One Track Mind

In the Jeep dropping Jere off at work...

Jere: "Wanna come in and get a soda? My treeeaat."
Reagan: "Hmmm I don't know, I should probably get going..."
Jere: "Are you sure? You could get a pepsiii or a coooke...I'm paying!"
Reagan: "Okaay."

Inside Jere's work...

He puts his money in the machine and presses the button for a Dr. Pepper.

Jere: "What kind do you want?"
Reagan: "Umm I'll have a coke."

He puts his money in the machine and presses the button for a Dr. Pepper.

Jere: "Gaah! I have to break another dollar now!!" More money goes into the machine. "Okay now YOU press the button so I don't do that again..."


Prime example of my Dr. Pepper loving husband.

My Last Day

Today is my last day at my current job location. I am a consultant for an architecture company and the contract is ending between the two company's I have been working with. I've known for about three weeks that I would be finishing my time here at the end of January and it's passed pretty quickly.

Here's the story...My boss here on location asked if we could chat. We went into the cafeteria area and chatted and I could tell something was up. He said he was going to have to end the contract due to several reasons but the main one being the economy. I was a little surprised but then again not really surprised at all. I felt an immediate peace about the situation and knew that God had a plan. I knew from the time that I was first hired for this job that when it was time to leave it would all work out and that God was in complete control of the situation. He told me that he had spoken with my boss at the architecture firm to make sure I would have a job there and although he felt really bad about having to end it said that he was assured I would still have a job. After he told me all this and we talked about some other details, I let him know that I was so impressed with how God's plan was coming into play. I told him that I am pregnant and that I was planning to stay home with the baby. I had been worried about how everything would come together and if they would need to hire someone to take my place, and how long before I left they would need to do that so I could train said person etc. I had a few situations running through my mind. I wasn't sure when to tell my work either. My boss acknowledged that things seemed to be aligning and I just felt really good about the situation.

Later that afternoon, my boss from the architecture firm came to meet me and we discussed the change. Here's the part where I was completely amazed...My boss had been planning this year to hire another designer and a few months ago they offered the job to an intern who has been there on and off for a few years while she is finishing school. The morning my boss knew she was going to come talk to me, the intern had emailed saying she would accept the position. My boss explained to me that she was accepting the position and if hired, would start work on June 1, 2009. She mentioned that she would just have to let the intern know what was happening. That she would not be able to hire her because I needed a job instead. I was immediately excited. I told my boss that I was pregnant and she was so excited for me...she started crying! I explained to her that I was planning to stay at home after the baby will be born so this would work out really well. The intern would still be able to accept the position and I could have a job until the summer. My last day is June 1st and I will have a little time to really get ready for the baby to be here. Coincidentally, a few weeks before this happened, I had tallied how many paychecks I would get until June 1st a couple weeks prior to finding out this situation.

So here is the last mobile upload from my current workplace. The requisite drawing plans in the background and bad lighting with a maze of cubicle offices to run through. I will miss the people here and I can honestly say that this has been a good experience but I am so glad that God is in control and knows where I am headed next.

It's the Strangest Thing

I work in a corporate setting. One of the issues I deal with on a daily basis is seeing people in the bathroom. If you have ever worked anywhere with a restroom that has two stalls or more, you should know what I'm talking about. It may be differ depending on whether you are male or female. It may also differ if you work in a smaller work environment with several stalls. That would be waaayyy more awkward. I personally feel that there are several rules when using a public restroom in a work environment. Females want to be chatty in any situation, but it's just so awkward.

Here are a few guidelines I think are just basic for this type of situation...

1. Time entry to the restroom when no one else is entering. Sometimes this is unavoidable.
2. Carry a water cup to the restroom and if you see someone about to enter when you get close to the restroom door, walk on by with your water cup and fill up before using the restroom.
3. Do not talk on a cell phone.
4. When entering the restroom, hurry into stall #1 before the person in stall #2 comes out. Eye contact in the restroom is scary.
5. Exit stall #1 only after the person who just came into stall #2 has shut their door.
   Visa versa: exit the stall only after you know the person in stall #2 is still finishing their business and not coming out anytime soon. Listen for sounds of zippering and pulling pants up.
6. Cough when doing the dirty to disguise the obvious. I'm sorry but I don't understand how some people have super bowels and they can hold it all day.
7. Do not make conversation, but if someone says hello don't be rude.

