, so that he could shower and shave (for a man with next to no facial hair, his upper lip and chin get super duper scratchy and I am kind of attached to my face and don't really care to have it burned off from just a simple smooch!).

I set dinner on: the shells were gorgeous, but I hadn't taste tested anything, so I was still trepidatious. Golden brown, warm from the oven garlic bread, and a salad mix, heavy on the olives, completed the ensemble. I lit candles (shh! don't tell the landlords! open flames are a big no-no!) and pulled the sheet aside for Jefferson to step in, saying "Welcome home, sweetheart," as he did so. The boy was floored! He had to snap pic after pic of nothing but the setting and food!

We ate and made googly eyes at each other over the table (what?! we are married, for pete's sake!), sipping our white grape juice and chatting about nothing in particular. What put a little twinkle in my eye was when Jefferson took his first bite of homemade food in a month and said, "Wow, Genny. This is amazing! You are such a good cook." Well, I knew that all along, so someone explain to me why we ate out to much before?

But I haven't even gotten to the piece de irresistible: Russian Creme! For those of you who have never had Russian Creme, it is a swoon-worthy confection! The creme has a consistancy between custard and pudding and it's vanilla flavored with layers of juicy raspberries. I'm pretty sure Jefferson will be asking for my Russian Creme in place of his birthday cake!

Anyway, it is so good to have my sweet hubby home again! And there will be a lot more home-cooking and delicious recipes coming at you from this direction!

Hubby's Homecoming: Part 1

Another aeroplane
Another sunny place
I’m lucky, I know
But I wanna go home
Mmmm, I’ve got to go home

And I’m surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone
Oh, let me go home
Oh, I miss you, you know

Let me go home
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I gotta go home
Let me go home
It will all be all right
I’ll be home tonight
I’m coming back home
-Michael Buble's "Home"

Jefferson comes home tomorrow! I've got everything planned out:

I'm going to go and pick him up at the airport, looking cute of course, and take him straight home. I've rearranged the furniture to look a little more like a restaurant and less like our living room. Red table cloths, candles, roses, the works. I spent a lot of today running back and forth from Walmart trying to get everything and not forget anything at the same time. My sister came and helped me set up and move things. After taking her home, I started to prep dinner: stuffed shells pasta, garlic bread, and salad for dinner and Russian creme for dessert! They're all new recipes I've never tried before, so keeping the ole fingers crossed that everything turns out perfect!