9:02 AM

It's now 9:02 on a typical morning.

Here is what I do:
-Wake up at 6:00 a.m. so that I can see Carter before he heads off to seminary and school
-Wake Carter up at 6:10 (Ok, I didn't exactly hop out of bed when my alarm went off)
-Ask Carter if he wants a sandwich.
-Make two sandwiches. Peanut butter and Nutella. Or possibly peanut butter and raspberry jam. One goes in a baggie for later, one goes on a plate for now.  Carter eats a sandwich for breakfast just about every weekday.  He's never liked typical breakfast foods. I know he could and probably should make his own sandwich but he's leaving soon and I like doing this little thing for him.  No judging me.
-I usually make some comment on his hair about now.  It's always completely crazy from being slept on when wet...he showers at night.  He ignores me and goes to school with crazy hair. (usually)
-Say good bye to Carter.
-After he drives away, I turn all the lights back off and slip back into bed...just for a minute.
-Get my best, deepest sleep from 6:30-8:00 a.m.
-Wake up kind of groggy at about 8:00
-Wander the house in my pjs and check my phone for all those oh-so-important Facebook/email/instagram updates.
-Think about how I should go workout.
-Don't go workout.  Regret will set in later, but not quite yet.
-Look at the clock.
-Realize that I should probably get dressed. Or possibly pay bills or write a blog or do dishes or put dinner in the crock pot...in my pjs of course.

-Hunger will finally drive me to the kitchen where I will drink a smoothie and possibly do the dishes (from the night before if I was lazy yesterday or maybe just put away clean pots if I was not lazy)

When/if I get a job I think I will miss this lazy morning routine I have going on.

So I guess I will just enjoy it while I have it.

It's now 9:17 and I'm still in my pjs with a blanket wrapped around my shoulders as I sit and choose blog writing over dishes and so far it's been a perfect morning.

Valentine's Day

Hubby and I went out with two other couples for our Valentine's Day celebration (we chose to celebrate on Friday night).

If you know us at all, you know that this is quite miraculous.  We don't have friends.
I don't know why we don't have friends.  We think we are quite likable.

But its just hard to find people who want to get together, usually without notice.
We are not big planners...so we tend to think about getting together with other people at, say, 5 PM on a Friday night. Weirdly, most people already have plans at that point.

Hmmm... maybe I do know why we don't have friends...

So anyway, we got invited to go out to dinner and then to play games afterward.

We all went together in the same van so we had time for chatting.  Dinner was yummy.
Then we came to our house for games.
(I didn't have time to clean the boys' bathroom so that was a cause for stress on my part as I obviously haven't learned my lesson from the last bathroom incident.)

We were introduced to two new games.  Well, one was very similar to a game we know but they play it with different cards and know it by a different name.  We know it as The Great Dalmuti (we have liked that game for a long time...it was one of the Christmas gifts that we gave everyone one year).  I don't remember what our friends called it.
The other game was called "oh hell". I think it is called that because you want to say that phrase multiple times during the game.

At one point Frank left the room and came back in with 3 little bags from See's Chocolate. He handed a bag to each of the women.  Everyone was quite surprised by the nice gesture!
That was super thoughtful of him...he got us each 2 pieces.
_____
side note:
I had told him that for Valentines Day we should go to See's and pick out one piece each since we are trying to be good and lose a few pounds before the big Hawaii vacation.  Normally I would be hoping for a whole pound (at least) all to myself so I felt like I was showing quite a lot of willpower.  At the time he was like "No way! We have to be good!" but then he snuck out and got me a couple of pieces...what a guy!
_____

Today one of the women said, "We all have a crush on Frank now"

We laughed so much all evening long and just had a nice time talking and hanging out.  Ryan even commented later at how loud we were. I think it's been awhile since he's heard us yelling, laughing and generally carrying on that much.

I love being with other people and laughing and playing cards and talking and eating.  It was just a super fun evening.

And a special thanks to Frank for the thoughtful gesture for all of us gals.  I'm glad you are my valentine!

Mom's Surprise

My parents came up for a short visit from Arizona where they are wintering.  They had planned to drive back down this morning and I was going with to help them drive their car back.