I am writing this because there is one lady in particular who completely avoids these rules and frankly shoves them in my face! This lady works in the kitchen and I don't know what the deal is but we use the restroom at the same time A LOT. She seems very nice but totally oblivious to the unspoken rules of using the restroom. She is a repeat offender.

1. Starts a conversation with me every time I see her.
2. Talks on her cell phone while on the toilet.
3. Always comes in right after I have entered.
4. Doesn't ever avoid eye contact. In fact she pointedly looks at me as we're entering our stalls!

I have come to realize that she is my bathroom buddy. As disconcerting as this is, I have come to terms with it. Honestly, I could go without hearing about how "so and so isn't cooperating and was jumping on the couch" etc. whilst on the pot, but I guess I'll have to put up with it. For some reason it's unavoidable.

I'm sorry if these might be deemed "inappropriate". I tried to tone it down as much as possible :0)

P.S. My brother Jodie flies in tonight and I'm going to pick him up with Melodi. I'm so excited to see him!

Snapshots of my Life.

The perfect weather and gray skies that makes the real me rear it's ugly head. It's like I'm a werewolf and this is my full moon.

My love, coming to eat with me.

My LOVE trying to run me over after spending 30 minutes with me and realizing for the umpteenth billion time that I'm crazy. But he's just so in love, he can't help himself. So instead he tries to run me over every time he has this realization.

Trying to get away as I snap pictures of him. "Agh - you're crazy!"

Until the next time I can show you how crazy I am... Goodbye my love...

Fitness Challenge

My employer, Treanor Architects offered a fitness challenge to it's employees for the months of June and July. We turned our minutes in yesterday and at first I was only going to turn in my minutes for July, but I submitted my minutes for June too wondering if they would take them. They didn't end up taking them because the minutes weren't specifically exercising for this challenge. I still thought it was interesting! Here are the breakdowns:

From everything I figured up, I had 5270 minutes of fitness for June. (the average is 3 hours a day and could be on the low side. Some days we were walking for 5-6 hours and other days not so much. But there is rafting, biking, swimming and climbing stairs included in that total!)

I had been keeping track of my fitness in July and the minutes weren't very high...589 minutes. Better than nothing! (the average is 30 minutes a day...but I definitely was not doing it everyday)

This video is supposed to make you feel good about yourself. You're supposed to sit there and think to yourself "Man...she is such a whimp why isn't she running up those 343 stairs?". It was hard, but I am sure you could do so much better!

Click here if the video doesn't work for you...

We might be crazy

We're still working on our house. We're really really close to being done. It is exciting to think about moving and relaxing for a couple of weeks. However, there is stuff that needs to be done. We are ready to be finished with this really large project.

So, when we're super motivated to work, we try to take advantage of that. Take today for instance: Last night we took the night off from our house. We needed a night off and we knew that this weekend is going to be a crazy work-on-the-house fest. We woke up today feeling refreshed and ready to go.

Reagan is going to purchase an air mattress tonight, while I start working. We are planning to work until we drop, and wake up and work some more. This is a crazy messed up idea of a work-lock-in. Imagine a Ren-Fest or an Art Fair, but with drywall mud, sanding and paint.

Maybe we're crazy, and the first night sleeping at the house is going to be a work-night. But, we need to take advantage of the time we have this weekend. If we don't stay the night, we'd miss most of the morning by sleeping in. I will naturally want to sleep before Reagan and she'll naturally want to sleep in longer than I will. It works out great this way. If I go to bed, she can stay up, and when I wake up, I work while she sleeps.

We're going to take pictures and post them later. Wish us luck in our first work-on-the-house-like-crazy-because-we're-crazy-lock-in.

House Update

Things at the house are moving along pretty well.

