I'm so damn proud of myself!

We've finally recouped from our weekend working in TN. Tanner has been working hard on his homework, and I've been trying to help. He had a big paper/presentation due today. I was home Thursday - Sunday, which was great! I'm doing it again this week with the holiday. While Tanner was busy doing homework, I took the free time to catch up on laundry & some organizing.

I can't go without mentioning that my car "broke down" last week. The engine was running at 3,500 RPM at an idle. After consulting with Kyle (my brother-in-law who is a mechanic) we took it to a Chevy dealership here in CR, against my will. I would much rather have taken it to whoever was the cheapest shop I could find. Tanner dropped off the car in the morning. That's when he found out that they were going to charge up to $120 just to look at it- no work included! They agreed to drive the car, and if it wouldn't act up then they wouldn't charge me. When we picked it up that afternoon (to take it somewhere cheaper) it hadn't acted up for them. So we drove off. And it acted up. But, they were already closed for the day.

After leaving the car at a hotel for the evening to cool off, we got it back home. Kyle said if I could get the car to him (an hour away) that he's at least look at it and maybe through a few parts at it. So my dad said he would try to pull it home for me. Well, long story short, Dad had his own things to think about and by Friday we still hadn't gotten it to Kyle.

Friday evening we went to Payton's last baseball game of the season. He had a couple of really good hits and even played catcher for an inning. We enjoyed seeing him play.

After the game we went to Trilby's house for dinner along with Tasha, Kyle and Mom. While we were there, Kyle showed us (on Tanner's car) the part he thought needed changed and said we could probably try doing it ourselves. So on Sunday, when we had some free time, Tanner drove to the store and bought the part. That's when I realized my hidden talents. ;) As Tanner stood near providing and extra hand and continual reminders that "we can talk to Stan you know" (Stan is our neighbor who probably knows more about cars than Tanner and I put together), I moved a couple of parts out of the way to then remove the "broken" part. After successfully doing that, I put the new part in and returned everything to where it started. Yes, my hands were greasy. Yes, Tanner was a little bothered by having grease on his hands. No, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. But we did it! And it probably saved us $200!!

It's not that often that I am genuinely proud of myself. After successfully completing that task, I am so damn proud of myself! I told the girls at work that I was going to fix that part before I ever took it to a dealer who charges $120 for nothing...and by gosh, that's what I did. It was a new sense of empowerment that I felt.

Now let's just hope that's the part that actually needed replaced.

A well deserved treat...

On Wednesday Tanner and I, along with my parents, drove to Cooksville, TN. Though Tanner has never been to TN, this was not a vacation, but instead a good deed for a family member.

Recently my Great Uncle Bob passed away. Ruthie and Bob did not have children beyond their cats and dogs. So when Ruthie decided she was putting her house on the market, my parents asked for anyone who was available to take a trip to help fix up her house. Ruthie & Bob have a gorgeous house in the middle of nowhere. They've lived there for 11 years, so you can imagine the amount of painting and odd & ends that needed to be done. The four of us, along with my aunt Kathy and cousin Clint, worked our tails off from the time we arrived Thursday morning until the minute we left Saturday afternoon.

Tanner was able to show off his painting skills for nearly the entire time. They painted a bedroom, kitchen, laundry room, 2 bathrooms and the entire porch. I'm sure I won't be convincing him to paint again for quite some time! Because I HATE painting, I kept myself busy power washing, laying pavers, decluttering, cleaning, etc.

My family is plagued with falling asleep while driving, so Tanner showed off again by driving more than his share of the nearly 22 total hours, which was VERY appreciated!

When we arrived back home, we were overjoyed to see our pups and to take a much deserved nap. We watched Gran Torino last night as we were resting (and I cried like a baby). We also treated ourselved to Red Lobster tonight, which we realized was the first time since February 2008 that we had been there. After so much hard work helping family out, we thought we deserved the treat...and boy was it yummy!!

Hope your weekend was better than ours.

