home improvement

A few weeks ago, my parents put in new floors in the house. There used to be some pretty gross, cracked, pink tile throughout the kitchen, dining room, and laundry room. We also had carpet down the hall to the bedrooms and in high traffic areas between the living room and kitchen. So, because of that, the carpet was pretty nasty. But now, we have gorgeous, new tile floors!

Yes, it really is tile. It's imported from Italy, and is all variated and uneven to look like real wood. 

substituting

There's an update on the other blog about our recent heartache.

John and I have been doing a lot of substitute teaching over the last month. He definitely enjoys subbing at the high school more than teaching the younger kids. I get intimidated when teaching the older kids. I relate to them well and enjoy being around them, but get really nervous when I have to teach the material. It's usually stuff I don't know but have to pretend to know. As soon as I stumble or say something stupid or wrong, I start to lose them and the rest of the class period starts leaving my control. But, I discovered that kids of all ages love stickers, so those usually put me back in their favor. Thank goodness for the dollar store and their amazing supply of cheap stickers. And, throwing in a meme reference to the high schoolers never goes amiss, either.

But, we usually get calls for the elementary school. I haven't taught the older elementary kids yet, but did teach preschool and kindergarten. Those classes are more like wrangling cats than actually teaching, but it's still fun. And very tiring!

John and I are looking forward to taking a day off and going up to Reno for an evening together. We'll stay at one of the casinos, get a dinner buffet, and maybe go see a movie. It'll be great to have a long date night together! We haven't had one for so long because we haven't had income since I left The Journey. It's so nice and comforting to see paychecks being deposited into my account again!

We have also started looking into dates for Disneyland. We're thinking end of October or beginning of November. I can't wait!

new bed

Our old bedspread that we got for a wedding gift was so well-loved that it had almost fell apart by the time we got to Nevada. I love looking around on Pinterest, and a while ago, I found a bed that I loved. And now that I needed a new one, I was able to attempt something similar.

The Pinterest bed. I love the coral color, and the grey/tan bedspread. I love the texture on the bedspread.

And here is mine. I love linen! And this is a light beige, damask linen bedspread. I accented with coral/salmon sheets, which are a little brighter than I wanted, but these were the only coral I could find. The color looks even brighter in the picture. It's more muted and orange in person. I even looked online. I hope the color will fade a bit as I wash it. We ordered the bed skirt online because they didn't have Queen size in the store. It's a plain linen skirt the same shade as the darker beige on the bedspread. It will look much better without the blue box spring peeking out the sides.

I was really surprised to find an accent pillow to match. I couldn't find any coral decorations period. And Bed, Bath and Beyond had this one in the clearance section! It goes perfectly with the rest of the bed. 

Amazingly, John didn't mind me decorating in pink. He's the best husband ever! 

update and cats

The latest is up on my other blog if you care to read it. 

John and I dropped off Suki to the vet this morning to be declawed. She has to stay overnight after the surgery, so we'll miss having her sleeping in our room tonight. But it's good her claws are going. She does not like other cats or small children, and she uses her claws on them. So I'm sure Momo and my nephews will be much happier. 

Momo ran away not long after we got here. He was gone for a few days, and didn't come when we called for him. But, one morning at 6 AM, he was sitting at the back door ready to come inside. He had hurt his leg, and it must have taken him a while to hobble back home. We think it's just a sprain because it's looking better pretty fast. He's next up at the vet when his leg heals enough. He won't be a real man anymore, and his front claws will also be going. Poor thing will have hurt paws for a while, first with the sprain, then with the surgery. 

moving

We're gone! No longer in Provo. We've been in Nevada for a little over a week now. It's so nice! I love being around my family. I also love the people here, and the beautiful green valley and mountains. I didn't know how much I missed it.

I learned a few things while moving. 

• It takes a really long time to pack art well. You would think only 8-10 items wouldn't take that long to pack. But it took Starla and I about an hour to pack our art really well so it would be padded and protected.
• The advice "pack big things in small boxes and small things in big boxes" is terrible. Putting lots of small things in a big box will still make the big box really heavy. I put just a few big things together in a big box. That made it much lighter.
• Even if you pack everything that you can a few days in advance, it still leaves a 15 hour day for you on moving day.
• Moving is very expensive. It was about $1,000 to move to a neighboring state. 
• Cats are more afraid of the truck when they are inside and it's not moving than when they are inside while it's driving. 
• Even on grades that aren't very steep, the truck can only go about 25 MPH. 
• We couldn't have finished everything in time without the help of John's mom, Starla, his brother, Jacob, and our friend, Hilary. Thank you all so much!

Hilary, Craig, me, and John

We spent 13 hours in that truck the next day.

movie villains

I watched The Shawshank Redemption with John this evening for the first time. We saw it sitting in the $5 bin at WalMart, so it came home with us. I really enjoyed it, but held onto a deep hatred of the Warden, and started making a mental list of the most evil villains in films. At first I tried to assign an order, but it got really hard to rank who was more evil. The last on the list is definitely, unquestionably my number one, but the rest are all pretty equal to each other.

Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)- The mistreatment and unprofessional punishments she inflicted upon the patients was heart-wrenching.

Iago (Othello)- Scheming home-wrecker. Watching his plan fall into place is so depressing.

Warden Samuel Norton (The Shawshank Redemption)- What a cowardly, selfish man. I was unhappy with his easy out he took at the end.

Bob Ewell (To Kill a Mockingbird)- Can I assign the description white trash to him? Drunk, lying, abusive white trash?

Percy Wetmore (The Green Mile)- He just made me so angry and upset! Just an evil, small man.  He got what was coming to him.

Captain Vidal (Pan's Labyrinth)- Cold-blooded abuser and murderer.

Heath Ledger's Joker (The Dark Knight)- The psychological torture he put the people through made my whole heart hurt, and really upset me.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)- Creepy, psychotic serial killer. Although, he was a bit fascinating to watch.

"Buffalo Bill" (The Silence of the Lambs)- Another creepy, psychotic serial killer, but not fascinating to watch. Just depressing and horrifying.

Amon Goeth (Schindler's List)- He made me outright sob multiple times during the movie because of his actions against the Jews in the concentration camps, and I hadn't been affected by any villain like that before or since.

I'm know there are plenty of other villains who deserve to be listed here. Who would be added to your list?

lists

8 TV Shows I love to watch:

1. White Collar
2. Suits
3. Project Runway
4. Parks and Recreation
5. Community
6. Downton Abbey
7. Sherlock
8. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

8 Favorite Restaurants:

1. Bombay House
2. Thai Mango
3. Wild Ginger
4. Happy Sumo
5. Terra Mia
6. Cafe Rio
7. Texas Roadhouse
8. Rancheritos

8 Things That Happened Yesterday:

1. I watched The Dark Knight with friends
2. I slept in
3. I was treated to dinner by Amanda
4. I made oatmeal cookies
5. I went on a hunt for BYU's maple bar doughnuts
6. I forgot that EFY has invaded campus, and had to run for my life while searching for my precious doughnuts
7. I went to Costco
8. I wrote a post on my other blog

8 Things I'm Looking Forward To:

1. The Dark Knight Rises early showing tonight
2. Eating at Thai Mango before the movie
3. Visiting my family next week 
4. Shopping!
5. Getting far, far away from Provo
6. Having an income
7. Going to Disneyland in October
8. Halloween

8 Things On My WishList:

1. Sherlock on DVD
2. Community seasons one and three 
3. The IT Crowd complete series
4. New black flats
5. A job for John
6. More maple bars
7. Seeing the llamas again
8. More rain

llamas

I finally got to go to Llama Fest yesterday! I have been wanting to go since I first heard about it, back in 2008. And, due to living at home for the summer, then getting married, then other vacations and family events, I wasn't able to go until this summer.

John and I walked through the Krishna temple, perused the gift shop, enjoyed some music, and got to pet some llamas. It was really crowded, so I didn't get to see many llamas, but I really enjoyed being there. I got a Llama Fest t-shirt and little stone llama figurine, and a shoulder bag made from llama wool that has a llama on the front. 

We were going to stay for dinner because there is a great Indian food buffet at the temple, but they didn't have it going during the festival. John and I decided to go back another time and get the buffet and see more llamas when I can have them all to myself. 

Also, I made these from periodic tables of elements today.

I've also been watching a few movies with Rifftrax that I borrowed from Amanda this weekend. I saw Breaking Dawn part I, The Last Airbender, and High School Musical. All terrible movies that were bearable and enjoyable because of Rifftrax. 

family

My brother Drew, his wife Christina, and their one year old son, Asher, came to visit Provo this week. We had four full days with them, and we had a great time!

Drew was able to go fishing with his friend, Jared, we went to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, toured the City Creek Center mall in Salt Lake, and ate lots of delicious food. My favorite was Bombay House, but we also ate at Cheesecake Factory, it was great, too. We watched a lot of movies, got to eat Creamery ice cream, and I went shopping with Christina a few times. I loved having girl time with her! Asher loved the cats, Suki hid from him all week, and Momo gracefully took some slaps.

I only have a few pictures, most from the aquarium, but I know that Christina has more.

Watching TV with Uncle John

John petting a sting ray

Watching the jelly fish

Moray eel

John poking up in the otter habitat.

Asher loved the otters. They were exactly like giant, swimming ferrets.

He was most taken with the small fish at his height level. I told Drew that next time they just need to take him to PetSmart.

They left this morning and just arrived home. It was sad to see them go, but I get to see them again in a week and a half when I go visit family in Nevada.

As a side note, there is a new post on my other blog up now.

results

I wrote about my HSG test I had done this morning, and the results.

ttp://progressingincircles.blogspot.com/2012/07/results.html