We went out the other day to look at vehicles, and we were not going to buy one yet. But the next thing I know, we are driving a 2008 Chrystler Town and Country home.
Yes, this is a mini van everyone. Lets hear it now, because we love it. And we actually fight over who gets to drive it. Thankfully this will be my vehicle to tote around Baby H in.
So we went to Harold Zeigler in Grandville after we had lunch. We knew we were only interested in a van and started looking at a few. But when we walk in the building there were no salesmen to be seen. All I saw was Santa, lots of green elves, and one silly looking man dressed in a reindeer outfit. So this guy with bells on his ankles and ears that needed some plastic surgery came up to us and wanted us to take him seriously. It was not going to happen. He must have figured that out on his own because when we went out to look at the vehicles he said he had to grab his jacket, and came out looking like a human. At that point I let him know changing was a good move on his part.
Next we drove a few vans, and then we started negotiations. This wasn't too intense for me because I knew "we weren't going to buy today". That was until Josh asked me what I thought about giving an offer. It sounded good enough to me that they wouldn't take it, so I said sure.
As they tried to negotiate, we got introduced to Santa. He was a jolly old fart too. (Santa if you're reading this, this is just a joke) Apparently we were working with one of Santa's little helpers. Our salesman was new and we had to go through the elf to get to santa to get to the managers. (I didn't catch what the managers code name was). Pretty soon the elf said santa wasn't going to come over any more because I intimidated him. But that was pretty sneaky cause I'm sure santa knew he intimidated me and he really wanted the sale.
So at this point we spent a few hours looking at vans, and then a couple more sitting and talking about the vans. I was getting tired and hungry. And then someone brought in a pizza. I knew we already made our offer. But with the smell of that pizza, it honestly crossed my mind to ask them to include that pizza in with our offer. I knew that wouldn't be right since the guy we were dealing with didn't even had lunch and now it was after 5. These are sales men though, and if I asked for that pizza to be written into our offer, I'm sure they would have negotiated at least a piece for me. Maybe even one for Josh. So I didn't dare ask. (They probably would have wanted us to up our offer too, and I was ready to go)
So this Christmas we did buy a van, yes a van, from an elf working under Santa, who worked under the managers. And I have never seen managers in the Christmas movies, probably because they don't want the children to know who santa works for.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
Today we'll paint Josh's way.
Yesterday we decided to tackle painting again. Our baby's room was pink when we got the house. And as most of you know I love pink, but I don't know that I think it's a color that should be on the walls, unless it was chosen by a child. (For all of you with pink walls, I know you must be a kid at heart, and good for you.)
So the pink was leaving and the gray moved right in.
When I paint I love to do the cutting in. Josh on the other hand prefers to do the rolling, and this works out well most of the time. But this time I see Josh rolling right behind me with a very unusual technique. He rolls a line all the way up the wall and then all the way down the wall in one perfectly vertical line. I let him know, that isn't how I would do it, and my two cents weren't helping a lot. So we continued.
We are both working on wall #2 and we look back at wall #1. It looks like we actually tried to put vertical lines on the wall, one dark gray and one light. From there Josh decides to try the "w" idea. Which is painting in "w's". But by the time we get to wall #4, wall #1 is drying up pretty nicely. So Josh goes back to his own method but added a slight w to his up and down lines. We had a good time, especially when Josh was getting tired and I keep hearing this, "opps", "bummer", "babes don't look at the ceiling"... following my precision cutting in. We ended up just laughing at how tired he was after the second coat. And I pretty much kept quiet about his oopses. The key phrase is pretty much.
See the first time I tried to correct him, he was painting the ceiling. He made it look so easy, but he was not doing it the way I thought it should be done. So like any good wife, I let him know I could do it better. I grabbed the roller that was attached to a bar and pushed it onto the ceiling with two painful stroke. The next thing we hear is SPLAT! Loud as ever. You know one of the noises a dump-chicken (aka a seagull) makes when he just let loose of a major lunch experience? Anybody that has ever had this experience land on them knows what I'm talking about. That was the noise following a baseball size chunk of paint falling from the ceiling. Quickly I bend down, looking under the drop cloth to see if any of this 4inch diameter dropping went through. It did not!!!! So after this humbling experience I profusely apologized and let Josh finish his "phenomenal job" he was doing.
After that I left to use the bathroom, which I still do frequently. I was wearing a pair of pregnancy overalls that I was quite excited about. But as I unlatched them to get ready to pee and heard this sploosh from the porcelain throne. That's never a good sound right after you fling one end of you overall strap behind you. Thankfully I realized what the sploosh was all about before I added my bodily fluids. And this is one type of payback, I do believe. So be nice to your husband because there will be a time when you actually can't do it better than he can.
So the pink was leaving and the gray moved right in.
