Mowing lawns

So many of you know what this is. This is what newly married couples buy right after they buy a house and realize they now have a yard to maintain, but not enough money to buy those fancy gas powered mowers that have the forward assist. Oh man those sound nice. Alas, this is the lawn mower we have. Not a big deal, we have a very small yard. We put some fertilizer/weed killer on it, now it looks great. Much greener than the other yards, the weeds are dying (it used to be mostly dandelions, now it's mostly grass), but it grows at an incredible rate. I mean we need to mow twice a week, but we only do it once. Which brings me to my next point. No wonder parents have kids. Spread the work around a little. Between dishes, laundry, mowing the yard, and work I hardly have time for anything else. Plus mowing the yard with this thing is a serious work out. It stops far to easily when the grass gets a little thicker, or a small twig gets in, or it just flat out feels like stopping. Gotta love it. As I was mowing the lawn yesterday school got out. Holy cow. Apparently today's youth has never seen a manual lawn mower. Every kid that stopped within eye sight stopped for a few minutes to watch what I was doing. One even asked, "What are you doing?" Ha. I remembered the days when I used to see kids on TV with one of these and thought how cool that would be. Let me correct the mind of my younger self, not that cool. Unless you plan to mow your yard every other day, this thing is more work than it's worth. Plus the blades only cover about 10" at a time. Meaning the little bitty yard we do have turn into a fairly large project, 8" at a time (allow for overlap to make sure you don't miss any). And no, I didn't do the weed eating. I got done mowing and thought. "Forget this." It has now officially been designated as Cory's job. But it seems like cleaning is my job so I guess that evens out. Look how domesticated we've become. It's going to be an interesting day when we get back from two weeks at training and have to mow that yard. Not it!

Cookies, Kinect, and Tangled

So what do Oreos and chocolate chip cookies have in common. The chocolate maybe? Or perhaps that they are both delicious. What makes them better. Combining them. Cookie Stuffed Cookies. Delicious. I found this recipe here. And just had to try it. We went over to some friends house for a night of dinner, friends and Kinect. I was asked to bring dessert. Ding ding ding. Perfect. I'll make these cookies. Which by the way turned out to be delicious and I definitely will be making them again. On another note. We played the Kinect for the first time. I have wanted one for a while. Especially after I played my little brothers Wii. We played "Just Dance" and I thought it was a blast. But Cory thinks the Wii is for kids, which is kinda true. So since we have an Xbox I thought we could get the Kinect. Cory was not convinced. So he decided he would test it out, then make his decision. We had a fun night boxing, playing soccer, getting our butts kicked at bowling. All in all I had a blast. Plus I still want one. Cory is still not convinced. But I win anyway. While watching the Bulls/Heat game Sunday afternoon we saw a commercial for "Micheal Jackson: The Experience". Which is basically "Just Dance" but all Micheal themed. And whoever thinks that man can't dance is out of their minds. Anyway, I think that may have convinced him. So we might be getting one... Yay!! And today, I just had one of those days. So on my way home I stopped at no less than 5 RedBoxes trying to find "Tangled". Which I did eventually find. Came home, got a big glass of milk and some Oreos (which have some what lost their luster after the delicious cookie stuffed cookies) and enjoyed a lazy afternoon with Disney.

On a completely unrelated side note: For those of you who are ready to kill me cause I haven't posted any more house pictures, relax. That will be my project for tomorrow afternoon: Take pictures, and get them posted. Now let's hope nothing crazy pops up between now and then.

Quality time.

