Apparently I haven’t had much to say lately! I just haven’t felt like blogging much lately, I am sure that will change soon enough and I will be back to boring everyone with the details of our not so fascinating life. Continue reading “Once a week blogging”
Holding Out
I told Matt a couple of weeks ago that I was going to hold out until May to turn on the air-conditioning. Is holding out really that difficult? Continue reading “Holding Out”
Human Footprint Part 2
I did get to watch the Human Footprint the other night and was a little disappointed. Even though it held true to its promise of showing all the things we consume in our life time, it didn’t express the impact of the consumption, or even suggest any changes to our lifestyles. I admit I could have missed it if they brought up either of those things briefly as we (Matt and Eric) were a little chatty during the show. In their defense they were discussing the show. At one point they waited anxiously for the show to tell us how much a woman spends in a lifetime on clothing, it had already told us how much a man spends, so it is only fair if they tell us how much a woman spends. It never told us and they were sorely disappointed.
Instead of watching the Human Footprint, if you haven’t already, I highly recommend the Story of Stuff. It is only 20 minutes compared to two hours and goes over the basics of human consumption and its impact on the world. There is even the suggestion that we can change the consumption driven lifestyle.
Garage Sale, Babysitting, and More
On Saturday we held a garage sale and we considered it a success. We cleared out a lot of stuff and made some money. We also babysat our neighbor Ethan. He is just about five months old and is really smiling a lot and starting to make fun noises! (Matt also changed his first diaper this weekend!) Here are some pics to enjoy! Continue reading “Garage Sale, Babysitting, and More”
Cut the Crap
I have signed up for yet another challenge this month to go along with the Buy Nothing Challenge. I am going to work on seriously de-cluttering the house. Those of you who live around us know we are having a garage sale tomorrow and are thinking, “Didn’t she do that already?” Well no, not really. I have cleaned out areas and found stuff to sale, but I have not truly de-cluttered. I have a couple of closets and drawers I don’t even like to open (come on you know you do too). I save stuff just in case I might need it one day, but I haven’t needed it in five years, but I still might need it some day. Ummm more than likely not!
Anyone can join me if they wish!
Buy Nothing Challenge
Matt and I have decide to participate in a Buy Nothing Challenge. We have actually been kicking around the idea since January 1, and one of the blogs I read regularly issued a challenge and we decided to go for it. For the month of April we can only buy the essentials.
That means:
- No new clothes
- No new gadgets
- No new furniture or housewares
- No salon services
- No makeup
- No tools
- No bike parts (that one is just for Matt 🙂 )
- No whatever else people buy
Anyone want to join us?
Our weekend
On Saturday we went to the botanical gardens to see the butterflies and spring wild flowers. Everything was beautiful. Continue reading “Our weekend”
MFD-CSI????
Lately our City has been kicking around the idea of cross-training fire fighters as police officers and police officers as fire fighters. Now I know for a fact that fire fighters go through a ton of training each and every year just to be fire fighters, I have no idea how they could also possibly train to be police officers too. I assume the police departments does a lot of training on its own too.
At any rate I have the pleasure of sharing with you the Fire Department’s first ever crime scene investigation. (Warning these images may be graphic to some, or just hilarious you can decide.) Continue reading “MFD-CSI????”
goal update for matt
Since steph posted her goal update, I’ll share mine.
I still havent fixed the master bath toilet from leaking. This is affecting our goal o wasting less water. I do have the parts. Maybe this weekend.
Although We have worked out more. I have failed to loose any weight. Im still 215. i guess for being 6′ 3″ its not all bad, especially since I easily wear a 34 pant. But i wanted to be 205 by the end of the first quarter. boooo.
thats all. I dont have as many important goals as stephanie does. I guess thats why i have her.
Happy Leap Day!
Did this feel like an extra day to anyone?
Not me, I had a busy, but overall fun week. I got to spend a lot of time outside this week walking dogs (if you don’t know I do this part-time), my boss was out of town so I picked up some extra work. The weather was great this week, I had to get out my tank tops, shorts, and sunblock (realized that after Monday and I was a little red). I really enjoyed all the extra time outside even if it kept me from doing other stuff that needed done.
