The Kimber Chronicles: Scaredy Cat

Jefferson's sisters have a cat. Actually, they have several cats, but for a while they had one cat that wasn't fixed and was a kitten-making machine. This particular cat's name is Cloudy and that describes her perfectly: a cranky little cloud-storm.

Well, for a while they were trying to breed her, but being the cranky brat that she is, an arranged marriage wasn't doing too much for her. Finally, after much frustration, the girls decided to just let her be an outside cat and voila!

Kittens were the inevitable result of said promiscuity, but because they weren't pure-bred they weren't worth any money and the girls were having a hard time getting rid of the (yes, there was more than one) second litter.So much so in fact that one day they brought the latest batch to my work and tried to pawn them off on unsuspecting customers. (Don't even get me started on that! I just think it's funny that Jefferson and I got in trouble for bringing our house-trained puppy into work after hours but the girls could pawn kittens during business hours...but I won't get too into that can of worms. Trust me, it's not pretty.)

Anyways, our puppy Kimber had been so lonely for the past few months, howling and whimpering whenever we were gone and it was so sad. When the girls saw that they weren't going to get rid of their kittens at my store, they turned on me and started in!

Well, the puppy could use a friend...okay, why not?

So I called the hubster and he fought so hard against the idea, him being allergic to cats and all, but after I promised to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't go in the bedroom, we decided to try it.

Yeah....what were we thinking? (This is where Jefferson would pipe in and say," We? Oh no, that was you!")

Our puppy is big...okay, really big, and the kitten was so little. We keep Kimber barricaded in the kitchen during the day, a) so she won't get into things she's not supposed to, and b) if she has an accident, it's easier to clean up that way. The kitty didn't like that. She clambered over two baby barricades (about four feet tall) and hid under the couch. Kimber loved the kitty, wanting to maul and lick her and play, but being so big, she played rather rough and the kitty wasn't having any of that. either.

To make a long story short, the kitty lasted a day, and even then not 24 hours. Jefferson's dad had told us all sales were final and that if things didn't work out with her, we'd have to deal with it. Lucky for us though, a lady saw the ad online for the kittens and called. By then, they'd gotten rid of all the other ones, but they called us up and asked how things were going. We were only too grateful to wash our hands of all things kitty-cat.

Lesson learned.

The Many Adventures of Genny and Jefferson in: A Penny for Your Thoughts

Ever wondered what to do with all that spare change lying around? I mean, seriously, you go anywhere and pay with cash and unless you have the exact amount, you're gonna wind up with spare change. And it clutters up your wallet, it clutters up your underwear drawers, given enough time even the stoutest of piggy banks cannot contain it. So what do you do with it?

When Jefferson and I were married, we brought quite a considerable dowry in spare change to the table.

One day, after unsucessfully trying to fit a new batch of coins into our already bulging banks, we decided to see exactly how much coinage we had acquired. The count: $33.00. $33.00 had been sitting around taking up space on our shelves.

$33.00 can get you quite a few things: a bike helmet, blue ray movie, 5 dog collars, lots of candy, an ugly sweater, a new bra (not a Victoria Secret one), 3 plain white t-shirts, at least 6 things at Deseret Industries, a cat, a Black Friday deal for a bicycle in the children's section at Walmart, a paint set, an armchair at Ikea, and three hefty bags of potatoes.

What did we decide to buy? Two movie tickets to the dollar theatre, goodies for the show at Dollar Tree, and then a nice dinner out at Olive Garden. Win.

And being the goofs we are, we didn't exchange the coins, but counted them out into baggies, each baggie containing a dollar. The best part? When we gave our waiter the bags of coins. The look on his face was priceless. But even better than that? When he came back with our reciept and asked us if we wanted our change. Double win.

We gave him a pretty nice tip, in cash, for being such a good sport!

The Many Adventures of Genny and Jefferson in: The Dinner and a Movie Mystery

What do Kung-fu Panda (aka-Panda Express), Jamba Juice, a birthday bag, and the movie theater all have in common?

Well one fine day, Jefferson and I went and bought movie tickets (I don't even remember what movie we were going to go see, but that's besides the point). We were both starving, and knowing that the previews take up at least 15 minutes, we decided to make a quick detour to Kung-fu Panda (ever since that movie came out, I have always called Panda Express Kung-fu Panda. I don't know, the name just stuck). But we couldn't just go to Panda and not get a drink, so we stopped at Jamba, too.

Now the real dilemma: how to get all this food into the theater without getting caught. Dollar Tree is a wonderful place. We bought a huge birthday bag and some tissue paper, and while Jefferson drove us back to the theater, I stuffed that birthday bag full!