When I paint I love to do the cutting in. Josh on the other hand prefers to do the rolling, and this works out well most of the time. But this time I see Josh rolling right behind me with a very unusual technique. He rolls a line all the way up the wall and then all the way down the wall in one perfectly vertical line. I let him know, that isn't how I would do it, and my two cents weren't helping a lot. So we continued.
We are both working on wall #2 and we look back at wall #1. It looks like we actually tried to put vertical lines on the wall, one dark gray and one light. From there Josh decides to try the "w" idea. Which is painting in "w's". But by the time we get to wall #4, wall #1 is drying up pretty nicely. So Josh goes back to his own method but added a slight w to his up and down lines. We had a good time, especially when Josh was getting tired and I keep hearing this, "opps", "bummer", "babes don't look at the ceiling"... following my precision cutting in. We ended up just laughing at how tired he was after the second coat. And I pretty much kept quiet about his oopses. The key phrase is pretty much.
See the first time I tried to correct him, he was painting the ceiling. He made it look so easy, but he was not doing it the way I thought it should be done. So like any good wife, I let him know I could do it better. I grabbed the roller that was attached to a bar and pushed it onto the ceiling with two painful stroke. The next thing we hear is SPLAT! Loud as ever. You know one of the noises a dump-chicken (aka a seagull) makes when he just let loose of a major lunch experience? Anybody that has ever had this experience land on them knows what I'm talking about. That was the noise following a baseball size chunk of paint falling from the ceiling. Quickly I bend down, looking under the drop cloth to see if any of this 4inch diameter dropping went through. It did not!!!! So after this humbling experience I profusely apologized and let Josh finish his "phenomenal job" he was doing.
After that I left to use the bathroom, which I still do frequently. I was wearing a pair of pregnancy overalls that I was quite excited about. But as I unlatched them to get ready to pee and heard this sploosh from the porcelain throne. That's never a good sound right after you fling one end of you overall strap behind you. Thankfully I realized what the sploosh was all about before I added my bodily fluids. And this is one type of payback, I do believe. So be nice to your husband because there will be a time when you actually can't do it better than he can.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Christmas Letter
So Josh decided to write the Christmas letter this year. I thought that would be a wonderful idea, except that now I want to share my stories too. So here is my unofficial, not quite as cool as Josh's, Christmas Letter!!!!
This year started out great. Way back in January we had high hopes and dreams for this past year. Josh just finished up a masters in computer science. He was still working at DornerWorks in Grand Rapids and I was at MasterCuts. We were living in our little one bedroom apartment, and still growing out of it. There, now you're caught up with our last few years we didn't send out a chrismas letter.
Now for the good part...
We bought a house. YAY!!!! We found a place in Zeeland, right by the highway so we could commute easily to GR. Who could have asked for more? But you should have seen the wall paper. If we would have sent the house pictures into a show like "modernize my house please" this place would have been first on the list. Wow. But after steaming, and scraping and a whole lot of, "oops" "that's not good" "did I do that?", and some other choice words, we were ready to move in. The late nights of our working on the house lasted about 3 weeks. We would work all day, sometimes get done with work around 8pm and run over to Zeeland (yes, from GR) to get a few hours of work in. That meant we were sleep deprived but very driven.
I don't believe at this time out neighbors ever thought they would meet us. The only glimpses they got of us were when it's after dark and we were running around outside. One day Josh and I needed to dig a hole in our yard. It was dark out so we attached a bright light to the top of our ladder as we dug our hole. People would drive in the neighborhood, and drive right back out. We were not helping estate sales in this neck of the woods. After more instances like this, a few neighbors dared to meet us. And we bonded quite well with many of them. (I don't know what this is saying about them though...).
Now from my previous posts, you got to find out that Josh and I did indeed get pregnant. What I didn't include was how quickly our neighbors found out. We are so close to our neighbors, they found out I was pregnant before any of our friends or relatives. Yikes!!!! We were all hanging out in someones driveway (yes, this is what we do) and everyone was drinking. Everyone but me. Awkward... And of course they all wanted to know where my boos was. After being asked if I was pregnant over 20 times, I confessed (since I never could lie to save my life). So, yup, we're tight with our neighbors. Now when I go out to shovel the driveway, I get yelled at from across the block to stop. And the next thing I know one of the neighbor guys comes over to plow for me. It's a nice gesture, but what am I supposed to do do while he plows? Stand and watch? So that's what I did. I stood there and watched but I also tried to look busy doing nothing. Then I tried to be nice back and get him a beer from the fridge. What was I thinking!!! Do I stand there and make him drink the beer in front of me, or tell him to take it home? I don't know how to be a good neighbor. So I made him drink it in front of me while i talked about who-knows-what. I'm good at that. I have to make 15 min conversations about who-knows-what all day at work.
