House Demo

I don't like working on the house very much. I can see why people don't do it.

Ace Plumbing, bah

So we ripped off the back of the house Saturday, or I guess it was Friday. We discovered the AC was 'fixed' by some caulking and door weatherstripping all around it. So today the guy comes to fix the AC. He says because there are saw marks on the bigger pipe its our fault and the warranty won't cover it. Then he says it will be about 250 to fix it. So we said ok, not thinking the $60 was his to keep no matter what, and not thinking that it would cost $315.88 on top of that $60.
Anyway, after he walks into our house twice without knocking (i mean for real I could be breastfeeding, and you can knock.) he makes us pay, says that no one gives free estimates, and leaves. I was pretty pissed. He said We cut it, and its our fault. So maybe we had an enthusiastic helper, but it was not us, and don't imply we are stupid and flipping this house like you. This is our first home, and we just want it to be secure and not mold, or leak, or whatever.
I go look, and the pipe that he says we nicked is, STILL nicked. WHAT the FreAK! I got my camera, found batteries and took pictures. Then I see he trampled my garden. He also walked through our new grass thats only a week old, leaving very obvious footprints. I mean really man, we have stepping stone thingies. I am so pissed. I wish swearing made me feel better, but at least blogging does.
So we call the warranty people and they say we can have a second opinion, but they have to recieve his report first. I took pictures. I was pretty furious. I mean what the hell is the warranty for, if its not gonna fit things like that. Seriously, the "cold pipe" was never the cold pipe. The second pipe that he says might have been sealed with caulk because it has lower pressure was the only one that was ever cold. It is also the one with a hole that had no freaking nicks that weren't oxidized. He also had the audacity to say that he used some type of metal sealant on the pipe and didn't charge us for it. Whatever. The only way to complain is to contact the 'president' of the company too. I wish some conniving mind would sign them up for lots of spam or something. I am just annoyed about the whole thing. Paul W. from Ace Plumbing is a jerk, and I am standing by that.

House repairs are nutso!

Ready for the French Drain update? So our grass is beautiful! We seeded it a week ago, and its all coming in thick and dark green. The sod on the other hand...yeah its brown and dying. Looks like we will pull it up, pitch it, and put down more seed.

Things that happened today: The back of the house has been removed. Ok not the whole back. I just think of doll houses where the back is open when I say that. When we pulled off the back stuff it was all wet and gross inside. In fact, we also discovered the air conditioner was leaking freon. The previous owners (gotta love them) had wrapped the in pipe in the door sealing tape (you know the weatherproofing stuff) then caulked the heck out if it. So once the caulk was removed and the paneling taken off, it was very obvious what was going on. Well, I thought it was white mold, but no. It was ice crystals. Sweet, we were colling the wall, and keeping water in the wall as well. No wonder we have black mold growing on the back wall.

So we stapled up a whole pile of plastic sheeting to cover the wall (since its supposed to possibly rain on us overnight). And that will be finished tommorow. We don't even have to replace all that much insulation.

Oh, and guess what. We bought house paint. It appears that half the house is slightly lighter than the paint we bought from sun fading, but thats fine. Oh, and I bought satin finish. Why? Because its pretty, thats why. Whats on the house? Flat. Do I care? No. We needed an excuse to repaint anyway. Besides there are several places where we need to sand, reprime and paint so there isn't the strange peeling funky wood thing going on. But, whatever. I got the panels we are using for patching painted and in the garage. Yeah, getting the more expensive stuff is worth it. I think the whole 5 gallon bucket might cover the entire house. Well our side that is. And it will happen too. Even if I have to incorporate a painting party.

As for the little monster: Oh yeah, Alice got her 6 mo shots yesterday. She has been, of course difficult. I carried her around in the strap on carrier for 3 hours until she fell asleep on me. Then I put her down and painted. She has grown even longer. 26 3/4 in and 15lbs. So her weight percentile has gone down, and her heigth shot way way up. Thats right, only 17% of 6 mo old babies are longer than her. Can you believe she has grown almost 8 inches longer since she was 2 days old? The doc didn't act like we need to worry about her weight, but if she doesn't start to pack on the weight, I may get concerned.