Crunch time. We were waiting in line to have our movie tickets checked, when we saw who was doing to checking: the Manager of the establishment! Ahh!

Don't panic, just play it off, I thought. Jefferson and I had already discussed what to do in the event that we were stopped/questioned about the contents of our birthday bag.

"Hi, how are you folks doing tonight?" asked Manager Man.
"Great, thanks" said Jefferson.
"You don't happen to have any outside food or drink in that bag, do you?"
Now was my leading role: "Of course not!" I said with a disdaining look on my face.
"Actually," Jefferson said, "It's my wife's birthday today."
Just like in rehearsals people: "And he won't even give me any hints." I reinforced that last statement with a playful elbow to the ribs.
"Yeah, it's been driving her crazy all day," Jefferson added.
"Okay, theatre 5 is on the left, you folks have a good night," Mananger Man said.

And just like that we were in! Afterwards, we even had the audacity to throw our trash into one of the theatre garbage cans! Muaahaha! We win!

The Cake Incident

Jefferson and I went grocery shopping with our newfound moneys the other day.

Let me just preface the rest of this story by saying that we were both so gosh darn tired, it being close to 9 o'clock at night and all, so bear with the stupidity a moment.

Jefferson was coming home from class and he asked me to write out a grocery list for us. I've gotten pretty good at that, even keeping a mental tab on what we already have and then picking a menu that uses mostly things we have on hand.

Jefferson then picked me up and we went to Smith's. Now just having gotten a fresh supply of moolah, we didn't want to blow it all on groceries (not that we would ever do that, but gosh! groceries have gotten so expensive!) so I had planned a menu involving a lot of casseroles, homemade bread (yes, I know how to make bread...so what if I use a breadmachine? That's besides the point. :) and one dessert that would last us a week or two: A Better-Than-That's-What-She-Said Cake.

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was over the gooey, caramely goodness that is this cake! I was so looking forward to cutting into the mouthwatering confection and taking a big bite of heavenly scrumptiousness that I was drooling just thinking about getting the groceries for this bad boy.

Then Jefferson saw them: the chocolate-covered chocolate cake doughnuts. I knew those were going to find their way into our cart (call it my feminine intuition, but let's just say I know that look in my hubby's eye) and I held my tongue. What can I say? My hubsand likes his doughnuts.

As we neared the end of our grocery list, the last few things were for my Better-Than-(...you know the rest) Cake, when Jefferson said, "uhh, honey? I think we have enough groceries for this trip."

"Just a couple more things," I said.

"What are they for?" the million dollar question.

"Cake."

"Well, maybe we should wait on that."

The horns and pitchfork came out at that point. You just don't come between a woman and her cake if you know what's good for you. Apparently, Jefferson doesn't know that.

To make a long story short, we put the doughnuts back (yes, I was a bad wife and brought them up saying if we have enough money for doughnuts, I can have cake) and bought the cake ingredients.

Day Two (yes this lasted more than just the one day):
I got to work and Jefferson had bought breakfast at a nearby gas station: chocolate-covered chocolate cake doughnuts and hot cocoa. Yeah. Okay. I got the message, Mr Subtle.

After work, we swung by Walmart so that I could pick up a few things before going to workout, and while I was grabbing my things, I saw a shelf of doughnuts and I couldn't help buying a dozen. I figure it was a suitable apology, don't you?

The Blessings of Friday

seriously. this was my exact facial expression when I saw our savings account balance.

The past two weeks have been a little tight (well, if we want to get technical, this past entire summer has been tight financially) and Jefferson and I were crossing our fingers and our toes that we wouldn't have any unexpected bills drop on us before our next payday, which was today.

That was until the checks started coming in the mail. First check was from Springville City, returning our deposit of $90.00 or so.

The second was our previous landlords returning our deposit basically the last possible day they could and still be following the lease agreement. That was another $375.00.

By this point, we knew we were going to make it to the end of the week and that was such a relief (Seriously, both credit cards were drawn to the hilt, not to mention the 11 cents we had in our savings) but Jefferson and I both know that this is such a blessing.

Now with money in our account and our bills paid we can sleep easy!

The Baby is Seven....Man I feel old

Quinn,

I remember when you were born. I was thirteen years old and you were all pink and wrinkly. You had chubby cheeks and great bigs rolls on your arms and legs and I loved you as soon as I set eyes on you.

When you got a little bigger, you liked to scoot around the kitchen floor on Mom's pans and pants were not an option, ever. Balloons were your favorite part of your birthday, and you didn't learn how to use a fork until you were three.

Now you're seven. You like legos, the Wii (especially Super Mario Smash Bros Brawl), and you've gotten so big! You can read and write and do all those big boy things, but one thing is still the same: you're still my little brother and I love you.

