Top 10 List for When You are *Temporarily* Confined to Your Apartment/House

10. Update Your Facebook Status as often as you can stand with creative ways of saying "I'm sick, feel terribly awful and stuck at home, oh and by the way I'm bored. Please feel sorry for me."

9. Try to sleep (when your cough allows it)

8. Text your friends and family who are not always on facebook to see what they are up to. And, to let them know that you are still sick, still bored, and still want their sympathy.

7. Watch the Morning News, the Noon News, the Evening News, and the 10 o'clock News. Take Notes. Compare the notes to see if they're all keeping their stories straight (and if the weather changed its mind for tomorrow or the weekend)

6. Since your stomach feels yucky and nothing sounds good. Eat lots of Jell-O. But, only when you have to eat. See how many interesting kinds of Jell-O you can create and keep track of your weight to see if you could create a so-called "Jell-O Diet".

5. List semi-high ticket items on eBay. And by semi-high ticket I mean, $5 or more because anything more than $5 probably wouldn't do well at a yard sale. Unless, it's much to big to ship. Then, it very well may do well at a yard sale.

4. Check the mail *at least* TWICE a day to make sure the outdoors still exists. Also, to get some fresh air and to get some exercise while checking the mail. Once in the morning to see if the mail man was early and then once in the afternoon to see if you really just *didn't* get any mail.

3. Update Your Blog with random nonsense.

2. Price stuff for your upcoming yard sale.

1. Check your sister-in-law's blog and smile while looking at all the cute pictures of your nephew! (And, enjoy reading random stuff that your sister-in-law writes about because it makes you feel like you're both pretty normal)

If You See the Frog Who Stole My Voice: Grab Him & Show NO Mercy!

Above I've posted a photo of the Frog who stole my voice. Please if you see him go ahead and grab him and show NO mercy! This is getting really OLD!
My temperature was at 100.3°F this morning. ACK! Also, I thought my voice was coming back. By this afternoon I was almost sounding somewhat normal, a bit groggy but at least somewhat normal. I had a couple of phone calls I had to make, so I made them. But, by the end of the last one my voice was super awful. Then, when Andy came home I tried to talk to him and my voice was all but gone. So, now I am back to whispering. My temperature is at least under 100. At last check it was at 98.8°F. And, at this point, I'll take it. I'm starting to wonder when my voice will officially come back. I don't know how much longer I can stand this. I mean, I really don't like coughing and I don't like feeling light-headed or queasy. But, the thing I can't stand the most is my lack of voice! I'm not as elegant as Ariel from the Little Mermaid, nor am I as cute so it's not quite as precious a sight when I'm lacking my vocal abilities.

In other news I've been using what time I feel up to it to go through stuff and get it ready for our yard sale that we'll be co-hosting with one of Andy's co-workers in a couple of weeks. I'm pretty excited for it. I just forgot how long it takes to go through and price everything. But, the excitement of making money really makes it seem worthwhile. Also, his co-worker's daughter is going to be selling lemonade during our sale so hopefully, that will also drum up some business. She's a cute kid. And, who can't resist cute kids and their lemonade stands? Hopefully, it will be a nice warm, sunny day, but not a scorcher, because that might discourage shoppers from taking to the streets.

That's about it for today!

98.4

That's the highest my temperature has been today. Most people wouldn't even bat an eye at that, but to me it's a low-grade fever. My temperature is usually in the 96's. something range with occasional excursions in the 97's. But, anything above 97.5 is extremely rare. Even when I go to the doctor's office and I'm feeling super lousy it's almost always in the 97's. So, Andy and I have determined that I'm sick. I've been coughing since Thursday. Last night I hardly slept because I was coughing so much luckily Andy must have been so tired because he said I didn't keep him up. I would have gone out to the living room. But, we were staying at a hotel. Thursday I was just feeling somewhat crummy and I thought I was getting better by early Friday. So, I decided to attack the mold in our window sill (our apartment complex does not have double paned windows and it's been a very wet fall/winter/spring so I found mold a few weeks ago growing there and ordered a good mold cleaner and it finally came - it's the only time we've had any mold there in the 4 years we've lived here so, I figure that's pretty good). Anyway, I attacked the mold but I didn't realize how powerful the smell was going to be. I did it early in the afternoon and opened all the windows and put on the fans and tried to air it out, but still a few hours later it was making me sick and light headed, so I figured if it was doing that to me, it would be worse for Andy. So, we used a free-night's stay reward we had earned from one of our credit cards. Since it was last minute we couldn't get the best place, but even so, it was so much better than breathing in fumes all night. We returned today to a nice aired out apartment!