Some of you know, and some of you don't, that Cory and my work schedules are completely opposite. And it sucks. I leave about 8 (right after I wake him up) in the morning and I'm home by about 3:30-4. Which is about the same time Cory leaves for work. Then he gets home between 10:30 and 11. Which is right about the time I like to go to bed. I'm not a fan of not sleeping. We deal, and luckily I have most Friday, Saturday, and Sundays off. So at least we get to spend time together then. But I think it is starting to weigh on me a little. I'm enjoying my job less and less. Not that it's not a great job, cause it is. I just hate the fact that is is so perfectly opposite of when Cory works. In March the new mall in Salt Lake opens up. They have a brand new and obnoxiously huge (150,000 sq ft) Macy's opening too. I'm thinking since it's an anchor store it will open sometime within the 5 months before the mall opens. Which is huge for us. Not only is it opening the opportunity for Cory to get a better position, perhaps one with a salary, but also his schedule will change a bit and he will have some opening shifts and also some mid-day shifts. Meaning that we will have more than one night a week to spend together. He will have to work more hours. Probably closer to 50, but I'm ok with that. As long as the 50 hours he works don't happen to be the same 50 hours that I have off.

On a side note. We had drill this past weekend. FTX (field training exercise). It was freezing at night and quite warm during the day. We have 3 weeks till we head back out for AT. Which will not be as nice. We will be in tents somewhere on the mountain. Meaning power will be limited. Showers and bathrooms will be harder to get to. However, we will be more prepared. We know what's coming this year. We have a large cooler on hand and are planning ahead as to what kind of treats need to be brought. Should be a fun time. Perhaps we won't actually have to be in the field for the whole two weeks. I mean two weeks with people only having the chance to shower maybe 2 times a week. Things start getting a little... Tense. Wish us luck.

Extreme times

It might not be that extreme, but it totally is. Our budget and a list of debts have been on the white board on the fridge for ages now, but we still spend extra money, all the time. I've decided to go to the envelope method. Basically another way to try and cut spending. All our bills are paid automatically, which is really nice, help entertainment. Pretty simple really. We pull cash for these expenses and put it in an envelope. I'll pull half on the 1st and half on the 15th. That way we don't spend all the money at once, plus that's when I get paid and it just will work better that way. When the money is gone, we're done spending. I mean IF we stay exactly on budget we should have some extra money to pay bills or put into savings. But because we are consistently over spending, usually on stuff we don't need, we have yet to find that extra money. This should help us stay on budget. If this doesn't work, then we just might have to lock up our debit cards for a while. Can't spend money if you don't have any right? Wish us luck.

Crazy couple of weekends.

Sorry for not posting for so long. It's been a crazy couple of weekends, and looking like the next few will be too. Here's how they went.

Last weekend, we had my little brothers so my parents could go to Italy for Easter. Rough for them I know. It was actually a lot of fun. Between Nerf darts being strewn all around my house, the ridiculous amount of candy left by my parents for Easter, and the boys doing all the yard work leaving me to bask in the sunlight it turned out to be a great weekend. The boys were.. pretty good, only a few trips to the corner. Only one bloody knee. And kids begging to come back to my house. I think it went pretty well, although why they needed to have such ridiculous Easter baskets is beyond me, but oh well. I sent them home with most of their candy still in the baskets. After all, they bought the candy, they should be the ones worried about kids eating Peeps for breakfast right? Here's some proof of the madness.


Rollover for a closer look!
Click for more Easter morning Pics!


So that was fun. We decided we needed a weekend. Ok ok I decided we needed a weekend. After all it was our very first anniversary. Wait! What? Like we've been married a whole year? Holy cow, that went by fast. I was thinking about all the things we've done. Got married. Went on family vacations. Celebrated friends getting married. Celebrated friends having babies. Remembering grandpa's. Golf trips. Remembering friends. BUYING A HOUSE. That was kinda our big one. Wow. It's been a whole year. Oh yeah, back to my weekend. We went to Park City (not as glamorous as I had originally planned, but buying a house kinda put a damper into going anywhere that would cost more than the $300 we spent). Started the weekend off with a great 60 minute massage. Cory had never gotten one and the few I've had have either been from friends or family that went through massage school, or those chairs in the mall you pay $5 for 2 minutes. Anyways, I loved it. Cory was skeptical for a long time before and quite some time after. He didn't realize that it's different for men and women. For example, they massaged his chest, they didn't massage mine. He thought they did. He was very (quietly) upset about this cause he thought they might have taken advantage of me. I cleared that up quickly. That was really the big thing we did. We spent a reasonable amount of money on dinners and a few things at the outlets. But overall it was just a weekend for us. Which was very nice. It's been a while since we've just had a weekend for us. Seeing as how my family wants to do dinner almost every Sunday and Cory usually works late Friday and Saturday. It was nice. Very Nice.