Oh man, I finished this, but I am adding to it cause its too funny. So when we took Alice to ger her shots, she started wailing before she even got stuck. Why? Well they have these oral solution immunizations. And, you guessed it, they are a loverly syrup of anti-illness. Well, Alice is at that special time in a girls life when she hates all things sweet. Case in point: applesauce. I gave her a bite (her first taste) she immediately pushes it out of her mouth, and onto the bib. I show Daniel (because he has never seen her reject a food) and he thinks its funny and offers to eat the applesauce. Then he commenced patronizing her by holding her and offering her more bites of applesauce. I am sure this traumatic memory (sarcasm, sarcasm) was triggered by the forcing her to eat the sweet medicine. So she is beet red and on her back wailing with just the oral solution. Funny at the time, not so funny when we give her baby ibuprofen and I end up with most of it on my shirt while she cries as well. Somehow broccoli can solve all of her problems, though she prefers green beans.

An Internet Phone

So we are trying VoIP. SO far, its AWESOME! Sometimes the phone is warbled or something, but we can even use the internet while talking. The big down side is that there aren't any Kansas phone numbers yet. We now live in Liberty MO. Ha, ha ha. Considering how many people have Utah sell numbers in the ward, I figure we can have a Missouri number.

Its my birthday. We have been really really lazy. Alice still has not taken a nap. What a jerk face. She is way way too opinionated for someone that can't talk. Daniel is putting her in the crib and letting her cry for a while. Maybe she will actually go to sleep.

The refiner's Fire

When you heat up metal to refine the ore...in other words get the impurities out it takes a lot of heat, some time, and you have to be willing to wait. Wait until you can see your reflection. Thats when you know the metal is pure. Well here is our fire of sorts. It was hot, it took 6 days (not all of them working days) and about 40 manhours (thank you elders). But we are done. The following is a bit of a picture diary.
Page one is me and Alice helping the Elders dig our yard. (We work hard and play hard. Cue disco music...)

Pretend there is text on the first page saying "Grrrrrr.." For the record that is Alice going from grin to grunty laughter. What a little monster. :-)
Page two is the completed deal. Don't you love the strip of sod? The entire 85,000 person town was sold out of sod, save this piece. We called like 5 or so nurseries before we found it too. And the rocks are one of three piles that need moved.



Daniel went to rent us a movie from Redbox...there is no way we are watching that tonight. For the record, 4 days until my Birthday! We are driving to Emporia and...painting my parents house??? Fun times huh? We will of course slack off some as well.

Tommorow, or rather today, is another day

Today is Daniel's first day of parental leave. We have discovered many fun fun things.

1. The french drain that was put in by the previous owners is about 2 feet down.
2. The pipe they put in is not perforated...meaning it was totally dumping water out when we pulled it out.
3. The pipe the put in was about an inch or so from the surface...wierd.

So yeah. Thats fun. Alice has started waking up in the middle of the night (like 3am) and wailing for about half an hour or so. Then going to sleep. If I try to feed her she bites me. She is not wet. So, my conclusion --> Teething. Poor thing. Teeth pain sucks.

So after doing some research, it looks like the problem with the playstation 2 (which we discovered was broken after not being able to sleep after the kitchen flood) is pretty bad. The laser is probably broken. A company on the internet will fix it for $50. Plus you pay shipping both ways. Yeah right. We can buy a new one for $120. Why would we spend $70-80 to get it repaired, and not even have a warranty. Daniel might try and repair it himself, if you can buy parts.

So Alice is asleep for a nap. Maybe we can do better about naps today, and have her sleep through the night without random screaming fits. It could be that she was falling asleep when my family showed up and wanted to play with her.

So if its our fault the neighbors kitchen flooded...which it might be. Aparrantly the insurance adjuster said there is supposed to be some kind of clamp??? attached to the pipe that takes water into the dishwasher. I have no freaking clue what he is talking about. He is coming by tommorow to check it out. if the "master plumber" at home depot was wrong that sucks.

Water water everywhere

OK for real now. What is the life lesson I need to learn regarding water?