But as they headed over to my house to get me, my mom had serious asthma attack.  This is becoming more and more common for her and it is really stressful for her (obviously) as well as my Dad. She has a nebulizer for these occasions but a fuse had blown in the car and they couldn't get the machine to work...so it was off to the ER.

She is doing fine now but they have decided to stay a bit longer in Arizona since the cold air here in Utah is so hard on her lungs. I (or one of my siblings) will help them drive back later in the spring.

It was just another reminder of the preciousness of life and enjoying the time I have with my parents. It's the main reason I moved to Utah after all!

I mentioned a while back that I was making a surprise for my mom.
Originally I was thinking I would give it to her at Mother's Day but I decided that life is too short to wait...so I gave it to her today.

My mom kept a blog for a few years and she really enjoyed doing it.
She gets a lot of joy right now from her memories so I decided to make her blog into a book that she could read over and over.  She really doesn't go online anymore and I think she barely remembers keeping that blog...so it was a fun surprise for her.

She keeps saying "Did I take those pictures?" 

and

"This brings back so many memories!"

She really loves it and I am so happy to give her this little gift.

I love my mom.

Really?

I'm becoming that person who puts on her pajamas at 5:20 PM on a Friday night.

That is all.

nothing's easy

As I mentioned previously, my parents have asked me to help them with their timeshare.  They have a timeshare in Hawaii that they bought many, many years ago and have never used.  So I've been trying to figure things out and see if they can get rid of it or not.  It is an every-other-year plan and it turns out that this is their year to use it.  So we decided that maybe we would try to use it this year and at least get some use out of the thing (with my parents blessing of course).

Carter will be leaving this summer to serve a mission for our church and we will be empty nesters.  This is our last chance for a little vacation with him and/or senior trip.

Frank was recently bumped from a flight and got a voucher for a free ticket. Score!  So after doing some research, we figured out that between two different airlines we could use the voucher and his miles and get the 3 of us to Hawaii for free.  Sounds like a plan!

I've been checking the timeshare site frequently to see what dates were available. Every time I checked, it looked the same.

So last night we decided to sit down and get all the reservations.  I was nervous about trying to book 2 separate airlines with miles, one with a voucher and the timeshare reservation all at the same time.  So Frank got on his computer next to me and we started the process.

First:  Timeshare site.  Everything looks the same.  The dates we want are available.  I call to make sure that we can book the dates without my parents being there with us.  Yes.  It's all set.  I select the date I want and fill in the information but I don't hit "reserve" quite yet...first I want to make sure I can get a flight.

Flights:  I check and see that, yes, I can get a flight using the voucher.  I enter all the info for Carter.
In a separate window I am working on a flight for Frank from the same airline but using miles.  I'm going back and forth as I make sure they are on the same flight with seats next to each other etc.  As I get to the end of the reservation, it won't let me apply the voucher.  Hmmm.  Ok I switch the voucher ticket to be for Frank and the miles ticket to be for Carter.  Looks good.

In the meantime, Frank is booking a flight for me on a different airline.  We want to arrive close to the same time so we are trying to coordinate all of that.  He successfully gets my ticket.  Sweet!

I still haven't hit the "buy" button on my tickets but I have them all set up....so I go over to the timeshare site to reserve the dates and...

(you are probably guessing what happened)

the dates were gone.

The dates that have been available for weeks and weeks and even a few minutes ago have disappeared and are no longer available.

Ok.  I can handle this.  I call the timeshare.  First he says that the dates are in fact available (whew, sigh of relief!) and then says "no, actually, they aren't".  I'm freaking out.

Frank is looking at me like I'm crazy and asking why I didn't already get the hotel before the flights???  Easy for him to say.  I was juggling too many things at once!

I can't book with the guy right then on the phone because I have to make sure I can get flights for a different date so I hang up.

We decide to book for a few days later.  I start the whole process of getting the two tickets for a different date.

Frank calls the airline he was dealing with to see if he can change the date on the ticket he just booked moments before.  I'm imagining myself getting there several days early and having to live on the beach by myself.  I have a couple of kids who would have no problem with this, but I am not interested in trying out the homeless life.

I reserve the room.  No need to make that mistake again.