Have a happy birthday, kiddo!

Book Review #1

Jefferson and I have been reading stories to each other since Christmas, so almost a year now, and we've gone through quite a few books at this point.

I'm huge into reading, always have been. As a matter of fact, when I was in the fifth grade, my teacher was having us do a reading fund raiser.

We were to get our parents/friends/neighbors to donate money based on the number of books we read, so a certain amount per book. I remember being so mad because the rich girls had parents who could afford to give them $20.00 per book, so all they had to read was one book and they were set (as I remember, there was a minimum amount of money that had to be raised per child to be able to go on a field trip of some kind, but I'm a little fuzzy on the details).

My folks have nine kids. There was no way they could spare twenty some odd dollars, so I think I was getting $0.25-0.50 per book (also, the books had to be over a certain number of pages, etc.) Well, I got disqaulified. No, I didn't cheat. I stayed up all night the night before (all night as in past midnight, remember, fifth grade here) trying to get a couple more books read before the due date. I read five books that night. Mrs Meyers thought I was lying.

Anywho, I digress. *ahem* I thought I'd take a minute and go over two books that I've read recently, one with Jefferson, and one that I read all by my little lonesome.

This first book I'm talking about is one that Jefferson and I started in Montana, part of  the Ranger's Apprentice Series, the first book, The Ruins of Gorlan. It totally sucked Jefferson into the plot. After that, I caught him reading it without me, and before I knew it, he was on the second book in the series. Now he's on the seventh. It hasn't even been a month yet.

The story's about an orphan, named Will, who lives at the castle of his fief with all the other wards of the state (aka orphans).

 In their society, when kids reach a certain age, they're apprenticed to Craftmasters based on their skills, etc.

There's a Battleschool that Will really wants to get into because he's heard rumors that his dad was a Knight and he wants to follow in his footsteps. There's only one problem: Will is puny. The Battleschool Master doesn't even give him a second thought. Well, if you don't get chosen to be an apprentice, you're given to local farmers to be a farmhand.

As this thought is going through Will's head, Halt, the fief's Ranger, enters the room and hands the Baron of the fief a note. The Baron dismisses everyone, and Will waits his fate. By the next day, Will is Halt's apprentice.

The rest of the story is Will and Halt bonding, Will learning the skills and trades of a Ranger and it also follows the life of Horace, once Will's bully turned friend. It's a really fun and fast read, which is good because there are ten books in the series. Yeah...I'm on book two, but I would definitely recommend these books to anyone ( I mean, my dad loves 'em. He asked me for a Ranger's Cloak for Halloween one year! Even my 24 year old brother read them and enjoyed the story line and they're great for young teenage boys, too, but I think girls can read them as well!)

Book two is more along the lines of Pride and Prejudice lovers: The Grand Sophy by Georgette Hyer is one of my all time favorite books.

The Grand Sophy was my very first Georgette Heyer book. Since then, I think I've read over thirty of her novels. She is just so witty and clever and I get a kick out of her every single time, which Jefferson doesn't understand. You've read one regency romance, you've read them all, right?

Wrong! Wrong I say!

The Grand Sophy follows the Ombersley family, particularly Charles and Cecillia Rivenhall, a brother and sister who don't see eye to eye.

You see, Cecy fancies herself in love with an aspiring poet named Augustus, whereas her brother Charles insists upon her marrying a very respectable, if not quite as handsome gentleman named Charlbury. (Confused yet?)

Enter Sophy stage right. Sophy is their cousin, whose father is called out of the country on matters of state. Sophy, motherless from a young age, is quite used to handling and managing things on her own. Thrown into the mess at the Ombersley house in Berkley Square and the rest of the novel consists of her setting things all to rights in such a clever way, and with laughs throughout!

I don't think I could emphasize enough times how much I love this book! It's not one of those cheesy cliche romances, and the ending is adorable. I've read it more than I can count, and I'm already planning a re-read soon!

The only thing that makes me sad when I think about The Grand Sophy is that I leant my paperback copy to my sister for a little while when I first got married and she leant it to her friend. Yeah...haven't seen it since, and whenever Bonni asks about it, her friend says she's writing a book report on it. It takes you a year to write a book report?!? I had to buy the digital copy on my kindle, which is fine, but my collection is sadly missing its center piece!

(Looking in retrospect, though, I should never have let my sister borrow my book in the first place, because the very first time I let her borrow a book from me, not only did she drop a wet swimming suit on it and therefore warped all the pages, but she also had to go and get a bloody nose on page 180. Hmmm....yep, I should've known better.)