We went to bed a little late because we had stayed up putting together a garden wagon for hauling dirt from the front of the house, to the back ofthe house. Maybe 30 minutes after falling asleep Daniel says someone was knocking at the door.

Our dishwasher exploded.

It flooded the neighbor's kitchen. Ours too. Daniel found the in hose (that pipes in hot water) when we were mopping up water. Yes thats right all of our towels are yet again wet. Sweet.

I am tired.

President Ezra Taft Benson (one of the prophets I was alive for, but didn't really remember) said: 'The Book of Mormon is the instrument that God designed to “sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out [His] elect.”' But we read the book of mormon this morning. I think. We must have, we read Doctrine and Covenants before bed, so that means we read BoM in the morning.

Read about the flood here: http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=b02978de9441c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

Its a pretty good article, and I only skimmed it. I sent Daniel over to the neighbors to see if he could help since its technically our fault her kitchen is flooded. Geez. Water used to be one of my favorite compounds. So amazing. Now its just copious and I am sick of it. When I discover the hidden truth, and have had more sleep I will share it. For now, I seek more water to remove the evidence of the other water. Good old showers.

I can't believe its still Monday.

Ah the random baby emails...

So when Alice was still unripe...as in she was still a fetus...I signed up for silly emails that told me, you baby is the size of a kiwi, grapefruit, or whatever. Typically it was a random fruit or vegetable, which was fun. Anyway, they continue after birth with the whole What to Expect in this week. The tips for the day are about teething.

Five signs your baby may be teething:
• She looks like the winner of her own personal wet T-shirt contest.
• When she chews on her fist, the expression "self-cannibalizing" leaps to mind.
• You've exhausted all other explanations for her crabbiness.
• You've exhausted all other explanations for your crabbiness.
• When you look in her mouth, you see teeth.

I thought the first two were funny, the second 2 reasonable...but come on. A sign she is teething...there are teeth in her mouth? Way to state the obvious internet. Way to do it.

Anyway, in news of the house. The hols still has small amounts of water in the bottom. As long as it actually doesn't rain today, it should be dried out by tommorow morning when 4 missionaries attack the remaining few feet of ditch. Then a small slop from the side of the house to the drain means TaDa! We have no more chance of flooding! That is unless the promise to Noah was a lie. OK OK enough blastphemy.

So anyway, we get to go buy some more stuff from Home De Pot. And axe (with a pick at the end, if we an find one) and a wheel barrel. Probably a smaller one since we have a tiny plot and all, we don't need a huge one.

I went to the store with Alice already and got an anti-itch stick. I bought the benedryl one because it was the same price as the skeeter stick, but contained things I know are analgesics...I mean sure you can use benzocaine to stop the 'itch' but technically thats just gonna deaden the area. I also have considered connecting the dots on my ankles with markers and making anklets...but for now its just Benadryl. Thats what I get for wearing cute shoes and rolled up jean cuffs. 4 inches of ankle and top of foot just asking the mosquitos to eat them. Alice has a few dots on her head, but luckily she doesn't understand scratching. If she did, I would call the doc and see what they recommend. Well, I am off to see if this new found stink is a water leak...or just some random article of wet clothing that has been left for too long. I would not be suprised to find some wet alice item that has been allowed to become one with the spores. Does mildew spread through spores? I know mold does.

Churchy things and evil water

So yesterday we had the missionaries over for dinner. Yes, again. We are trying to work on churchy things, so why not have the Elders over once a fornight or so (the plan was once a month, but they were just here 2 weeks ago, so yeah). I made spaghetti. I didn't know what to make, so first I made hummus. It turned out mroe lime tasting than I had planned. Lets just say lime is a stronger flavor than lemon. Its not horrible, but not what I was going for. I also have to brag about the fact that I am trying to incorporate more forms of protien in our diets than meat. So I have been soaking, cooking, and freezing my own beans. Its really handy for pulling out a container and having a cans worth of beans on hand, but without all the salt. Plus, its cheaper. Dry beans and legumes are like the cheapest form of protien. I finally found chick peas / garbonzo beans at Checkers (our usual store) in the "Mexican" section...you know the imported food. I bought 3 bags. Then when I was at Dillons on Mass the other day, they had them on thier shelf. You can so tell that people in East Lawrence are more likely to be vegetarians by the vast number of bean types. They didn't have red lentils (which supposedly makes some killer Indian Lentil Pate) but they had most of the typical beans as well as other varieties in different colors.

