This is an exercise in accountability. Tag, you’re it! It being my new accountability partner. For today at least. I have a long list of things to get done, and in hopes of actually getting them done, and making myself look good… I am posting them here.

1. Be up at 4am. (does 4:10am count?)
   
2. Do dishes.
3. Cook birthday breakfast for husband. (Lets not talk about the burnt bacon and hashbrowns. It’s 4am!)
4. Celebrate said birthday with pre-work activities. (FAIL)
5. Send husband off to work around 6am.
6. Sleep for another few hours. (FAIL - Instead I called Comcast and tried to get the cable fixed. They’re coming out between 1 and 5 on Wednesday.)
7. Shower & dust the bathroom, take out the bathroom trash. (Partial FAIL)
8. Snack & coffee while cleaning up breakfast mess.
9. Start ribs in crockpot.
10. Re-arrange office BEFORE getting on internet.
11. Set up new printer.
12. Spend time online. While online, e-mail the receipt, call insurance company, and file the boot receipt.
13. Put away laundry. (FAIL)
14. Wash sheets & make bed. (FAIL)
15. Quick lunch & bake birthday brownies.
16. Celebrate birthday with post-work activities. (FAIL - I am a SUCKY wife, geez!)
17. Make dinner.
18. Clean up dinner.
19. Strong arm Kelly into the room.
20. Sleep.

We’ll see if I get any of it done. No taking bets now.

Oh, and Happy Birthday PimpDaddyPain. I love you.

Christmas 2008 by Micheal, originally uploaded by Shiny (aka Rachel).

The weather and mix up over the studio turned out to be a good thing, I love how having the pictures in the house really gave everything a homey feel. PDP’s Uncle and his girlfriend came over tonight and we exchanged gifts… they printed off their favorite three, framed two, and gave us an extra frame (the 10 x 10 ring shot didn’t fit the frame they bought)… so we finally have pictures of ourselves up in the house! After a year together, we’re finally getting it together. LOL

The first three (coincidentally, the ones they had printed for us) I’m sharing are edited by the photographer, the rest are as is, pimples, duct tape, and clutter included.

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Post written at 10:33am
Brrr! It’s a whopping 9 degrees outside, and iGoogle assures me it actually feels like - 5. It’s snowing, of course… and only supposed to get worse as the days go on. Someone smashed into PDP’s car (it was parked) the other day, and I’ve already seen a wreck or two over the weekend. Yesterday I drove to my Grandma-in-law’s house, and she lives out in Medical Lake where there is even more snow… and the whole way I sat ramrod straight, hands tight on the wheel and shoulders shaking. It’s worse today…

I staggered out of bed to move the car to the street (our driveway is not plowable) and then came up to the house and called PimpDaddyPain (at 8:39am) to explain that I was a little scared. Snow, ice, and stupid drivers do not mix well with the dark. I’m fine getting myself to work, but sunset is before 4pm, and when you factor in the Severe Weather Warnings for after 1pm… I’m chicken. Surprisingly, it wasn’t hard to tell him I’m scared of driving home… I thought it would be, I’m quite proud and the last thing I want is to be ribbed for my driving ability…

He was gracious about though, and offered to have his uncle/boss drop him off (he’s been getting rides with coworkers since his car is ruined) at my work when he gets off…. my knight in crusty Carharts and worn Wolverine boots. He’s going to drive home, and then brave the freeway not once again, but twice… to come pick me up and bring me home. And he didn’t say anything mean, or teasing… just… “don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”… awwww.

A lesson to be learned on my part… trust him to be a grown up.

/edit
10:56am
I went to the store for Clorox Wipes, an orange, a water bottle for my desk at work - because I’m finally back to having one I can sit at -every- day… before I went I scraped my windows, when I got back in the car after the store, I scraped my windows… as soon as I scrapped all the windows, they were covered in snow again. I pull up to the street in front of the house, pondering… should I just call in? It’s snowing pretty bad… I call Chris, I tell him again that I’m scared to drive… especially now that the snow is worse. He reassures me that it’s all ok, to just go slow, shift gears, brake slowly, use the ebrake if I have too.

So I get on the freeway, slowly… I leave space between myself and the vehicles in front of me… I shift down, I brake, I use the ebrake… I still slam into the car that stopped in the middle of the freeway. To be fair, she stopped because the car in front of her spun out of control and she would have hit it if she didn’t.

I call Chris (at 11:01 - 5 minutes after I told him I wasn’t sure I could do this!), and someone nearly slams into the back of my car and then comes close to hitting my left side as she spins out… luckily she only swipes off my drivers side mirror. We all meander to the side of the road… exchange information, freeze our asses off… Chris’ uncle/boss comes and leads me home (I’m scared shitless and shaking, no way I would have made it to work)…

I should have followed my gut instinct and just called in, because thats what I ended up doing anyways.The damage is very little, I didn’t even scratch the bumper of the car in front of me, and all I have to do is replace the mirror on my car, and go lay down and relax my muscles in my back… I’m all tense and shaky.

I hate it when days have passed and so many things have happened, and I don’t know where to start to fill you in. So I’ll just say this - life has been incredible. Love, laughter, and much more have been almost overwhelming me. Of course, there has been the bad among the good, but so little of it. It may just be the good making everything else pale in comparison. Does it matter?

Many times I regretted the fact that we no longer own a decent camera, because I’m not sure my brain can handle all these good things. Most of them will be forgotten, and there won’t even be a record on my blog. And then I smile, because I know they are going to be other things, better things, happier things, to gush about in the future… and it’s… sweet.

