LOST!

So the Crazy lady that owned our house before us had STACKS of broken concrete and she apparently had a rock faddish!
In Her front yard she strung "soaker" hoses all around her plants, then laid down black plastic over all the gardens and covered all the plastic with gravel ...then around each tree, plant, bush, pathway, she put big boulders...I understand her thinking (low maintenance) but it looks dreadful AND and who does that?

Anyways....Mother is on spring break this week and gave me one day, she came over with the trailer and we loaded up all the broken concrete and as many rocks as we could. We were going to bring them to Jerm's work (Washington Rock Quarries) so we drive up to around where it is and start up the road....Up, UP, Up. Mom is getting nervous because she cannot back up the trailer to turn around... we keep going farther and farther, Long story short...we drove around LOST for at least an hour and 15 minutes, I ran up a few roads, asked a random guy where we were, went up so high we hit snow, then we ended up going to the wrong WRQ and had to have a guy drive us over to the correct one... we FINNALY get there and unload our HUGE load of rocks and concrete...(now remember this took us like 1 1/2 hours to load)....that pile looked SO tiny comparatively to all the Mountains of rocks….we got a load of Top soil-to replace to the rocks in my gardens! And went home…we unloaded the top soil…it umm…It smells like POOP, I know it will be prefect for my gardens, but my neighbors looked at it funny when they went to get their mail!

Okay one last story…Jerm drives a Explorer for work, when we were following him my mother asked, “how does his car get so dirty?” and I said “he works in a dirty place” and she was like “ yeah but how does it get above the windows?” about 4 minutes after that comment we were following him down the hill and he flew thru a HUGE puddle that splashed WAY up over his windows….Best part of the story is his drivers side was OPEN!

We're Rich!

Okay so we're not, and I fully realize it's not that much money, however it is really exciting to have someone hand your 8 $100 dollar bills, for basically nothing (well it was a lot of work to get it ready, but now its done)
As some of you may know our house is 2100 sq Ft. and it's just the two of us, So until we grow into our house we wanted to rent out the basement! We found a very nice young man and he will be renting it from us for the next 6 months. Kinda like a silent non-interactive part of the family and a little extra Mula (since I am not working as much that will be fabulous!) Wahoo!

Sunday dinnner!

We had a normal Family dinner on Sunday...with a few exceptions... we had MEATLOAF (this was quite exciting for the brother-in-laws who apparently share a LOVE for meatloaf) and Papa, Malachi, Grandpa and I played Pinochle...Malachi and Papa kicked our butts!
Isn’t the last picture of Clara buggie and Malachi so cute…she is telling him “Stuff” He is going to be such a good daddy one day!

Spring?

Saturday night we got a blizzard! I know that seems normal for you Idahoans but here in Western Washington snow, especialy when it's almost APRIL is bizzar!

Ready...OOPS

Despite our best efforts Malachi and I have been sporadic with our church attendance, especially with our own ward! Two Sundays ago I didn’t make it to church (Malachi went by himself) and I was feeling really rotten about it, so Sunday Malachi and I both got up early and decided to have a positive attitude about going to church!! WAHOO!! We drive there and...No one is there, unknown to us it was Stake conference! Best intentions, worst outcome!

SHED- DONE!

Last weekend Jeremy finished the shed! WAHOO! Well we still need to paint it, but essentialy it's done. It is SO nice not to have out stuff strung all around the house, and there is a spot for the Christmas decorations to be, AND best of all our stuff is dry and safe! I LOVE IT! It’s a little unorganized at the moment, but there is plenty of time for organizing later!

WHITE is the New PINK!

So I am not a pink girl anyway, but on a Toilet...YUCK! Who in their right mind would install a Pink Toilet? CRAZY! So awhile ago someone Fabulous gave me a toilet, but I (and Malachi) kinda didn't know how to install it! So it sat in our garage for the winter!


So my friend Rachel came offered her assistance! We don't need men! Together we read the directions....

....And Wallha! A NEW WHITE TOILET!

Helpin' Momma!

So Last Saturday Malachi and I went to my mommas house to help her with some yardwork...she does so much for us we wanted to help her with what is important to her!

I dug a hole for mom last week (for a plant) but there was a large root in the bottom of it....so she was going to have Malachi chop it out so we could dig deeper. However because a week had gone by the hole was filled with water...it was hallarious watching Malachi trying to get the water out!

Mom likes ferns! She has lots growing in the forest around her house but she would like them more in her yard. Papa has been going into the forest and digging up ferns and transplanting them into her yard. So Mom asked Malachi to go get her a few ferns...This is what her came out with!

The most GIANT Fern EVER!!!!

4 cups of raisins and a pineapple!

So I work at a grocery store, and I get the craziest customers.
One older lady came up with a basket full of things, starting unloading and asked “is 4 cups of raisins a lot?” and I said that depends on what she is using them for “cookies?” and she said it was for her granddaughter to eat…..Well that will give her instant diarrhea. Come to find out the granddaughter is a big eater garbage-disposal summo wrestler of a kid, and the grandma was going to have to baby-sit and didn’t have any snacks…well Lady 4 cups of raisins is not it!

So then later a different lady came up with her daughter and had a basket of various items, on thing was a whole pineapple, when I got to that she said “I don’t eat the stem, take it off before you weight it.” I kinda thought she was joking, but she was serious. I told her that I couldn’t do that and this is how pineapples are sold, she started yelling and saying how I was ripping her off and she wasn’t paying for anything she wasn’t eating. I just let her rant and rave and she left. All of could think of is- lady there are fresh cut pineapple over in produce if you only want to pay for what you eat-BUT those are considered “Trimmed” so they are more expensive! DUH!