So anyway, I cooked up some garbonzo beans. They take alot less time than most of the other beans. And YUM. Everyone likes chick peas. So I made a ton, and when I say ton, I mean a 3lb butter container full, of hummus. Even though its slightly more lime flavored than I wanted, its still yummy. Of course, I told Daniel about it when he called on my break and was implying that he would rather cook a frozen pizza than have a meal that consists of hummus and veggies to dip in it. So I continued on in my cooking ways...

I made a cake in a crockpot. I should have cooked it 2 hours like recommended, but it was so done on the edges, I didn't want it to overcook. It sank in the middle, making Daniel laugh, and causing me to heat up some frosting and pour on chocolate goo. He said it tasted like the Aussie version of "pudding"which is pretty much undercooked brownies. The actual definition is a mass usually containing flour. He says that technically raw ground meat is pudding. Its just not in the usually category...um yeah, thats not pudding.

I finally decided on spaghetti, which ended up beign one of the Elder's favorites. I would say his name, but I really really try and not learn names. Ok, fine its Nielson, but he has been here for about 6 months, so its excuseable. In fact this might be the only area he has ever served in...I'm not sure. So i used up the leftovers in the fridge and wala, spaghetti and sauce. I also discovered we have no serving dishes. We have plates and cooking pans, but no serving dishes. Have you ever served a really big plate of spaghetti as the food in the middle of the table? I have. It was sort of messy, but the tablecloth needs washed anyway. Speaking of which, Tablecloths make ghetto tables look much nicer. We just need cloth napkins. Those are an expensive investment though, so thats an eventually thing.

I paid bills today. I hate the water bill. Not just because it keeps going up, but because the "Sewer" charge has been more than twice the water charge. So annoying. Thats what happens when they base the sewer charge on the water use for December, Jan and February and you have a baby at the beginning of that. Water use was more than twice December's use in January, and in February, while it was lower, it was still higher. I think we are currently using less than that though. Its silly considering we wash cloth diapers all the time, and I have watered the garden (though not in the last 2 weeks) and still its less than when everyones mom and all sorts of relatives I never see come visit. But within 4 weeks or so it dies down because babies aren't as cute once they start being awake, but still can't smile. In the future I say things have to be different, but whatever. No one knows whats going on, or what things will really be like once they have a baby.

Alice rolled over cause she was mad

I left her on the floor until, plop she was on her back. Nice going little lady. Here is a video of her when I first put her on the floor...she was still happy. And there's no sound, my camera is ghetto like me. :-)

Yeah we hope she crawls by her 6 mo shots...that would be funny. To go from not rolling over to crawling in 2 months...Masterful!

I made this new header...and flattened the image...so all the layers merged. But I misspelled the name of the blog! Ugh.

An Earthquake??

I came downstairs this morning to find the giant puzzle picture, kept above the mantle, on the floor. What the heck?

The little mirror, 2 pictures (one of which has a glass frame) and our little "Family" photo album (also glass) had come crashing down.

What the heck?

So as I was cleaning up broken glass I realized the giant picture came out unscathed. How lucky. The Melbourne Temple picture, from the COwards, broken in the corner. The glass frames "Sweethearts" picture of Daniel and I, totally destroyed and the picture was wet. Naturally we had a cup of water there after our DDRing last night also fell, and the shattered frame allowed the picture to get wet and adhere to the glas that was not broken. Bah.

The photo album, was of course soaking. I have all the pictures pulled out and drying on the living room floor. The paper liner stuff that was in each page is somewhat destroyed. Luckily none of the old pictures from my paresn't wedding and from when I was 5 or younger were destroyed. The strange thing is I heard what sounded like a rattle fall, but cannot see one of those anywhere.

Oh yeah, and my pen basket is deaded. Totally crushed under the giant puzzle picture. Thats probably the only reason why that glass didn't go crash as well. Oh yay Alice is wet again.