The past weekend did not go as planned (and I really hate it when plans change). We packed up the car and headed down to Kent Park on Friday afternoon, just wanting to beat the rain...and we did! We picked out a site that we thought was big, private, and had lots of shade for trees. After setting up, we got a call that my nephew Payton's baseball game that we planned to go to had been cancelled due to rain. So we headed to Trilby's house to pick up our firewood. Luckily we realized at that time that we forgot to pack pillows and a blanket. So we planned to get that from her too. As we are loading up the firewood, now in the rain, I somehow got a big cut in the tip of my thumb, ouch.

So we went back to the campground, with our wet firewood, we saw one of our hoggie buns laying outside of our tent. Nothing else was missing or moved. We were more than puzzled, and Tanner was sure that someone was just messing with us. I finally laid down in the tent and saw a couple of holes IN OUR TENT!!! Apparently some raccoons could smell food in our tent, crawled between the tent and rain cover, tried chewing some holes, then cut two big holes to get in! All to steal some buns! We had never had problems with raccoons before. Yeah, they come around and take anything sitting outside, but to cut into the tent?! Unheard of!

You can see here our patch job.

Once our shock wore off, we decided to try duct taping it. We knew the rain cover would still be over the holes, so no big deal. But that isn't the end of it...
It was raining pretty good so we were cooped up in the tent. The raccoon decided to continue visintg us by sneaking up by the tent several times. It continued to pour rain all evening/night/morning long. Tanner didn't sleep much because of the raccoon... oh yeah, and the water started leaking into the tent! All of our things (blankets, pillows, sheets, towels) were wet.

Even Max looked miserable.

Needless to say, we packed up on Saturday and went home. We spent the rest of our weekend watching movies in the warm, dry, and comfortable house. We went back to the campground to celebrate Cael's 6th birthday and Father's Day.

Cael

Sentiments of the Flood

We're looking forward to our weekend ahead camping at Kent Park (we hope). I say that because Kent Park doesn't take reservations, so we are taking our chances, packing the car, and hoping we drive up to an open spot.

We have only camped at Kent Park one time and it happened to be one year ago this weekend. It was a very memorable weekend as it was the same weekend our community was experiencing the flood. We had done what we could to help sandbag in preparation for the flood, and just before they closed down all the roads, we got by on our way to the campground. We spent the rest of the weekend watching the news in my parents' camper.

It's been a year of change and recovery for the CR area. Tanner and I were talking the other night about the ways the flood changed our lives. Though there are many ways we were changed, we agreed that our dog Marley is the biggest effect the flood had on us. We spent a lot of time volunteering at the temporary animal shelter set up after the flood. (I was unable to spend time in flooded homes because of an infections I got after helping my friend clean out their house). Although I already had Max, it broke my/our hearts to see these innocent little dogs caged all day, waiting for their owners to find them...some owners didn't even try. There were over 700 dogs at that shelter, not to mention all the cats.

In July 2008, Tanner and I adopted Marley (miniature poodle). He was a stray, and we assume, due to the flood. We had talked about the decision so much, like we were adopting a child. I really grilled Tanner about "what if something happens with us...where would Marley go?" (We weren't even engaged yet). Hearing and seeing Tanner's confidence about us adopting Marley was when I knew that Tanner was committed to our relationship. (sorry for the mushy stuff).
We love Marley so much and are thankful that the flood brought him to us.

School's Out For Summer!

"We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey teacher leave them kids alone" Pink Floyd

It's that time of the year again. Time for students to run out the doors and not come back for ten weeks. It's even better when you finish high school or college. Alice Cooper said it best when he said, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks." He also reminded everyone that "School's out for summer! School's out forever!"

At that time, I thought it was...

As it turns out, it wasn't. I've decided to go back to school. I'm going to try to get my Masters Degree from Morningside College. Professional Educator will be my major. It's mostly online courses, but there will be some face to face courses. My first class started Monday. It's called Advanced Educational Psychology.

Wish me luck!

