Just Pretend...

...that you're listening to elevator music right now. I will be with you momentarily.

The End of an Era

In January of 1994 I purchased a 1992 Saturn SL1 for $9000. I had been almost 6 months without a car while attending LDS Business College in Salt Lake City, UT. Granted, I didn't really need a car. I lived less than a block from school and only 3 blocks from Deseret Book where I worked. But I thought that I needed a car so with the financial help of my dad and the emotional help of my friend Warren, I bought this car: Over 400,000 miles and 14 1/2 years later... Buella died. That's right folks, as of yesterday the transmission went out. The cost of repairing it would be more than the car is worth. We were REALLY hoping that she would last long enough for us to sell our house and move. We hope to make enough on the house to buy something else for him. As it is, we are officially a one car family now. It's not the end of the world. But, it is the end of an era!

"You're an animal lover or you wouldn't be here."

I don't consider myself a HUGE animal lover. But I don't think I'm an animal hater either. I used to have a greater fondness for animals. I think a couple of things have made me shy away from them in recent years. 1) I have kids. Most kids love animals of all sorts and I think that's great. But very early on I realized that having pets meant TONS more work and stress for ME (not to mention the money). With 4 kids it is really difficult to cheerfully take on that added work and stress. 2) A couple of years ago I went to a garage sale and they had their dog loose. I didn't think any thing of it because I was not afraid of dogs and obviously the owner would have him pinned up if he was going to be a problem. Wrong. The dog attacked me. He full on jumped on my back. I have been afraid of dogs ever since. Not deathly afraid, but definitely overly cautious. Having said all of this I must relate to you what has happened at our house within the last 3 days.

My really good friend Lolly packed a moving truck and moved to Utah on Friday. She had a mamma cat and two baby kittens that she had tried hard to find new homes for but was unsuccessful. In our town we do not have an adoptive pound. We only have Animal Control and they euthenize strays. If you call them and ask them to come and get them and you own them they charge you a fee. So, Lolly didn't know what else to do. She couldn't take them with her and she didn't have any money. So she suggested that I call Animal Control after she left to let them know that they had been left so they would come pick them up. Of course, at first this seemed the most practical thing to do but I started feeling my heart strings being tugged. The two babies had eye infections and the mamma had a sore on her neck that needed some attention. I couldn't just leave them. Geoff and I talked and agreed that we would bring them home and nurse them to healthy cats and then find good homes for them. We brought them home Friday night. The kids were in heaven! We explained to them that we were not keeping them, only helping them and finding them good homes.

There was a little boy kitty and a little girl kitty. The little boy kitty was really bad off. Both of his eyes were closed shut and starting to bulge. The little girl kitty had one eye that was starting to secrete yellow gunk but the eye was still open. We cleaned the eyes the best that we could and waited to hear from my pediatrician friend on some antibiotic eye drops that she might have. Well, that was Saturday. The little boy kitty just got worse Saturday and Sunday. Geoff believed that he was probably already blind in both eyes and if we could just get him healthy that we would probably have to keep him and make him an indoor cat so that he would not be eaten by other creatures.

So today Ainsley and I took the kitties to the vet. I explained to Ainsley that the vet may say that we will have to put Mooshoo (the little boy kitty) to sleep and that meant that they would give him a shot that would make him go to sleep but he wouldn't ever wake up. I knew in my heart that there was a great possibility of this but I, like my children, had grown pretty fond of this little critter and was thinking I might be stupid enough to actually pay an enormous vet bill if they could save him. As we sat there waiting our turn I knew that I would be VERY willing to do what it took. My heart was swelling.

They called our name. We stepped into the room and the vet took one look at Mooshoo and said, "I cannot save that one." I broke down. I told the vet that I'm not really a huge animal lover but these cats were left and no one to take care of them. He looked at me and said, "You're an animal lover or you wouldn't be here right now." I tearfully asked the vet, "There is NOTHING you can do to save him?" He politely said no. Ainsley was standing next to me and listening but not saying a word. They worked on Oreo (the little girl kitty) and told me that if I kept her eyes clean and gave her the medicine she would be fine. As they were working on her I leaned over and whispered to Ainsley that Mooshoo would not be coming home with us that the vet couldn't help him. They took him and we took Oreo, paid our bill and left. I was choking up but managed to keep it together. As we drove home I called Geoff to tell him and when I was done I looked back at Ainsley and she had huge alligator tears streaming down her face. She said, "I'm gonna miss him." I replied, "Me, too."