Not his weekend, but the next is drill. Yay! Pretty sure it's an FTX (field training). Meaning we will be staying in tents. Probably cold. Waiting all day for our turn to drive the truck for a couple hours. Most likely we will have our weapons, but won't be using them for anything. So we'll get to clean them. MMMM Sounds like a good FTX to me. I hope we get MRE's!

BIN LADEN

Ten years ago. I was sitting in class, staring at a television. Not sure what to think. I can honestly say there was a part of me that did not believe that what we were watching could be true. Or maybe, it was that I didn’t want it to be true.

 All I know for sure is that seven years later I signed the dotted line joining the National Guard. Was September 11, 2001 my main motivation? No, But I promise there was so much of me that thought of the families that suffered and are still suffering as I fought to make my decision. The decision was not easy at all. I didn’t know if I could do it! Heck I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was thinking. The only thing I knew for a fact is I did not want to be one who stands aside and watches as other people destroy what we live for. At the time I didn’t know that by joining the National Guard I would be starting a family. Not to many people go to basic training and find the love of their life, but for me that is exactly what happened. Allanna entered my life and I refused to let her slip from my arms.

May 1, 2011. Almost ten years after the day that changed the face of this country forever. Allanna and I are celebrating our first wedding anniversary and the news says that we finally killed Bin Laden. I don’t know why but my heart and my brain worked in a funny way last night. First I was so happy. For the families of those taken. For the soldiers we have lost, and for our great country. Then a wave of concern took over. I do not know what is to come of this but no matter what happens I do know this. Our world must stay as ready as ever. This could bring retaliation, a fight for a new leader or both. We must stay prepared to stand up and hold our flag in the air as we fight this demon and we must stay together. I will never forget the feeling of unity our country had in those days soon after September 11, 2001, and with this news of victory against Bin Laden my hope is that we again feel a sense of unity across this nation!!!

Debt Free by 2012

Ok so I came up with a great new budget plan. Here's how it goes. STICK TO THE PLAN. We've been on a "budget" for over a year now. But we really haven't been on the budget. So I came up with a plan to stick to the budget. First of all it will be written (not like it wasn't before), but it will also be posted on the fridge. Meaning if you come over to my house any time in the next year, you will be able to see what we spend our money on. We are going to be couponing and cutting out everything that is unnecessary, like movies, and going out to dinner. We won't be going unless we have gift cards, which we do have a few of. I also have a few other ides, but they seem like a lot more work. So if simply posting it doesn't change things, then we'll go to plan B. Which is to cash all the allotted money we have for each category into an envelope and stick that to the fridge. When the cash is gone we are DONE spending. A little extreme I know, but extreme times call for extreme measures. The student loans are starting to add up. I'd like to spend extra money on things like trips and golfing rather than bills. I hate bills. I budgeted our spending based on a low paying month, then subtracting a few hundred just cause I'd rather have a little extra in the bank than not enough. Then I set up a solid pay schedule based on what we pay now, and the money that is GUARANTEED. I also just realized that I didn't count any of the money we will be getting from the 2 extra jobs we just picked up. The way I figured, we should be debt free (except the house) by tax season next year (not including extra money from extra jobs that might add a speed boost to this process). It's so close I can almost taste it. Now if only I can get the printer to work so I can get this process going. PS anyone with an iPhone should look into the APP Home Budget. The only thing it lacks is actually connecting to your bank account. All spendatures have to be entered manually, but I like this better. I tried using Mint for a while, but It always seemed to be a few days behind the bank account. Mint said I had money to spend, but the bank account didn't. Got myself into trouble more than a few times. Home Budget takes more discipline because you have to enter everything your self, but at least that way I pay attention and I know that things are correct.