I work on the flights.  Yes, there are flights available.  More expensive.  More than the voucher, dangit!  But not much, just $50, so that's ok.  So I book Frank's flight.
I go to the other window to book Carter's flight and it says "the flight you were booking has just sold out.  Please start over."

Oh. My. Gosh.

So I start over.  The flight that Frank is on isn't exactly "sold out" but the only seats available now cost more miles.  At this point I don't care.  Something has to work out here.  So I book Carter's tickets on the same flight as Frank, sitting near each other but using more of Frank's precious airline miles.  I don't even tell Frank. No need to get him involved. ha!

I am getting a SPLITTING headache at this point.

During all of this, Frank has been on the phone with the other airline.  There are NO tickets for the date we have chosen.  The date that the boys are arriving and that we have reserved the hotel is not available on this other airline.  And to make things worse, we are going to have to pay a $150 fee for canceling a reservation made only minutes ago.

So I say "what about the next day?" I'm willing to come a day after the boys.  This has to work out.
No flights. None.  How can this be?  And this is just for flights TO Hawaii, we don't even know what is available to get me home.

At this point we are determined to get a flight and get me there even if its on the wrong day...and we don't want to pay a big fee to cancel and we don't want to have to buy me a ticket with actual money.

The gal doing the reservations was so great and worked for over an hour trying to find me a flight.
In the end I got a flight for the day before Frank and Carter and I got a flight home for the same day as them, but I fly all over the freaking country before I get home almost 24 hours later.  It cost us more miles than originally planned but she got me there and home.  Whew.

Holy cow it was so stressful.

I wanted to find a cheap hotel for my one night alone there but by the time we got off the phone, Frank was not in the mood to do any more vacation planning. haaa!  So that is something I still have to do.  I'm not ok with sleeping at the airport or on the beach alone. Nope. Aint happening. (not that Frank would expect me to do that, obviously)

The end result of our 2 stressful hours last night is that we are going to Hawaii!

I'm so excited!  I've never been and I'm sure it will be awesome.

It better be.

Moving things around

We have had this computer cabinet in our house for many years. It has served us well.  We like to have the computer in one of the main family spaces in our house so this worked because I could just close it up when people were coming over.

But I never thought it looked very good.

Recently (well, a few months ago) the computer that was in this cabinet stopped working.  The kids started using my laptop for homework and all the other useless crap they do on the computer.  So the cabinet became a spot to shove stuff when we wanted to hide it. Except, as you might notice, the cabinet has windows so things aren't really hidden very well.

I finally decided  this weekend to get rid of it.  If my son is always on my computer in the dining room, why do I have an ugly cabinet in my family room?

I cleaned it out, which was the worst part and probably the reason it sat here so long, and I posted it online.  It sold within a few hours.

I brought up my white cabinet that has been sitting in the basement doing nothing.  Ok maybe I didn't bring it up, but I had my brawny men do it for me.

I still love this cabinet.  Something about knowing that you made something yourself (I didn't make it, but I altered it drastically so it feels like I made it) just bonds you to a thing.  Or at least that's what has happened to me with this piece of furniture.  I would link to the blog post about this piece, but it was so long ago that the blog no longer exists.  In a nutshell, I took a big tv armoire and cut it in half from top to bottom to make it more shallow, took off the upper doors and added shelves, relocated the feet (since two of them got cut off with the back of the cabinet) and painted.  Frank thought I was nuts when I first had the idea, but it turned out great.

The pine computer hutch was picked up Sunday afternoon and the room already looks so much better! Brighter and more spacious.  The pine cabinet was much deeper and took up a lot more visual and actual space.

Now I just have to figure out what to put in it.  The bottom section has all of Carter's school books and stuff that was in the computer cabinet. The top will hopefully be a mix of pretty and functional...but that's hard to pull off...at least for me.  So it might not end up being that pretty. haha!

In other news, remember the cork board covered in all of my fun Christmas cards?

Well, I took down the Christmas cards but never quite decided what to do with the cork board.  It is usually a big mess of mail, important papers, coupons and such. And I was really hoping to have it look less disastrous...

Instead, we have started using the little clothes pins to hang mail and coupons on the board.
Not the look I was hoping for...but that's what happens when you don't have a plan!