It didn't seem to really phase Asher. Aspen, on the other hand, cried for a long time. She was really sad. Dang! My heart hurts.

Take a Chance on Me

Today Geoff and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. Under normal circumstances we probably would have gone to Hawaii, Australia or some other exotic place because that's what we normally do {hint of sarcasm}, but this year money is kind of tight and time is limited {due to moving} so we just copped out and went to a movie and a restaurant. Here's the thing, we never go to the theater to watch movies. I (and my husband) really would much rather save the money and watch it in the comforts of my own home with ClearPlay to catch the nasties that they don't really warn you about! The only exceptions would be Harry Potter or some other truly amazing blockbuster type film that we just love! But because we are no longer courting and using some major creativity to win one another's affection, it was dinner and a movie.

We Took a Chance on "Mamma Mia"! Oh lands!! I loved it!!! I'm an absolute sucker for musicals! I don't know why, but they really make me happy inside!!! I love ABBA, too! There were some parts that were super cheesy and I'm still not sure how I feel about Pierce Brosnan singing S.O.S but overall - a total hoot!! I laughed so hard I cried! Something else that was super fun was the fact that I think Geoff and I were the youngest people there and out of 150-200 people I would say less than 10% were male! It was really fun to watch the old ladies sitting in front of me bobbing their heads to the music and putting their hands to their mouths when it showed Stellan Skarsgård's butt! Dang good show, people! As the movie was getting started, as always, they showed a few trailers for new movies coming out. As I sat there watching them I was thinking to my self - movie trailers are always SOOO good. They really know how to make you want to see a movie! Here is a list of trailers that we saw:

The Express

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

HSM3

Henry Poole is Here

Burn After Reading

I could totally see ALL of these movies!! {on ClearPlay and in the comforts of my own living room of course}

We shared a really yummy meal at Red Lobster and had a really great waiter, stopped at Braum's for a really yummy Brownie Fudge Sundae with German Chocolate Ice Cream, and then headed home. After we put the kids to bed and cleaned the house up some we sat down and toasted some sparkling wild berry juice and ate some left over garlic biscuits from Red Lobster. I said "Here's to 11 years!" and Geoff said "Here's to 11 more. After that we'll reassess!"

Maybe not the most glamorous celebration but fun times were had AND neither of us can stop singing ABBA songs!

Happy Anniversary, Geoff. I love you.

Fascinating! {an update}

For all of you brave souls who let me in on your lurking - "Thank you!" For the rest of you chickens out there "Fine. I see how you are." Now for the random name drawing..... I pick Laura Neal! {ok, not so random} Mainly because you were the only one who DIDN'T say that you didn't want any scrapbooking supplies!! {my sister doesn't count} Just email me your home address (gibsoncasa(at)gmail.com) and I'll send ya some real good stuff!

Grease Monkey

Three nights ago I drove my friend Laura to the Stake Center in McKinney so that she could get a temple recommend. I offered because her vehicle is not very reliable right now and I also thought that it would be a nice break from house and kids seeing as it's an hour away! Well, unfortunately, I forgot that my sweet hubby had gotten some incredible tickets to see the new Batman movie at a special premiere thing in Dallas and so I had to take all 4 kiddos! I thought "How bad could this be? I'll just pop in a couple of movies and they'll be fine." Well, they did pretty well as we sat out in the parking lot waiting for her to get finished but about half way home we heard this ominous thumping from the front of the car. Sure enough! We had a stinkin' flat tire - front driver side! Me, Lolly, 4 tired kids and a stupid flat tire! It had to happen on a super busy highway with a bunch of trucker jerks who don't have the common courtesy to pull over to the passing lane much less get out and actually help us!!! Now, I've changed a tire before - couple of times matter o' fact - but DANG IT! it was almost 10 o'clock at night and the kids had already watched Barbie Fairytopia about 3 times and were getting a little fidgety! Poor Andyn was out of control crying - the kind where absolutely NOTHING you do will help her because it is 3 hours past her bedtime!! I just had to let her scream which in turn made the other 3 kids more anxious and the excitement of it all just about drove me to hitchhike! It took us a good 20 minutes to get the stupid spare out from UNDER the van and then we took turns working on jacking the van up and taking off the lug nuts. About the time we were putting the spare on a nice lady pulled up. She said that she passed us once and came back because she thought it was so dangerous that we didn't have any light. So she offered her headlights.... and then proceeded to put on the lug nuts... and tighten them.... and lower the van... all with these beautiful one inch French manicured acrylic nails. I'm glad she wasn't prissy! She followed us for a few miles to a friends' house so he could check it over to make sure we wouldn't have trouble the rest of the way home. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Fascinating!

