Secret

I am not allowed to post something until Wednesday.

BUT.

If anyone knows of someone who is looking for a cute 2 bedroom apt in Winfield that wants to move in within the next month, please let me know ASAP or it will go to a stranger.

Blasted Tire

This was our tire after a very scary experience. We went to SLC with some friends for Mike's birthday and a couple minutes after getting on the freeway to come home the car started shaking and swerving almost uncontrollably.

• Fortunately Mike was able to pull to the shoulder (we had been in the carpool lane so it was the left shoulder) without banging my sports car against the median and him and Pete got out to assess the damage.

• Unfortunately I had studded snow tires on the car which are kind of pricey.

• Fortunately it didn't affect any of the other 3 tires, as far as we can tell.

• Unfortunately this was about 2 months ago so it was freezing and very windy, plus we had gotten all dressed up for dinner so Rachel and I were wearing skirts and opted to stay inside the car.

• Fortunately my car has a mid-size donut in the trunk and basic tire changing equipment.

• Unfortunately the lugnuts had been professionally air-pressurized and were almost impossible to get loose.

• Fortunately just then a highway patrolman drove by, saw our plight, and came to help us with his much better equipment.

So, since the entire episode took about 20 minutes and there were more fortunates than unfortunates, I consider the whole thing as going much, much better than it could have.

The aftermath, however. . .

Don't work with Firestone. I've never had a good experience there but they had the cheapest snow tires so we bought from them and they were kind of jerks about the tire when we took it in to them to replace, since it was 2 days after the 30 day warranty and they refused to replace it for free even though they couldn't find any evidence in the tire of us hitting anything to cause the blow-out.

Moving

The past month we have been focusing on searching for where we are going to live in the near future. Our contract ends in August and since I have ethical issues with our management company we chose not to renew. Depending on what we find we may have to move earlier, as soon as 3 weeks possibly.

Now I will admit: moving TERRIFIES me. I hyperventilate even thinking about moving a few blocks away and out of the ward! I feel like I haven't been able to make friends very easily since getting married and that I am FINALLY comfortable with my life where we are now, so uprooting again is scary. Plus my bestest friend is getting married tomorrow and moving across the world (okay, to Ogden, but that's plenty far) so it's just a lot of changes at once.

However. I am trying to be brave. Especially knowing that it makes other people nervous too! For example, last night my darling VTs came over and Melanie said she was nervous to move across the country where she doesn't know anyone. This shocked me! I always thought of her as being so fearless! So I thought to myself, "okay self, if Melanie can move across the country, you can certainly move across town and live to tell the tale."

This was a rambling tale with no real conclusion. The end.

Hurray!!!

MIKE GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL!!!!

Well, that solves 1 of our 2 big dilemmas at the moment. Now onto the next one. . .where to live???

The Cake

It was my BFF Liz's bridal shower yesterday, held at my apartment. This is the cake I made for her party. I stole the look off of a friend's blog and then altered it to fit my needs. The shower was brunch-themed so instead of making a traditional cake it is actually made of strawberry shortcake, with strawberries and cream in between the layers. Also, I cannot write a cursive "z" for the life of me, so I wrote her name in chocolate with an "s" instead, which is fine because her name is actually Elisabeth. This was my first try at the cake, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Next time I will make the top layer taller, because it's a little hard to see in pictures.

Big thanks to my MIL who I called frantically with last minute how-to cake questions!!

Blast this 15 year old VCR!!!

For anyone who does not know, Mike is a HUGE Syracuse college basketball fan. However, only about 5 games a season get shown on cable for him to watch, so it's a pretty big deal when one is scheduled.

Tonight a game was scheduled to start at 7:50. Mike has bishopric at 8:00. So he dutifully set our ancient VCR to record the game in such a way that I could still watch my sitcoms at the same time (how kind!!) At 8:00 on the dot, I heard the recording kick in, and I went back to the computer.

Well, I wasn't paying very close attention. . .until I looked up at 9:00 and saw that the cassette tape was sticking out of the VCR. Aahhh!! Rarely do I move as fast as I did tonight as I leaped across the living room in a single bound (like Superman) and started scrambling like mad with the remotes to get it to start recording again. Since we only use our VCR like 5 times a year I have no idea how to use it and was muttering to myself the whole time, "please work, please work!" I think it must have only been recording for a few minutes, because the film was hardly used.

SOMEHOW I got it to start recording again. I left it on the sports channel because I didn't know how to program it the special way Mike did. Thinking all was well, and that I had at least got the last 15 minutes of gametime (which is really like 45 minutes long), I went back to my work. . .

ONLY TO HAVE THE SAME THING HAPPEN 20 MINUTES LATER!! During the last minute of the game! Which doesn't matter to me, but maybe it'll matter to some of you out there. This time I got it recording within seconds. . .so awesome.

Maybe he won't notice?

Grumpy

I feel like I have been a major grumpster for the past week. So for everyone that has had to endure my wrath, I apologize. I am just SO READY TO MOVE!!! I would actually be extremely sad to move and leave my cute apartment and neighbors, but my hatred for living above my downstairs neighbors (NOT Kristin) overrides that.

They have been at it constantly for the last week. All hours. All decimals. I can't take the noise any longer!! I have actually stomped on the floor to get them to be quiet. There was even a time last week when I had contemplated going down and taking the kids - but I was sick in bed and knew I couldn't take care of them. Unfortunately for the complex, they have declared that they don't care anymore if people can hear them.

My irritation is getting pretty high. I am trying very hard to be patient, but I don't know how much longer I can take this.