Did you know if a baby is starting solids for the first time, thier poo smells like what they eat? I don't know if I ever want to eat oatmeal again.

Rain rain go away

Well yesterday evening, on the lovely day of rest, we got yet another rain fall. The Forcasters predicted we would get 3.25 inches. The worst part was that at least 2 of those inches fell within half an hour. Daniel ran around watching the water rise and found out the front corner of our house is the lowest spot around. Not just compared to Steve's duplex which is a foot higher, compared to the other side of our duplex as well. There was a small river of water running from thier side on the sidewalk in front of our house, and just pooling there. We had started digging a big hole, and Daniel got a bucket and bailed water from the hole (which was by where the hosue was flooding (yet again) for about an hour. The neighbor Steve came out and said he hadn't seen it this bad, and that they had put a drain in the front. Supposedly the drain should be routing water away from the front of the house, but the water was up to our ankles and totally covered the Welcome mat, so it wasn't working.

I checked out our home insurance policy and found out we have covereage for drains...so we are going to call and see if this is covered and then maybe get some estimates. It might end up being something that would be cheaper than our deductible ($1000) but if we get it taken care of through the insurance, we might be able to get the carpets steam cleaned, and if necessary, the insulation replaced where the house is flooding. I took some pictures, but of course, not ones that show the water level on the house, though the fact that it was coming inside past the frame is an indication, it was pretty high.

Daniel slept really poorly last night. He was up at 2am, dehydrated and stressed out about the idea we need an extra $1K. It looks like with doing lots of overtime it will take about 2 months. Of course, if we have to spend any money we will jstu use the home equity line, but still. How crazy. Obviously this has affected me too since Alice woke me at 5:30 to eat an I didn't go back to sleep. The worst part, at least in my mind currently, is that the living room is again trashed. Pulling up carpet in the corner and moving furniture to the middle of the room does that. Maybe I will try and get some more sleep, or at least go wake Daniel for scruiptures.

Water

So you know what's a little ironic? It rained... It rained a lot. I was wet, I got so wet that all of my clothes were sticking to me because I went around and found out just how bad it is. All directions slope downward towards the front of our house. And focus just at the immediate front. Awesome? I bucketed out the area for about an hour just to help keep things under control and then what happens? I woke up a couple times during the night and now the time I actually get up because... I NEED to DRINK? I think that's my problem anyway. How dare I become dehydrated when I was all wet and covered in wetness and stuff. It just doesn't make sense.

Anyhow, we're thinking in order to fix our problem it could be as much as $1000 and as little as a few hundred. That means I'll probably have to work over time which will kind of blow. Currently the most over time I could possible do would get us about $300 a check, but that's 2 weeks of it and yeah, ugh. So in order to raise $1000 would take about 2 months... Ugh? Oh well. I guess I can just get over myself and get to work. I still feel dehyrdated I guess it's time for more binge drinking.

Have fun blogger.

Whats that funky smell? And other fun times

Situation #1: So yesterday we had a DDR revolution for Visiting Teaching. Good times! I was ok, but the others kicked my trash. It was probably Alexis' good vibes for having a birthday coming up! Yay for birthdays. Of course that did not stop me from cooling my body in the amazing way created by Heavenly Father. Ok I was sweating like a horse. (Did you know sweating like a pig is not a correct statement since they don't sweat? That's why they lie in mud pits, it helps them regulate their body temperature.)

So in Situation #1, I was the funky smell. Next time I will visit the anti-smell stick.

Situation #2: Daniel noticed a 'mildew' smell when he came home from work and sat on the love seat. I had noticed it earlier in the day, but assumed it was the dirty diapers. 99.9% of the time bad smells in our house are related to the baby's butt. I left for the DDR time and when I got home, all sweaty and gross, I very much noticed the mildew smell. Yuck. I made Daniel start diapers. I was sort of rude to him as well since I had asked him to start them 2 hours before when I was leaving for Visiting Teaching.