Amber informed me of her slight obsession with her Feedjit roll on the sidebar of her blog and though I have Google Analytics set up on my blog I hadn't checked it out in a while. I've checked it out for my FSBO blog only because I have wanted to see if anybody is actually interested in the house! But it's been a long time since I checked out the results for my own blog. So this morning I checked it out and look at this:

You see all the green areas? People from all of those states have visited my blog!! Crazy! In the last month I've had 713 visits! Incredible! I'm no Pioneer Woman but somebody out there really likes me! I mean, I know who's visited my blog 66 times from New Jersey and 36 times from Michigan but who the heck has visited my blog 6 times from National City, CA or Show Low, AZ? Who are these people?!! Who has visited my blog from Beverly Hills, CA and why haven't you offered me some kind of reality TV show?! Who has visited my blog from Eugene, OR and why don't you show yourself? I agree, Amber, it's truly obsessive!!! I want to know who you are! If I were as swanky as Pioneer Woman I would offer some kind of give away if you would post a comment telling me where you're from and how you found my blog! Ooooh, I've got an idea... leave a comment telling me where you are from and how you found my blog and I will send you a box of scrapbooking supplies! I'll make it good too!! I've got some good stuff! I'm serious as a heart attack! This obsession is not healthy!! Help me out here!

And whoever you are in Rosamond, CA... buy my house!! I know you're checking it out!

Scrapbooking Supplies

I'm getting rid of all of mine. We're being ruthless at getting rid of stuff before we move so I've decided that I haven't used this stuff in 10 years so I'm probably not going to start anytime soon. If any of you are interested let me know. I have a butt-load of stuff that I stocked up on thinking I would get around to using... uh, wrong. I'm selling them in our next garage sale in a couple of weeks.

The Fourth

We celebrated The Fourth at our friends' Nancy and Jerry Williams. A good time was had by all but not until there was a thunderstorm come through and all 4 kids had some kind of meltdown. I spent almost an hour myself in the van with Andyn strapped in her carseat because she was out of control! After about 45 min of Ice Age The Meltdown she was good to go and we were able to return to the throngs and enjoy some of this: Aren't those crazy cool!! I love that my camera has a setting for fireworks!

We got to celebrate with our awesome friend Lolly:

And here are a couple of photos of the fam having a good time:

I also took a couple of fun videos. This first one is of Asher running through the smoke of a stink bomb holding his breath! He's UBER cute!!

In this next one Geoff starts belting The Star Spangled Banner and Lolly chimes in!

Hope you all had a great holiday!!

Sophie and The Watermelon

One little thing for tonight. I just stole this picture off of my friend Crissy's blog. It's a picture that she took of my sweet 6 month old niece. Without further ado... Sophie and The Watermelon!

Blog Slacker

I REALLY need to blog!!! But seeing how my head is about to explode from the stress of finding a house and selling the one we're in there just isn't really enough mental power to do it all! I will grace you, however, with a small update.

We were in Arkansas for part of the weekend and our sweet Realtor showed us house after house and the last one that she showed us was 'The One'! We put in an offer and after a little back and forth we came to an agreement and it will be ours!! That is, IF we sell ours! We're working on it! Geoff has a co-worker that is really interested and is just trying to get financing and I had someone else call on it today that wants to come look at it! But, you know, I'm such a frickin' dork! I forgot to put it in the paper on Sunday so we've lost some advertising time on it! I had 10 flyers printed and out by the sign and they were all gone when we got back so maybe that's a good sign... or maybe I have a bunch of nosy neighbors!

Job.... check.

New house... check.

Sold house... we're getting there.

Please, please, please, cross your fingers that we can sell it before school starts! If you're the prayerful sort you could do that too.

FSBO

Our house is officially on the market!! Oh, the stress! I've added a link to the sidebar for anyone who is interested in taking a look. I need to add some more pictures but first I have to clean the darn thing!!