I always thought that the absolute worst part of being sick was when you can't breathe and you're all stuffed up. Well, I think I might have found something that rivals it - Losing your voice. I've completely lost mine. I've been close to losing it before but I've never completely lost it. I mean, I don't even squeak. So, I have to whisper. I've tried everything I can think of to bring it back and nothing's worked. So, finally as a last ditch effort, I looked online and one of the suggestions was to use a humidifier. So, I went out and bought one. Luckily, we had a $10 off coupon for Shop-Ko. That was sweet. But, Shop-Ko, didn't have the stuff vapor stuff that you put in it to help it work better. So, I had to go to Wal-Mart...on a Saturday! ACK! I came home exhausted. I'd go to bed, but even this afternoon when I took every kind of cold medicine with everything possible in it to knock me out I was only able to sleep for a short while. So, I don't want to go to bed until it's my more "usual bedtime" because I don't want to wake up every hour like I did last night.

Well, that's pretty much it for today. I just whispered over to Andy if he had anything to say for the blog today and he said "No."

Friday Foto! At Last! ...and Other Tales!

I have decided to start doing a Friday Foto! Cheers to Angela for the idea! I often find myself copying Angela when it comes to all things Blogging! But, they say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, right? So, Angela you should feel very special right about... *NOW*!

Now, on to the photo. Again, with the copying Angela trend - I decided to post an engagement photo. However, this is not the "official engagement photo. We had several photos taken by one of my friends and although they were all nice enough, I really only liked one of them and that's the one that became the "official photo". I hadn't looked through them in a long time and I thought maybe just maybe I was being overly critical at the time, but I still think the one we chose was the very best one. The one I'm posting today has several flaws and I don't think I could even call it a close second but since I'd already decided to use one of our engagement photos I had to choose a one that wasn't going to make me cringe knowing people were going to be seeing it on our blog. Well, that wasn't going to happen. I'm still going to cringe. But, not as much as I would have with most of the other photos. Andy is very photogenic. However, I am not. In the other photos it was not Andy's fault that we couldn't use them, but rather mine because without fail one of the following is going on in them: my eyes are closed, my smile is weird, my expression is weird, I'm not looking at the camera, my hair is in my face, my hair is doing something funky at that precise moment, my shirt is bunching up something fierce, my vampire fangs look like they're going to take someone out at any moment, or my closed mouth smile makes me look like I'm in pain.

So, here as promised is one of the photos we did not use. Andy is sitting on a tree swing in my friend's backyard. Just remember every time you view it you are making me cringe. Nevertheless, please enjoy it (the photo, that is!)!






