He did, and that didn't improve the smell. So he began investigating. OK, the carpet smelled ok in front of the love seat, as did the cushions. Maybe it was his pants. (That made me laugh) He pulled them off and smelled them, nope not mildewy. Then he finds Alice's strap on baby carrier. Man that thing reeked! It was like a combo of "smelly cat" from Friends and death. Heavy on the death.

Under the carrier was a little pink hat...it was wet and also vile. Then he noticed the tile in front of the fireplace. There was water on it. The entire corner of carpet was soaked! We moved the love seat into the dining room, moved the TV and stuff over, pulled up the carpet and found out the under cushion was also soaked. Yeah we have like 10 sq feet of nastiness in our living room.

Bonus: The living room looks huge without the love seat in it. We might retire it, or give it away or something.

So since last night (we went to bed pretty late because of this) we have had the overhead fan on, a standing fan on, AND the carpet is pulled up so both layers can dry. What a mess. Know anyone with a steam cleaner? We will probably have one soon thanks to this. I had been thinking about getting one at some point since we will probably own houses with carpet for the rest of our lives, but this pushed it over the edge.

Situation #3: This morning we woke up 'early' ok it was only half an hour earlier than usual. Read scriptures. I was feeding Alice while Daniel went down to start the big dig! Its supposed to rain this afternoon and we wanted to get the soil away from the house in the area where it flooded. Later we will figure out where the drain pipe that disappears into the ground goes. (That might be the big cause!) So right now we have a hold next to the house where the flooding is, and I dragged a 35 gallon trashcan of dirt into the garage. (It will be even heavier if it gets rained on) Anyone need some top soil? Some of its really good, some of its clay.

Thanks, Scissors, lost $

So I lost the WIC checks. Oops. Worse, I lost the check from the Bishop. I have torn the house completely apart and (mostly) put it back together again. Whew. No sign of them. Oh well Daniel has an excuse to talk with his home teaching companion and see about setting up the HT. What a catastrophe. That looks like its spelled wrong. What a strange word.

I have also decided to take up scrapbooking. I have done it once before. I scrapbooked my trip to New York with the EHS Chorale (it was right after graduation). So I bought a "All-in-One kit. It has a notebook, paper, a pair of scissors, gluestick, and all sorts of little punchout thingies. Of course while looking for the WIC checks (I think I lost then while at Walmart however it has not shown up in the Lost and Found yet) I found my old scrapbook and yes its in horrible condition. Plus the darn thing has never fit on any of the bookshelves I have ever owned, so it has just stuck out funny, or sat in a box everywhere I have lived in the last 8 years. No more. I decided to try and put the pages in plastic sheet covers (like the kit I bought) and put them in a 3 ring binder type scrapbook. That was a good idea until I realized the pages were 15x13 (with about an inch or so in the spine area. So say hello to chopping the pages in half. I just think that if I get a uniform (and relatively inexpensive) way to scrapbook I will get it done.

This morning I went through a pile of scrapbooking junk. I had gathered all wedding/baby/christmas/birthday cards together in preparation of scrapbooking fun. And then Alice insisted she needed to eat, so I decided I would start putting the cards into the scrapbook. The first few I put in, I put the whole card in, with some comments about who it was from and what they gave us for the wedding...then I got smart. I ran across a card from Kirsty, Ellyn and Michelle. They had given us towels and there was cute comments about happy drying, happy marriaging, and someother somewhat silly, but perfect thing in there. I had to have them visible. Posterity needs to know that "mommy" or whatever I am called, had rocking friends. So I took the scissors and chop chop chop. Perfection. Then I did it for a few more. Sweet! Now we have something. I even took a page completely apart and put it back together again with chopped up cards. Lets face it, some of the people wrote really nice or funny things and I wanted to share that with everyone.

What can I say, I am proud of myself. I have started a hobby, and so far, its really exciting. Too bad I cannot find that CD of wedding pictures Julie took for us. Dang it. I am gonna ask if she can make us a new CD. I was going to copy the CD for my mother, then I thought, hey I can jut order copied of the pictures online and pick them up at the store...but I can't find it anywhere. Thanks to that I took the computer room apart yesterday. I found Roller Coaster Tycoon Deluxe, and RCT II (not as good as one, but not horrible) I also found yet another copy of The Restoration. I think we are going to need to do some missionary work just so we can give it away. That sounds wrong, but lets be honest, we should be doing missionary work anyway.