Speaking of work, I am down to working 1 day a week. I put in my 2 weeks in and was asked to stay at least one day a week. So Thursdays are the only days I'm working. This is not a normal thing that MasterCuts does, so we'll see how long this lasts and if it works out. But this means I will have more time to plan for Baby H and get this house put together.
Ok I'm feeling better about sharing my stories too. There will be more, but for now this is all there is.
This year started out great. Way back in January we had high hopes and dreams for this past year. Josh just finished up a masters in computer science. He was still working at DornerWorks in Grand Rapids and I was at MasterCuts. We were living in our little one bedroom apartment, and still growing out of it. There, now you're caught up with our last few years we didn't send out a chrismas letter.
Now for the good part...
We bought a house. YAY!!!! We found a place in Zeeland, right by the highway so we could commute easily to GR. Who could have asked for more? But you should have seen the wall paper. If we would have sent the house pictures into a show like "modernize my house please" this place would have been first on the list. Wow. But after steaming, and scraping and a whole lot of, "oops" "that's not good" "did I do that?", and some other choice words, we were ready to move in. The late nights of our working on the house lasted about 3 weeks. We would work all day, sometimes get done with work around 8pm and run over to Zeeland (yes, from GR) to get a few hours of work in. That meant we were sleep deprived but very driven.
I don't believe at this time out neighbors ever thought they would meet us. The only glimpses they got of us were when it's after dark and we were running around outside. One day Josh and I needed to dig a hole in our yard. It was dark out so we attached a bright light to the top of our ladder as we dug our hole. People would drive in the neighborhood, and drive right back out. We were not helping estate sales in this neck of the woods. After more instances like this, a few neighbors dared to meet us. And we bonded quite well with many of them. (I don't know what this is saying about them though...).
Now from my previous posts, you got to find out that Josh and I did indeed get pregnant. What I didn't include was how quickly our neighbors found out. We are so close to our neighbors, they found out I was pregnant before any of our friends or relatives. Yikes!!!! We were all hanging out in someones driveway (yes, this is what we do) and everyone was drinking. Everyone but me. Awkward... And of course they all wanted to know where my boos was. After being asked if I was pregnant over 20 times, I confessed (since I never could lie to save my life). So, yup, we're tight with our neighbors. Now when I go out to shovel the driveway, I get yelled at from across the block to stop. And the next thing I know one of the neighbor guys comes over to plow for me. It's a nice gesture, but what am I supposed to do do while he plows? Stand and watch? So that's what I did. I stood there and watched but I also tried to look busy doing nothing. Then I tried to be nice back and get him a beer from the fridge. What was I thinking!!! Do I stand there and make him drink the beer in front of me, or tell him to take it home? I don't know how to be a good neighbor. So I made him drink it in front of me while i talked about who-knows-what. I'm good at that. I have to make 15 min conversations about who-knows-what all day at work.
Speaking of work, I am down to working 1 day a week. I put in my 2 weeks in and was asked to stay at least one day a week. So Thursdays are the only days I'm working. This is not a normal thing that MasterCuts does, so we'll see how long this lasts and if it works out. But this means I will have more time to plan for Baby H and get this house put together.
Ok I'm feeling better about sharing my stories too. There will be more, but for now this is all there is.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Read at your own risk. There might be TMI...
So it took me a while to get smart about feeling sick. I could no longer stand the smell of greasy foods. And Josh loves quesadillas. It's one of the only foods he can make. But those got banned after too many times of coming home to the smell I went flying into the bathroom. Also I needed to plan ahead on my drives to and from Grand Rapids. One time I ended up dry heaving into a cereal box for about 10 miles. What? Yes a cereal box. It was the only thing I took to work that I could use.
But worst of all, are perms at the salon. (They still make me sick, even if I'm not the one doing the perm.)
The last perm I dealt with started around 2pm. I had a full day and one of the girls in the salon did a perm. By 4:00 I was running to the bathroom between all my clients. And I was booked till after 6. (There was no leaving early.) One mom came in with her two boys, and I ran to the bathroom between each of them. At first I think she thought I just liked the bathroom, but after the last trip I knew she caught on. And when I thought I was almost finished, I had to shampoo out a color, cut and style her hair. I puked 3 times in the middle of her services. She was so sweet about it. I left her nice and calm each time and let her know I'd be right back. At that time I still I thought I had everything under control until the salon was filled, and someone waiting for a cut decided she needed to use the bathroom. (I only had 10 min between each of my bathroom trips, but how long could she possibly take, right?) She took way too long. I told myself "puking (or in this case, dry heaving was more like it) is only a mind game. You can make yourself hold it. Really you can." And that's when I did one of those dreadful puke burps. The kind that tells you, you're not in control and the inevitable is yet to come. I quickly reassured my client I would not puke on her (yes I said exactly that), but the look on both of our faces clearly meant, we were not sure about that. Two seconds later the crazy lady was still in the bathroom, and I was dry heaving into a garbage can in the back room. I was mortified.