NOW FOR SOME OTHER TALES
As of last weekend we have revamped our money system. We re-evaluated our budget and changed how we work some things. It's actually a much better system for us. It probably wouldn't work for everyone, but so far it's working great for us so I thought I'd mention it.
First of all, we switched our cell phone provider to save money. That was a no-brainer. Then, we evaluated how much we need for our normal monthly expenses such as electricity, internet, satellite, tithing and other such items which gave us amount A. We then figured out how much we want to save which gave us amount B. And then, we took all of those items and added them up with the amount we want to save each month which gave us amount C. Then we took the least amount we bring in each month (amount D) and subtracted amount C from amount D which gave us amount E. So, for right now amount E is $500. Then, we took $500 and divided it by 2. So, both of us gets $250 a month to spend on whatever. Now, when I say "whatever" I don't mean "WHATEVER" I mean, things that were not taken into account when we came up with amount B. The reason we left out a lot of things in amount B is to give us more flexibility. So, whatever is actually things like: Gas, Food, Clothes, Household items, Entertainment, Dining Out, and Fun Money. The reason we didn't include gas and food in amount B is because these items are going to be going up in price and also, we both buy them, we have a lot of food storage that is getting old that we need to use up, I want to learn more about using coupons (for items we need), and for us knowing we only have $250 each it makes us talk more about money. For example, say there's a large purchase we need, now we do more research and say it's going to be more expensive than one of us wants to allow for our "personal budget" then we need to involve the other person and say "hey can you spare this much $ for item X?" It also helps us to make sure we really need certain groceries before we go to the store. When I was cleaning out our pantries, I found tons of stuff I didn't know we had on hand. We'd had it for 2 or 3 years. But, it was stuff we'd always go and buy figuring "oh well, even if we don't need it, it will go into food storage." The problem is...eventually a lot of stuff EXPIRES! Now, the key to the system is this. You actually have to keep track of how much you're spending. The reason we didn't go to a cash only system is because Andrew likes to use the credit cards because we get points and he likes to pay them off in full each month. And, that's ok. But, every couple days. Sometimes, every day even, we ask each other "Where are you at?", meaning "What's your balance?" And, what's really sweet is that the other day we were at Fred Meyer and he bought me a pair of tweezers with his budget... Don't ask me why but it was so romantic. We got up to the register and he said he'd get it. The other cool thing about it is that I'm learning to make more food from scratch. The other day I made spaghetti sauce from scratch! It was really good. I'd almost go as far as to say it was better than a lot of the store brands! I would never have done that before!

Andy Joins the 21st Century...and other tales!

Andy aka "Boo" has finally joined the 21st century. As of Saturday
19 March, 2011 20:39 MDT Andrew's Android phone has been active. He has now joined the ranks of those who can talk, text, and surf the web from that small little device called a cellular phone, or cell phone for short. He is the proud owner of a LG Optimus S. We switched him over to my plan with Sprint this weekend. It made more financial sense to do so because we were paying for 2 different plans and I had 2 phones (one on each of them). But, now we just have one and it's with Sprint. Since ) we get a really good deal. We get 1500 anytime minutes to share between the two of us (yeah, we're never going to need that many!), unlimited text, unlimited calls to any cell phone on ANY network (SWEET!), and unlimited data. WOO-HOO! Can you say CHA-CHING??!!

Here is a photo of Andy's phone.












Here are some other random photos from the last couple of days. Andy with his new phone. Look at how happy he is! Also, I made corned beef and cabbage tonight! It was delicious! I found a new recipe. It was similar to the one that one of my FHE brothers used when I was at BYU-Idaho. His version of corned beef was the BEST I'd ever had! This one had a nice glaze made from dijon mustard, honey, and brown sugar and you boil it for a couple minutes, simmer it for a few hours, then bake it for a about 20ish minutes and then broil it for just a couple of minutes. It was fantastic. Andy's not a fan whatsoever of corned beef and even he was raving over it! He protested when I told him I was going to make it this year, but when I asked him if I could make this recipe again next year, he said without any hesitation "yes". I guess that means it's a "WINNER!". The pictures of it didn't turn out as well as I'd like. But, trust me, it looked a lot nicer than what the pictures show and it tasted phenomenal!








I also decided to start a few of new blogs.

• One for Cooking called - The GREY Cook
• One for Fitness called - Cookie's Fitness Quest
• One for Asian Cooking called - Wok Wackery
  

Cleaning & Organizing--- Photo Update #1

I promised Angela I'd post photos of the progress we've made in our quest for organization. So, here are some photos. Please enjoy them. They took me forever. But, they were well worth it! We enjoy knowing where everything is and keeping it that way! Of course, since we had help organizing the first few days were an adventure because sometimes we didn't quite know where some things were. For example, one day I needed the strainer and I looked everywhere and beyond. And, Andrew can't seem to grasp the concept that cereal is in a cupboard instead of on a shelf out in the open in the kitchen. And then there's the fact that our food and dishes have traded places - food is now in cupboards (wow, what a concept) and dishes (including glasses) are out in the open on our bookshelves in the dining room. The concept behind this is that dishes are nicer and prettier to look at than food is. Um... yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense now that I think about it. But, every time I go to get a cup I still go to the old cupboard instead of where they really are. But, I'm sure eventually I'll get used to it.