I also wrote all of my Thank YOu cards for teh Fetus Party...yeah that was circa 2007, but I didn't have thank you cards, and I didn't have the motivation to take care of it befire either. Now its done, we just need some more stamps. I found a few 39 cent stamps, and used all my 2cent make up stamps. Its unfortunately now 42 cents, so each one got 2 stamps. Oh well, at least I used the stamps. So I need a few more addresses, and the stamps and I can be dome of all this. I feel pretty good about the whole thing. I know Thank You notes are a little antiquated, but they are nice, and any mail thats not junk or a bill is exciting. Trust me, I know. Plus I even printed out pictures of Alice for some of the relatives that live far away, and my Mother who wanted pictures to show off to people. I have been so on top of things.

Last night we went to Institute. Its Church History...a subject I find dull and boring. Daniel was pushing to go, and I like institute, and i had a temple recommend renewal interview anyway, so we went. It was...interesting. I learned some stuff, but nothing doctrinally based. I know I have a copy of the textbook though, so I think reading the lession beforehand will make it more interesting. One nice thing about Daniel working an earlier shift is that we can go to institute classes now. Sweet!

Thats odd, I looked at the bookshelf and I have everyother institute manual EXCEPT church history. See told you I don't really like it...never really have.

Tonight I do VT-ing...we are playing DDR with Alexis. Yeah thats right, we will find something spiritual in there I am sure...yay for having Fun with the people we VT. And we got another person on our list. If I am not careful we will have 8-10 people on our list. Oh well thats 8-10 more friends, right?

Some New Years Resolutions?

Well, that isn't really accurate as it's not New Years at all.

Anyway, everyone who lives at the house knows something about me that I might as well type out. I've been listening to pretty much exclusively church things at work for the last 3 work days. This has had some pretty amazing results.

1. I actually enjoy my job now/again.
2. I am doing considerably more work than I'm actually required to do in order to be considered a good employee.
3. I'm starting to actually feel like there's some things that I should do that I haven't necessarily been doing and things I shouldn't do that I have been. This is really why I'm writing.

I don't know who was talking, but I pretty much have the feeling that I should just go ahead and stop or almost completely stop playing Runescape. And I can here Rebecca rejoicing. It doesn't really provide anything useful. I don't even have friends there, so it's not like I'm being someones friend. I'm just there sinking my energy and thinking about something that is completely irrelevant both in this life and the life to come so... I should stop.

Henry B Eyring said that when he was younger he saw his father doing something and the spirit whispered to him that he didn't have the experience just for himself but that he should write it down. From that day onward he wrote everyday something about what had happened in the day and before he wrote he thought... What has the Lord done in our family today that I can see or something around those lines and he actually noticed things he hadn't before! Well, I'm not saying that I'm going to write everyday of course, but what he said touched me or maybe what he didn't say touched me. And I think I should write more often if not daily focusing more so on the same sort of things, it's not like I won't have the time especially if I'm not playing that game.

I have an increased desire to actually DO my hometeaching! What the? I think I might have to call my companion today who was going to be setting up appointments and see if he's gotten any, and if not how I can help because well. I want to do what I'm supposed to do. Infact, I don't want to just do what I have to do I think it'd be great if I actually got to be friends and have some real concern for the people I'm supposed to be watching over... Especially since that's what I'm supposed to do. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Also, I'd like to start spending more time actually studying on my own. On the ride home from work I had the thought that maybe I should take up memorizing scriptures again. I think that's a good idea, but if nothing else I might crack out our copy of Preach My Gospel (which I've never really used) and actually work out of that or atleast get scripture suggestions for memorizing. On that note listening to the lessons from Preach My Gospel in an audio form is very very excessive. They're soooo long! I can't imagine anyone ever giving the entire lesson as a lesson which is good because that's not how it's designed so... yeah. That's good too.

Well, I might have more things to say but we have to get going so that we can get to institute on time. Have fun nosy warriors.