After talking to my doctor about this situation, he decided it would be best if I wasn't around perms anymore. And I'm sure if you'd talk to my client I almost puked on, she'd agree.
But worst of all, are perms at the salon. (They still make me sick, even if I'm not the one doing the perm.)
The last perm I dealt with started around 2pm. I had a full day and one of the girls in the salon did a perm. By 4:00 I was running to the bathroom between all my clients. And I was booked till after 6. (There was no leaving early.) One mom came in with her two boys, and I ran to the bathroom between each of them. At first I think she thought I just liked the bathroom, but after the last trip I knew she caught on. And when I thought I was almost finished, I had to shampoo out a color, cut and style her hair. I puked 3 times in the middle of her services. She was so sweet about it. I left her nice and calm each time and let her know I'd be right back. At that time I still I thought I had everything under control until the salon was filled, and someone waiting for a cut decided she needed to use the bathroom. (I only had 10 min between each of my bathroom trips, but how long could she possibly take, right?) She took way too long. I told myself "puking (or in this case, dry heaving was more like it) is only a mind game. You can make yourself hold it. Really you can." And that's when I did one of those dreadful puke burps. The kind that tells you, you're not in control and the inevitable is yet to come. I quickly reassured my client I would not puke on her (yes I said exactly that), but the look on both of our faces clearly meant, we were not sure about that. Two seconds later the crazy lady was still in the bathroom, and I was dry heaving into a garbage can in the back room. I was mortified.
After talking to my doctor about this situation, he decided it would be best if I wasn't around perms anymore. And I'm sure if you'd talk to my client I almost puked on, she'd agree.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Trips to the bathroom.
It had been almost 6 weeks of pregnancy, and I thought I wouldn't have to worry about getting sick at all. My mom didn't get sick and I neither would I. That idea lasted a few seconds longer and then... I was sick.
Thankfully by this time our parents and siblings all knew what was going on, so I didn't have to hide my queezy feelings from them. But the girls at work did not know, and I wanted to wait a little bit to tell them.
I have always had to pee a lot. (And this saved me at work) While I was running to the bathroom to puke, they thought I just had an active bladder, which is also true. But with an active bladder, I don't know why they thought I always needed to turn the faucet on to hide the sounds of my tinkle. But they never questioned me and I wasn't about to share. Plus, coming out with a beat red face every time should have created some questions. But I was able to keep our little secret 12-13 weeks from the girls at work.
Thankfully by this time our parents and siblings all knew what was going on, so I didn't have to hide my queezy feelings from them. But the girls at work did not know, and I wanted to wait a little bit to tell them.
I have always had to pee a lot. (And this saved me at work) While I was running to the bathroom to puke, they thought I just had an active bladder, which is also true. But with an active bladder, I don't know why they thought I always needed to turn the faucet on to hide the sounds of my tinkle. But they never questioned me and I wasn't about to share. Plus, coming out with a beat red face every time should have created some questions. But I was able to keep our little secret 12-13 weeks from the girls at work.
Lines in the bathroom...
So I have a few days of my pregnancy that totally stand out, and the first one would be the day we got pregnant. It's not the best story, but it was a great day.
We'd been trying to get pregnant for a few months now, and every month I had more anticipation than the previous month. So I did what any girl would do in that situation, I PEED ON A STICK!
Josh was around and all he got to hear was, "I think that's too lines, no I'm sure that's two lines, I have two lines!!! Dark lines! I'm sure it is..."
I don't know what he thought I was doing in the bathroom. I'm in there all alone, getting very excited, and shouting about some lines during an early morning pee. But shortly after that moment we both realized we were going to be parents.
That was back in July. Next came the fun part...
We'd been trying to get pregnant for a few months now, and every month I had more anticipation than the previous month. So I did what any girl would do in that situation, I PEED ON A STICK!
Josh was around and all he got to hear was, "I think that's too lines, no I'm sure that's two lines, I have two lines!!! Dark lines! I'm sure it is..."
I don't know what he thought I was doing in the bathroom. I'm in there all alone, getting very excited, and shouting about some lines during an early morning pee. But shortly after that moment we both realized we were going to be parents.
That was back in July. Next came the fun part...
Christmas Vacation
So it doesn't truly feel like Christmas vacation yet, but it feels good. I won't be at MasterCuts for 3 weeks, and when I go back, I will only be working on Thursdays. I have lots to do, and this is on my list. I wanted to make a true blog for my first time. So here goes nothing...
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