Here are some cupboards. Beautiful and organized!

Here are more cupboards. Nice and organized!

Here are our bookshelves and pantry -all organized and pretty too!

Goals! 2011

Everyone seems to post their goals in January, but as almost anyone will tell you: January has come and gone! Really? Gee. I hadn't noticed.

Anyway, I decided I'd post some of my goals for the year tonight.
They are not really in any particular order except for #1. #1 is #1 and cannot be substituted, sidestepped, or subverted. I'm going to keep my list to 10. I know 10 sounds like a lot but some of them kind of overlap.

1. Deep Clean & Organize the Apartment! (And set up a plan to keep it that way)
2. Read the Scriptures every day!
3. Exercise 6 days a week!
4. Make a Calendar and block in work time, home time, and personal time and stick to it so I have as much of a balanced life as possible - and don't go CRAZY!
5. Do my French-Canadian Family History and go to Québec to work on the difficult parts of it!
6. Brush up on my Québecois (French-Canadian dialect of French)!
7. Read something uplifting & motivating each day!
8. Read something about healthy living each day!
9. Pick a subject and set up a plan to learn about it (i.e. Chemistry, History, sewing, etc...) and then once finished go on to the next subject!
10. Cook with Andy as much as possible so we can try out new and exciting foods and so he can't say he "can't cook"!
11. Produce my own Youtube Late Night Talk Show!

I know I said I'd keep it narrowed down to 10 but I forgot to add number 11 and number 11 is pretty important to me. Also, it's something Andy's going to help me with. So, it's going to be our new "hobby". Hopefully our friends and family will watch it. If not, at least someday our kids will. And, they'll think we're hilarious, right?

Redesign

I just did a major overhaul of our blog this morning. It took about 20 minutes. I'm not so sure I like it, but it needed it. I wanted to make sure it could be easily read (i.e. the font color was ok, etc...) and it is. But, honestly, the color scheme is kind of out of whack so I'm going to do another overhaul very soon. Looking at it makes me sick. The colors just "don't quite go together" but at least you can read it without any problems which was my original intent and the background is different.

And, as is the current trend here is a video from youtube. And no, I do not spend hour and hours on youtube these days. I've just recently found a use for it. Anyway, this is a video of what Andrew calls "That French guy again". He's the guy who wakes me up from my naps every afternoon and he even tries to wake me up when I'm not taking a nap. He's a French-Canadian singer whom I really like and whose cd has been in our cd alarm clock for months. The cd is set to go off every afternoon and so like I said he wakes me up from my naps even when I don't need him to and when Andrew is home and the cd comes on he says "There's that French guy again!" So, here is Roch Voisine singing my favorite song Hélène

Here are the lyrics: Lyrics to Hélène :
Seul sur le sable
les yeux dans l'eau
mon rêve etait trop beau
l'éte qui s'achève
tu partira
à cent mille lieu de moi
coment oublier ton sourire
et tellement de souvenir
nos jeux dans les vague
pret du quai
je n'est vu le temps passer
l'amour sur la plage désertée
nos corps brûlés enlassés
coment t'aimé si tu t'en va
dans ton pays loin là-bas(ba ba ba ba)

partie en anglais
pourquoi tu part reste ici
j'ai t'en bessoin d'une amie
partie en anglais
pourquoi tu part part si loin de moi
là où le vent t'emporte loin de mon coeur qui bat