My New Best Friend

For MONTHS I have been trying to find an inexpensive way to print my blog. Some kind of software that would download it as it appears on the blog and make it ready for print. I've spent numerous hours research this! Well, a few months ago my friend Cindi emailed me about a site that she had found called Blogs2Books and I thought I had died and gone to heaven!! It was exactly what I was looking for! AND it was free!! After trying it out several times I could NOT get the comments to download and this had been my problem with all the other programs I had tried. So I emailed the software designer and she informed me that they were working on a new version that would be ready soon. Well... it's here and she's my new best friend. OK, Shelley, maybe not my BEST friend but definitely a close second!

You can click on their logo on my sidebar and go check it out if you're interested!

I have over 300 posts so I guess I better get started!! Oh man, such bad timing!! I really need to clean and pack!

Our Sweet Buella

I'm forcing myself to sit down and do this. I have so much to do right now that it almost makes me sick at my stomach!! BUT I just knew that if I didn't get this down in writing that I would forget some details and it wouldn't be near as funny!!!

It all started on Saturday morning when I tried to move Geoff's car...

In 1994, when I was in college, I bought this 1992 Saturn for $9000 and my payments were around $150. When I went on my mission in 1995 I didn't want to sell it so I let my little sister make the payments on it while I was gone - mistake #1. When I came back I resumed payments and took my car back. My sister and I lovingly named her Buella. Shortly after Geoff and I were married in 1997 we paid her off. She has been a great car ever since. She has well over 400,000 miles, though no one can be real sure of the exact number because the odometer stopped working a few years ago. The fan on the motor stopped working so Geoff rigged up a toggle switch that he can flip when she starts getting a little heated. The driver side door no longer will open from the inside so he has to roll down the window to get out. This really isn't a huge problem except in the winter or really rainy days! The AC stopped working several years ago so she really is a beast to ride in during the summer! Also, Geoff has the inside driver's side door panel duct taped to the frame because it started falling off. Now, I tell you all of this mostly in an effort to gain some sympathy from you all! But also so you will better understand what was going through our minds this weekend when a series of 'problems' occurred with afore mentioned vehicle... Buella.

As most of you know, we are getting our house ready to sell so that we can move to Arkansas. I was wanting to take a picture of the front of the house for the new blog I have created for people to be able to see pictures. Anyway, I went out to move Geoff's car out of the way and it wouldn't start. Geoff seemed surprised by this... I did not. It's on it's last leg folks!!! I know it's going to die any minute but we really need it to last until we get moved! Anyhoo... Geoff tried and it wouldn't start for him either. We assumed that it was the battery but weren't going to have a chance to get a new one until the next day. The next day arrives and Geoff replaces the battery and it works like a champ! Good. It may still yet last a few more weeks. So, I go to move it to take that all important photo of the house and when I go to turn the key off it gets stuck! Stuck in the ACC position (whatever the heck that means)! It wouldn't turn to start and it wouldn't turn to off! It was S-T-U-C-K. Stuck! So we spent the next 1 1/2 hours trying to get it unstuck! Finally, Geoff was spraying some WD40 and I was wiggling it with a pair a pliers and the key snapped! It broke off in the ignition! I won't tell you what I said - it wouldn't probably be appropriate for this family oriented blog but I was flaming mad!!!! I couldn't believe it!! What else could happen? Well... let me just tell you! Do you see this picture:

This is what happened when I was in the car steering it into the driveway and Geoff was pushing it. Well, our driveway has a slight incline and it picked up some speed and I kept slamming on the brakes and THEY WEREN'T WORKING!! I pumped them all the way to the floor and NOTHING!! Geoff was yelling at me to ream on the brakes and I'm yelling at him that they're not working!!! And then all of a sudden - THUD! I hit the basketball goal!!! Now, I REALLY won't tell you what I said! But I will say this, at this point we were so exhausted that we just fell into each others arms and started laughing! We were just glad that it didn't hit the garage! Geoff was gonna just lock it up and call it a night but I made him help me straighten up because I didn't want the neighbors or any prospective buyers to see it!

AAA sent out a locksmith and we got the ignition changed out so it's up and running. What about the brakes you ask? Um. Well. I realized shortly after the incident that.... I was pumping the clutch. {sheepish grin}