Thursday, September 25, 2008

New Talents

Well, today has consisted of finalizing a new talent. I have never done it before and I wanted to try my best at something new. My mom, sister, and many friends know how to do it, even Jason knows how to do it! I could not believe that I had not tried it before . It's not that hard, and it is kind of fun. Only one hand hurts instead of both do when learning something new. I decided I should try it out and see if I could add to my repertoire of new talents I have taught myself. You are probably wondering, "What on earth has she learned?" Well, I have learned to cross stitch!

I figured if I had to teach myself how to do it I should start with something easy. So I did the smart thing, I bought a kid's craft from the craft store and started working on it. As I was looking through the different projects I came across one that I thought would be really nice for my future nephew that will be born at the end of the year. (Plus, I knew I had to the end of the year in case I got frustrated with learning something new.) I am happy to say that it only took me a couple hours last week and about 5 hours today to finish it. It took 5 hours today because the Survivor season premiere was on and of course I had to watch that at the same time. I only poked myself once with the needle and it was in the last 20 minutes, my eyes are very tired now.

I am sharing with all of you my latest project. Meet- Froggie, he was made with love for my nephew. Now I just have to find a frame for him so it can go in his nursery. Sorry Cheyanne, this kind of ruins the surprise.
This is before I cut it out.

It actually looks like the photo!

I even remembered to put my initials and the year on it!


Also included is a photo of the baby blanket I knit for Isaiah Pyke.
Luckily I was able to finish that before he was born too!

Now it's time to finish the projects for my niece that will be born end of October/ beginning of November. But first, I will rest my eyes and hands for the night.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Joys of a Weather Service Wife

The last week has been in constant flux for Jason's schedule. He had evening shifts (2pm - 10 pm) for most of last week which is fine since that was his regular schedule, but come the end of the week to his 3-day weekend off the calls started coming in. Toward the middle of the week it was "can you take an overtime (OT) for Friday midnight (10 pm- 6 am Sat.)?" Sorry, no it is his birthday weekend, and we try not to have either of us working on our birthdays. No problem there. Then Friday night, phone call again, "can you take Saturday day shift (6 am - 2 pm)?" No, sorry, unavailable. Now, I've never really known it to be this bad, but with illness traveling through the office I can understand.



I was already feeling guilty enough that for his birthday weekend we were home and not traveling, although we were house sitting and Jason got a thrill out of Blu-Ray dvd player, big screen tv, and surround sound. Our friend's had their first child on Friday, so on his birthday we got to visit them in the hospital and help set up what they needed at home for meals when they went home that evening.


Fast forward to Tuesday evening, phone call, "we need you to come in early for your day shift tomorrow." This one is totally understandable because a coworker's wife was very ill. So our late afternoon became: quick trip to drop off extra sheets for friend's family coming in, then back home and to bed at 6 pm so he could get up at 2 am to be at work by 3 am. So instead of getting to snuggle on sofa and watch House together, I got to sit in the living room until I realized we had no food in the house for Jason's meals at work, so off to Sam's quick, then home to cook the pizza and get it ready for him to take to work. And of course since I didn't have to be up early the next morning, I stayed up way too late watching online movies on Netflix.


Luckily I just got the call that Jason gets to come home right now instead of working all the way until 2 pm. So it's off to make Jason a smoothie to help tide him over until "dinner time" since his "lunch" was at 8 am!

The joys of being a weather service wife, trying to keep up with an influx schedule and yet live on "real world" time too.


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Newest Member of Our Family

Well, I did say the next post would be about Jason's new best friend. But first an update on our friends and family that were in Ike's path. The Van's did very well and have been back home for a while, but Jason's brother is still without power. He was able to borrow a generator from someone, and hopefully they will have power by the end of the week.

Jason made a new friend when I was gone on a 11 day trip at the end of August and beginning of September. I knew he would probably be lonely while I was gone for so long, so I arranged for him to make a new friend. I had been planning it for a while, but had to wait until the day before I left to carryout the final details. I went to the store and spent 20 minutes trying to choose just the right now. I didn't want one that was skittish and moved away from a hand coming at it, and I wanted one that was "pretty" too. I finally decided on one and purchased it and all the paraphernalia that was needed, especially food. I then had to drive home carefully so as not to upset his new friend, get everything inside, and prepare it's new home. I'm calling him "It" because it was up to Jason to name him. Once he was settled in his new home I had to wait for Jason to get off work and come home to see him.

I heard the garage door go up and quickly got him into position so Jason hopefully wouldn't walk by and not see him, although that is pretty unlikely. In walked Jason and spotted him right away! Jason smiled really big and said, "You got me a fish!" I told him I didn't want him to be lonely while I was gone for so long, so I figured a Betta fish was a good idea. Jason has always wanted one so I did my best to get everything he needs. I told him I wanted to see the fish alive still when I got back from my trip.

Over the course of my trip Jason was trying out names to see what worked for him, especially since I was getting sick of "fishy" for a name. Finally he was down to 2 names, and one of them I told him he could not use. I didn't want a pet being named after a person on a reality program, even if he was the color of the guy's hair! (The name was Suede. Can anyone name the show?) So he decided on ... drum roll please....or thunder roll more likely.... Ike. He thought it would be fun to name him after the next hurricane that was in the Atlantic. Which was fine until we found out Hurricane Ike was coming toward us, and we figured it was because the new fish was "drawing it this way," like a magnet. When I returned home, Ike was still alive, and Hurricane Ike was coming this way. It almost came to me having to leave right after getting home! We were glad when H. Ike turned more northerly because the Valley's ground is still saturated with water from Hurricane Dolly. (That can be another post later.)

There was one minor emergency with Ike while I was gone. His home was a huge vase that had lots of room for him to swim in, but Jason noticed within the next 24 hours of him being in it that there was a puddle of water on the floor by the counter. So overnight he put it on a baking sheet with paper towels to see if the was was leaking or we just had spilled some water. There was a huge crack running almost the entire length of the vase. Jason headed to the store to find him a new home, switched him over to that, and that is where he still resides today, even if it is just a plain old fishbowl. Not my first choice, but it will do for now.

We are doing fine right now, Ike even got to go live with us while we house sat 3 cats. Needless to say, our door stayed closed all the time. Although at one point we did have the youngest cat with us and he spotted Ike. Let's just say the kitty didn't stay too much longer in the room because it looked like he liked the fishy!!

Everyone, let me introduce you to the newest member of our family... Ike!