partie en anglais
pourquoi tu part reste ici
rete encore juste une nuit

seul sur le sable
les yeux dans l'eau
mon rêve était trop beau
l'éte qui s'achève
tu partira
à cent mille lieu de moi
coment t'aimé si tu t'en va
dans ton pays loin là-bas
dans ton pays loin là-bas
dans ton pays loin là-bas(ba ba ba ba)
dans ton pays loin de moi
Seul sur le sable
les yeux dans l'eau
mon rêve etait trop beau
l'éte qui s'achève
tu partira
à cent mille lieu de moi
coment oublier ton sourire
et tellement de souvenir
nos jeux dans les vague
pret du quai
je n'est vu le temps passer
l'amour sur la plage désertée
nos corps brûlés enlassés
coment t'aimé si tu t'en va
dans ton pays loin là-bas(ba ba ba ba)

partie en anglais
pourquoi tu part reste ici
j'ai t'en bessoin d'une amie
partie en anglais
pourquoi tu part part si loin de moi
là où le vent t'emporte loin de mon coeur qui bat

partie en anglais
pourquoi tu part reste ici
rete encore juste une nuit

seul sur le sable
les yeux dans l'eau
mon rêve était trop beau
l'éte qui s'achève
tu partira
à cent mille lieu de moi
coment t'aimé si tu t'en va
dans ton pays loin là-bas
dans ton pays loin là-bas
dans ton pays loin là-bas(ba ba ba ba)
dans ton pays loin de moi

My Second Arbonne Paycheck is here!

Yay! Today my second Arbonne paycheck arrived! As with the first, it is not fully representative of my entire profits (i.e. buying product with my discount and having clients wanting to buy it from me at full retail price, etc...). My paycheck would have been about $98, but sadly I had someone return a rather large order and instead of doing an outright exchange I had her do a return and go and purchase the other items instead. I should have had her purchase the acne line at the beginning, but I really thought that the Re9 line would help with it. But, I've learned and for some people it does, and for others the acne line works better. So, as with most things in life - You live and learn.

Anyway, here is a picture of my paycheck for all those who require proof. (And, it gives me a chance to use our snazzy 2 month old printer/fax/scanner combo)

Belarus

I checked our blog's stats again today and found that we've had a visitor from Belarus. At first, I didn't think much of it. I just figured that Belarus is pretty much the same as Russia. But, apparently, it is not. Thanks to wikipedia and youtube I've officially been schooled. I like that we've had a rather diverse population visiting our blog lately. I've always been interested in other cultures but I have a hard time knowing where to start when it comes to learning about them. But, when people visit our blog I find it's easy to use that as a starting place. I promise that this phase will probably pass shortly. But, really we don't have kids (yet) and the only other thing of note lately is our cleaning and organizing progress (Angela, I did take pictures, but I had to take them with my phone and it's taking forever for me to figure out how to send them to my email and then download them - apparently they're bigger in size than I would have thought - but... I took a TON yesterday, JUST for you!).

So, without further rambling here is what I've learned about Belarus. The following information is courtesy of wikipedia:

Belarus (ⁱ /bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian: Беларусь, Белоруссия, see Etymology), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe,^[7] bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mogilev (Mahilyow) and Vitebsk (Viciebsk). Forty percent of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested,^[8] and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.

Until the 20th century, the lands of modern day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Russian Empire, and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result of the Russian Revolution, Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union and was renamed as the Byelorussian SSR. The final unification of the modern day Belarusian lands took place in 1939 when lands that were part of the Second Polish Republic were united with the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic as a result of the Soviet invasion of Poland.^{[9][10][11][12][13][14]} The territory and its nation were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources.^[15] The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 the Belorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.

The parliament of the republic declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus declared independence on 25 August 1991. Alexander Lukashenko has been the country's president since 1994. Under his lead and despite objections from Western governments, Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of the economy have been continued. According to some organizations and countries, elections have been unfair, and political opponents have been violently suppressed.^[16][17][18] Since 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State. Belarus also has the highest Human Development Index among members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Most of Belarus's population of 9.49 million reside in the urban areas surrounding Minsk and other oblast (regional) capitals.^[19] More than 80% of the population are native Belarusians, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages: Belarusian and Russian.