We had a slight glitch in our adoption paperwork, but that was quickly fixed and sent to our agency. It hopefully went to Washington, D.C. yesterday. We don’t know for sure yet, but I will let you know when we find out.
In other news my dad made the paper. He said I was younger than I am, thanks dad!
I have decided to particpate in a tech free challenge. I am going to give up technology (e.g. television, computer, wii games) on Sundays for the month of March. Matt still hasn’t decided if he is going to participate yet, he is so addicted to email. I am looking forward to a day without technology right now even though I do love reading blogs and emails.
Anyone else want to participate in the challenge?
By the way this is post 200 on our blog. We have been talkative!
matts notes on georgia
So here are my general observations on our trip
- downtown atlanta seems pretty cool
- people drive the speed limit on the high ways. odd
- every road seems to be a highway, at 65 mph. with stop signs and stop lights
- the road names on the maps dont match the signs. makes directions hard to follow
- people seem to operate and a relaxed pace. Kind of cool. Unless you are in a hurry
- the highways are lined with trees. not houses and businesses like here in AZ
- the toll road was fun. I’ve never had to toss the change in the bucket like that
- My Weedwacker has more horsepower than our rental dodge caliber had
- There seemed to be these really cool looking turbines in the ceilings of tunnels. Maybe for generating electricity off the wind caused by cars? I need to do more homework on them
Over all I liked atlanta. If it wasn’t so far away from our families, I could see us living there.
It's Springtime!
I absolutely love spring! It is by far my favorite time of the year. I love watching everything come to life again after the winter. I am so lucky to live in a state where spring comes so early and winter is so short. I cannot wait to start gardening and hopefully will get my garden redone this weekend so I can get my seeds sown.
My peach tree is already starting to get leaves and blossoms. I am so excited to see if I can get peaches this year. A little history on my peach tree and why I am so excited it is getting leaves. I planted one peach tree last spring and it promptly died, so the nursery gave me a replacement but said I had to wait to fall to pick it up and plant it because it was already too hot here to plant any more fruit trees. We planted this tree in early fall and it lost all of its leaves immediately and it wasn’t even cold yet. So, I was worried it was dead but decided to wait until spring to see if it came back. It did!
For those of you who are now insanely jealous because it is so sunny here and you are buried in snow, just remember you have the right to brag in July and August when we are suffering from heat stroke.
In the hands of Fedex
Our dossier is officially in the hands of Fedex now and on its way to St. Louis, Missouri. I went by the Secretary of State today to get everything authenticated and they attached a sheet of paper and seal to each one.
Isn’t it pretty?
Today I also have to give thanks for woman’s intuition. As I drove away from the SOS I had a voice in my head that said to pull over and check the documents. Of course, I didn’t want to pull over, but I did give a quick look while sitting at a red light and the first sheet I looked at was missing the gold seal. I turned around, parked, re-checked absolutely everything, and went in and got the one gold seal I was missing.
I am so happy that our dossier is in the mail and out of our hands. It was a lot of work, but so worth it!
We're Home!
We arrived safely back in Arizona yesterday. The flight was so much calmer than the last. We had a great time in Georgia. I wish we could have seen more of the state, we were inside most of the daylight hours and didn’t get to see much. Of course, we saw enough to know that there are trees everywhere. Very different compared to southern Arizona. It was cool but not cold, we left the day a cold snap was coming into town, so we lucked out. Matt got to meet a lot of clients face to face for the first time and has lots of potential new clients. The churches in Georgia sure do love him! He is pretty awesome at what he does, so I can see why.
Here is Matt sitting at the booth, doing some last minute work:
Here is the view from our booth, food everywhere:
The church that put on the conference was great about having lots of healthy food to eat at all times. There was a ton of fresh fruit and granola bars, Kashi my favorite.
We had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people, but I am so glad to be home. We both finally had a good night’s sleep last night and are feeling much better today.