Life is sweet. Slowly but surely I hope to document at least a few of the moments I don’t want to forget… like going pumpkin and apple picking for the first time, gluten-free dinner out for pasta, a quick trip to Oregon, and a lot more! Right now we are in the middle of something big, and it’s scary, because it’s wonderful and huge, and I’m not sure I can keep it under wraps much longer… we’re buying a house. Maybe. We’ve been approved for the loan, but there are some hoops to jump through, papers to be filled out, offers to be countered, and an endless list of ideas and hopes to be talked about.

I wasn’t going to say anything, because the economy is killing people, and we’re sitting here taking advantage of it buy trying to purchase property dirt cheap. I’m also terrified we’ll hit a glitch. Every time PimpDaddyPain begins to talk about it, he just glows - literally, his beautiful brown eyes light up and his smile stretches, and my heart melts all over again. The blow will be crushing, if it doesn’t work out - because he’s so happy, this is a huge “manly” accomplishment for him… heck, for me too.

That’s that. We’re busy, happy, and excited about the possibilities.

From here on out I will only be referring to Chris as PimpDaddyPain. No… you don’t get to know why. I just don’t want to -ever- forget tonight.

We hit up a few yard sales again today with a portion of my birthday money. I had originally planned to save it all to buy stamping and card making supplies, but the need for instant gratification won out. Out to the streets we went. Fortunately it was already late and most of them had shut down for the day, so there were only a few left to pick from, which meant I spent less money! The trunk was full by 5pm, and I was down 19.25 from my wallet. Here’s what we got…

1st Sale: Total spent - $10.25
Griddle pan. (The one that came in our pan set has ridges and is very thin, this one is flat and nice and thick)
Red tea kettle that opens on top. (The one we got free last month only opens from the pour spout)
Fancy corkscrew. (Because the one we have isn’t very strong)
Smoothie blender (which works like a dream, we washed it up and put it to use with some strawberries and ice cream… I bet I could use it to puree veggies and sauces too!)
Printer. (I haven’t hooked this up to see if it works yet…)

2nd Sale: Total spent - $9.00
Cream colored crocheted afghan. (I love it, Chris says it’s ugly, but whatever… it’s beautiful!)
Bathroom sink and cabinet. (We’re going to paint it and replace the sink in the bathroom…it’s mounted to the wall and provides no storage.)
Paper towel holder.
Big flower pot. (Nothing I found at the local stores struck me… this one is plastic and green, but I just like it. I’ll be transplanting my herbs into it tomorrow)
Small painted terra cotta flower pot and tray. (I don’t know what to plant in this, maybe some more herbs, or lavender.)
Toaster.

Not a bad take, right? Especially considering earlier in the day we got an outside dog house, a cat scratching post, and a large water cooler for free for helping Chris’ Uncle move in next door. He’s most likely going to give us a good sized steel work table too, which will go in my office as a crafting table. I’m beginning to understand why people get addicted to yard sales. It’s an incredibly convenient way to shop. Chris and I have spent just under $150 (when you add in things we’ve found on Craigslist) and furnished the house. And when you get there late, they are wanting to be done, so they start giving you things for free… sometimes there is just a sign by the side of the road that says FREE. That’s always nice too, we got a queen sized comforter with matching shams and pillows, a rolling cart (we use it to hold laundry supplies), and books on the side of the road one day marked free.

We hit up 3 other sales today and didn’t find anything we needed at them. There was a cat kennel at the last one we went ran by, but they wanted $20 for it, and it was obviously used. Seeing as we paid $30 (or $40, I don’t remember) for Whiskey’s extra large basically brand new kennel, we just couldn’t spend that much on a small one for the cat. Oooh, that’s right, I didn’t tell you about the cat!

The night I got home Chris’ surprised me with a lovely gray tabby kitten that I named Huckleberry. It was a “welcome home” plus “Happy Birthday” gift. I was shocked, because he told me he’s allergic… but apparently he wanted to surprise me. And he did! She’s a cutie too. He also got me a patio set (a small round table and two chairs) that actually fits in our tiny kitchen, so now we eat at the table instead of the computer and television. We had pizza night (gluten free for me) and cherries for my birthday dinner. Oh, and he let me go see my Mom and sister for 9 days. A very long 9 days!

My Mom got me a pair of Birkenstocks, and let me eat her wonderful food (tomatoes, mushrooms, something other than mild cheddar cheese, fish, asparagus, rabbit, goose, clam chowder, seriously… we eat pretty simple so crashing at her house for 9 days was a blast) and lounge around watching 8 seasons of Charmed for over a week. While I was down there I went through a lot of my stuff and gave away 4 boxes of books… the local used store “bought” a few of them for in store credit… which I just put on my Mom’s account.. And then proceeded to spend more on used books than I had put on her account… so she let me used some of her in store credit too. I think I got 6 books? We had taco night (for my birthday meal) and watched several movies together.

My Grandparents sent me a nice card with some cash, as did my in-laws, and that’s what I used for garage saleing today. With the extra cash we stopped at the store and got ice-cream (oh my god, they had my favorite Haagen-Dazs that isn’t always on the shelf on sale!), strawberries, yogurt, and ice and went home to watch Atonement, eat steak, corn on the cob, asparagus, and baked potatoes… followed by smoothies! I tossed a chunk of a deliciously gooey huckleberry chocolate bar Donna sent me for my birthday (It came this morning by the way, Donna! It was scrumptious but sticky, so the rest of it is in the fridge at the moment) into the blender with mine and loved it.

Overall, despite my moaning earlier in the week, I had a good birthday… it was just spread over several days, which made it much sweeter in the end. Thanks everyone, for your wishes and support. <3