Time flies when you're...having a garage sale.

Recently I changed positions at work and am now only working 32 hours a week. It's pretty great! But somehow, I seem to spend that time doing work I don't get paid for. This week it was a garage sale.

My oldest sister Trilby and my sister-in-law Kerry REALLY wanted Tanner and I to open our garage doors for a garage sale this year...oh yeah, and they said I could sell our stuff too if I wanted. For some reason I agreed. Little did I know exactly how many hours would be put into preperation. Tanner and I prepared the garage by sweeping and hanging tarp to cover the things of ours that weren't for sale. Tanner picked up 2 loads of tables from his school. Trilby had been storing totes at our house for a month and brought more! Kerry and Travis (my brother) brought a cattle trailer mostly full of stuff! And we ...had 3 measely totes and a vacuum. I worked for several hours on Thursday night helping Trilby sort. Then all day and night Friday doing more sorting and pricing. Then held the sale Saturday all day. And of course, it RAINED and hardly any of our shit sold. [I appologize for swearing, but after that much work, I had a little anger built up.] Tanner and I sold $15 worth of stuff, but spent $6 buying Trilby & Kerry's things. This is what our garage looked like stuffed full of tables.

What did we learn? #1 Never have a garage sale again. #2 When we do have a garage sale again, set rules for the number of items each person can bring and what we are willing to help with in preparation. #3 pay for an ad in the newspaper because apparently not everyone is addicted to Craigslist like we are.

However, the weekend wasn't all bad. We just returned from my cousin's house, where we were helping to celebrate their now 2 year old son Evan's birthday. He was given a kid's ride-on four wheeler (not from us) to match his daddy's four wheeler. It was a little scary seeing him drive it around not knowing how to stear, but also hillarious seeing the smile on his face. He loved it! We enjoy spending time with family, eating good food and playing with the little kids.

I'm not looking forward to the start of the work week tomorrow, but it is Tanner's last week of school, which makes next weekend that much sweeter.

Tanner and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As I'm trying to figure out what my first post is going to be about, my phone starts vibrating. I instantly became excited to tell Trina how great her blog looked. She put a lot of thought into her post and I wanted to acknowledge it. After all, she is the brains of this operation. However, when I pulled my phone out of my pocket I couldn't have been more disappointed!

It was my mother-in-law...

Yeah, I know... It sounds like a pretty mean statement to make. But you would feel the same way if you were getting the phone call I was about to get...

Kim basically touched on two main points. First, she wanted to rub in the fact that today was her last day of school this year. Second, she wanted to let me know that she is going to be leaving for vacation about the time that I wake up for school tomorrow. What kind of person does that?

Then she plays the phone call off like she was really calling to find out the combination to our garage door. I know better...

I guess I shouldn't be too upset. I'm probably going to do the same thing to Trina on June 12th when I start sleeping in.

Oh yeah... Trina, your blog looks great!

The beginning...

Today I decided to start a blog reflecting the day-to-day life of myself, my husband Tanner, and our two dogs Max and Marley. I'm a converter and always have been...in college it was Facebook. I said it was stupid and I'd never do it...but then I signed up. After college it was MySpace. Again, said it was dumb, "it's the same as Facebook"...then I signed up. Then my not-so-techie mom started a blog called Kim's Kreations. It's cute. I realized this week, after checking her blog everyday with disappointment when there wasn't a new post, that blogging seems like a good way to document our lives. One day, hopefully not too far away, we will have kids, and I'm going to want their lives on record. I'm also hoping that by blogging, Tanner and I will take more picture of ourselves (we don't have many beyond our engagement/wedding) and the everyday type things around us. We're awesome at scenery pics, but not so much at the "boring" things.

And the name "Rooster Tracks"...well that's because of our last name Roos, often pronounced wrong to sound like rooster....and these are the the path left behind by our newly created family.

So here we are, at the beginning of our blog. It may not always be insightful, interesting, exciting, or anything you care about...but that's our lives.