Swift Showdown

Every month the "BOYS" go play poker! No girls allowed! So this month Malachi was hosting...he (and I) had a bunch of ideas of ways to make it fun and different, one thing he wanted was a large banner that said "Swift Showdown" but he was trying to figure out who could make it...?.... Hello! Your wife, I may not be an artist but I can make a banner! So this was my contribution to the party!

Swift Family Dinner!

We went to My Sister-in-law, Doranda’s house for dinner. She lives in Bremerton and Malachi and I had never seen her house before, it was really cute! Doranda obviously has put a LOT of work into it in the months she has been there. Her Son Tucker was cute, running around Jebber-jabbering. We played a fun game with candy and a Pot pan (don’t ask) I almost forgot to get out my Camera- but at the last minute I took a few pictures!

Shed- Jeremy is Fabulous!

I am so grateful that Amanda married Jeremy. That Man is SO Fetchin’ TALLENTED! He is deffinatly in the running for favorite brother-in-law (OOooOO-do you want to take part in the contest Scott?) I don’t care how much of a pain in the butt he is (JUST KIDDING) He is GREAT! This weekend he started building us a shed!IN THE RAIN!< WAHOO! Now we wont get our stuff stolen anymore AND it didn’t cost us a few Thousand dollars (like Home Depot) It’s not all the way done yet…but close. I will post more pictures of the finished product!

Delighted and infuriated simultaneously!

So there is good news and BAD news!
The good news is that after lots of advertising we found a young man to rent our apartment downstairs!! This is great, it seems really nice, and looks like he will be able to pay his rent, so I am really excited…a few extra hundred dollars a month!
The bad news is that Albertsons is ridiculous. Remember how I stepped down from being a manager. I was looking to find a store closer, so that I could work 32 hours a week and NOT work any Sundays. My store director asked if while I was looking I would work in the front end as a checker, they really need some help up there and they wanted to fill my management spot. So I move to front end…I was still working 30-40 hours a week (which wasn’t ideal but I didn’t mind helping out) THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN- my hours drop to 4! They hired another front end manager. I have only worked at Albertsons about 5 years and everyone else has worked there for 30+, so I have no seniority….So the long and the short of it is I may nave been the go-to girl, multi-talented, trained and capable to work in all departments, but currently I am no better than CHOPPED LIVER!
To ad insult to injury…Mean while I applied for a lower management position (which I am Over qualified for) at a store closer to my house! There have been several instances where the management at this store haven’t exactly made their decisions ethically, they are based more on politics vs. actual experience. Unfortunately that was the case in this position They hired a helper clerk from their store…So someone who doesn’t know “Jack” and they will have to send to training, and explain how to do EVERYTHING….Whatever!
So good thing we got the apartment rented out…because we are going to need that money!

Shopping takes skill and talent!

Budget Coupons and Storage
At this time Malachi and I both work so our income is more than our expenses (as it should be) and although we are trying to put lots in our savings account (for when we both are not working) and trying to spend money on wise investments (windows) we have found ourselves nickling and diming our money away! A few weeks ago in our marriage class there was a lesson on Budgeting….so we thought we would outline a general budget to try to start getting our (my) spending under a little more control. You see, I tend to buy in excess, I only buy things that are on sale and clearance, so it’s a really good deal however $1.00 X 100 is still $100.00 So we outlines how much money we would spend on various areas per month…its still a little rough but we are working on it!
Then two weeks ago I attended a seminar hosted by my sister-in-law called “Be Centsable” It was on how to use Coupons and sales more effectively. Most of the stuff I was already aware of (since I work at a grocery store) but it made me get organized…I went and bought a little accordion thing to organize my coupons (yes I am that dorky) bought a Sunday paper, went though all my adds, and made a list!
However there is one little catch….I have been a sale/great deal/clearance shopper for a while now so…Since there is only 2 of us we pretty much have everything we need, And we have what you would call a pantry- Not a storage room. So Malachi has been gently reminding me that although he appreciates my attempts to accumulate food storage, we probably have enough food storage to get “just the two of us” by for close to a year, and i could "Chill" a little bit.
So when I went grocery shopping (becuase we were out of stuff) I gathered all my coupons….and make my list, I had to keep in mind how much money total to get us though the month, how cheep each item is, a try to get things that we can use to make a lunch (so we don’t buy lunch) or a quick dinner!

If you want to have a good time try to keep track in your head!
So I got….
A bag of rice cakes
2 bags of Pasta
A box of instant oatmeal
Tortillas
A bag of Kettle Chips
A box of pasta Roni
A Jar of light Mayo
A Bag of Cascade dishwashing packs
2 boxes of Pop tarts
A 24 case of water
A box of Capri suns
English muffins
Two loafs of bread
A 4 pack of pudding
A 6 pack of propel
4 pack Danimals Yogurt
A dozen eggs
Two gallons of milk
A gallon of Chocolate milk
A gallon of Orange juice
Large container of cottage cheese
6 Yo-plait Yogurt
A six pack of lightn’ fit yogurt
2 Half gallons of ice cream
One Digorno pizza
A box of frozen waffles
4 frozen dinners
One pot pie
A box of frozen taquitos
A 5lb bag of chicken breasts
A package of bacon
2 pre-made sandwiches- like lunchables
2 pounds of grapes
A few tomatoes
A fruit cup
A 5lb bag of apples
And a loaf of garlic bread


Guess how much I spent?...I used 23 coupons, and spent $84.55!