Also, I watched a really interesting, informative, and emotionally compelling video on youtube about Belarus. I watched it thinking it was going to teach me how to speak some basic phrases in Belarussian. But, instead it was more of a documentary. Like I said, I really didn't know anything about Belarus before today, so this video really opened my eyes.
It's not super long...only about 10 minutes and it's really worth watching.

Здравствуйте!

I checked our blog's stats again today and I was pleased to learn that we've had a visitor from Russia this week! So, in honor of our Russian friends, I'd like to say: Здравствуйте! pronounced : [zdras-tvooy-tyeh] which means "Hello!"

I could go on for days and days with regards to everything I know about Russia. Andy could also go on and on about Russia. So, I've decided not to bore everyone with that. Although, I'd like to formally announce that I'm somewhat jealous that Andy's visited Russia and I have not yet had the pleasure to do so. (I was a Russian major for a year and Andy simply studied Russian in high school) Andy's been a lot of places that I have not, but this is the one place I've dreamed of visiting since I was a little girl. I could care less if I ever make it to Germany or Italy or some of the other places he's visited (although it would be nice). I'm still upset that Andy has never shown me any of his pictures from Russia. I'm not even sure he has any. I'll have to ask him tomorrow.

I remember in Russian class we used to watch this show called ДО СВИДАНИЯ ЛЕТО or in English - "Goodbye Summer" - We used to beg our professor to let us watch it. I'm not sure why because it is super cheesy. But, I guess it just goes to show how far you will go when you're learning a language...sometimes.
About a year ago when I when I was back in school I was looking for economics lectures on youtube because I had swine flu and I was quarantined in our apartment I got sidetracked and ended up looking for ДО СВИДАНИЯ ЛЕТО instead and to my delight I found it. (I eventually ended up finding some economics lectures too) So, here is the very first episode of ДО СВИДАНИЯ ЛЕТО for those who are interested.
If you don't watch it I'll be offended; however, Andy won't I'm sure. He'd probably tell me it's cheesy and question my sanity for liking it.

For something a little lighter and more fun here's a cool Russian Pepsi commercial I found on youtube.

Ok, that's all for today, hopefully those who visit our blog will have found it interesting and somewhat useful, or at least entertaining.

Dobry wieczór

I checked our blog stats this evening and noticed that most of our traffic comes from the United States. However, we've had 2 visitors from Poland this month. So, in honor of our Polish friends I've labeled this blog entry with the Polish phrase for "Good Evening".

Now, neither Andrew nor I speak Polish (although we do speak some Russian, which is somewhat similar) so before anybody goes away thinking that we have some Polish language skills - we don't, well, none aside from what Google gives us.

Life hasn't really been super exciting (good or bad) the last couple of weeks so we haven't had much to blog about. Our apartment is still a work in progress, and I fear any "in progress" photos would only cause heart attacks by unassuming bystanders (really, they're probably not that bad). The kitchen is almost completely finished from top to bottom and side to side and everything has a place - well, "almost everything". We're still working out a couple of glitches.

Anyway, I decided to take this opportunity to talk about everything I know about Poland. (Please indulge me, it's really not a lot)

There's the composer Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin who was Polish. I looked him up on Wikipedia and learned that there's apparently some dispute as to the date of his birth - some sources give 22 February while others give 1 March 1810. Interesting! I did not know that!
For food there's - kielbasa, pierogi, and kapusta (cabbage)

Then there's the -The Treaty of Warsaw -According to Wikipedia this was a treaty between West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) and the People's Republic of Poland. It was signed by Chancellor Willy Brandt and Prime Minister Józef Cyrankiewicz at the Presidential Palace on 7 December 1970, and it was ratified by the German Bundestag on 17 May 1972. In the treaty, both sides committed themselves to nonviolence and accepted the existing border - the Oder-Neisse line, imposed on Germany by the Allied powers at the 1945 Potsdam Conference following the end of World War II.

Sadly, that's about all I know about Poland. I'm sure Andrew knows a lot more, but he's asleep and I'm sure he wouldn't be thrilled if I woke him up to ask him everything he knows about Poland.