When I was tearing out the stone sorround in the living room I discovered that there was no insulation in the walls. We did a couple more tests in other places in the house and discovered our fears were true. We had no insulation! So, the next week we had Reagan's little brothers (Jamie and Jodie) tear out the plaster in the entire house. This gave us the ability to access the exterior walls for a number of reasons. The main reason is for the insulation, but the other benefits include.

1. We are now able to tear our the wire in the house properly
2. We are now able to rerun the electrical in the house
3. We are now able to run cable tv where we want to, easily
4. We are now able to run telephone where we want to, easily
5. The plaster was in really really bad shape. The previous owners had tried to cover it up with wood paneling, but the wood paneling was in bad shape, too. We could have just put up 1/8" drywall, but it wouldn't have looked as nice as fresh, clean, sparkling, fancy new wall board.

So, we weighed our options. Tearing out the plaster seemed like a fun challenge, so we added it to our already large plate. It was nice having Jodie and Jamie help tear out our plaster. They did most of the grunt work during the day. At night Reagan and I would cleanup and stock the fridge with water and Gatorade. We called the city and for $165 they placed a 15 yard refuse bin in our driveway. When they came to pick it up, it was packed full of plaster and lathing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lath_and_plaster).

After the plaster was out, Reagan and I went on vacation for a week. Nothing was accomplished while we were gone.

Last week was recovery and cleanup week. We were mostly cleaning things up around the house by pulling nails and pulling pieces of lath that were remaining. We pulled a strip of lathing at the sub-floor level that was entirely missed during demo week. I can't tell you how many times we swept the floor during last week. Rex and Shawna were nice and let us borrow their shop vac for a couple days and we used it like crazy. Before vacuuming I could barely make out that we had a wood floor. There was a ton of dust.

Over the weekend we've shifted modes into putting up new stuff. We have a lot of projects going on simultaneously. I am about a third of the way done running wire (Thanks Rob, for helping me) and Reagan has started to insulate the exterior walls where she can.

Yesterday I placed a couple of sister joints in the ceiling next to the ceiling joists that were cracked. It was actually pretty fun doing this by myself as I had to build a small jig to help support one side of the 16 foot long 2x4 while I man handled it (a.k.a. banging it with a rubber mallet) into position next to the other joist. After the sister joints were placed I removed all of the old wiring in the living and dining areas. The wiring was a mess. To the left is a picture of a small rats nest, or a fire hazard that needed to be removed. I also had time to drill holes and run cable to two different places in our living room where the TV might go. When Reagan showed up she worked on installing the insulation. We're almost done insulating that big room.

Today and tomorrow will be more wiring and insulating. I am going to place eight recessed lighting fixtures in the living and dining areas and run wires to all of them. We are hoping the wiring in the big room will be done quickly. Currently, the only place in the house that still has electricity is the kitchen. All other breakers have been turned off for safety. Having the extra lights and the extra outlets will be extremely helpful. Especially when working on the rest of the house.

Sunday night we decided to start talking to people about replacing our windows. This means that salesmen and installers have started to show up every night to talk to us. We're going to hire people to replace the windows because we're busy enough. One person came on Monday, another on Tuesday and we're expecting two different people today (Wednesday). So far the quotes for our 12 windows (10 double hung and 2 picture windows) have been quoted in the low three thousand dollar range, installed. We should replace the windows before we move in. At least three windows are warped to the point that they will not close properly or the glass itself is loose. I will feel better about sleeping there when I know the windows are locked. Every night we either lock up our tools or take them with us.

We have developed a work routine that seems to be beneficial to us. On the nights that we are working, Reagan drops me off at the house while she runs errands for a couple of hours. She usually gets back to the house around 7:00pm. This gives her three hours to work with me. We try to work until 10:00pm and clean up until 10:30pm. That gives me five-ish hours to work on the house and her three-ish hours. I head over to the house straight from work. I usually keep a change of clothes in the jeep. Sometimes Reagan brings me supper, but most of the time we're not even hungry until we get home. We have been calling this the real estate diet plan.