August, already!

Ok, I know I said that I was bored and ready for school... but I TAKE IT BACK!  I only have 1 official week of summer left.  3 weeks until school starts, but 1 of those I have a class and the other week is in-service, so those don't count as summer break.  Yikes!  I have so much to do in that week!  (including getting a tan...)
School registration was this week and rumor has it 1st grade teachers are going to have about 28 students in their tiny classrooms.  AWESOME.  And there is a fairly large chuck of last years kindergartners who have not registered.  EVEN MORE AWESOME.  Cross your fingers/pray/I don't care what you do, that we add another 1st grade class.  I'm sorry, but 28 students (with NO aide help) in a 1st grade classroom is ridiculous.  I was told that if those numbers stay that high, they might hire a part time aide to help with reading.  1 aide for 6 teachers.  If each teacher gives the aide their 2 lowest students, that's 12 students for an intervention... not effective.
I'm done ranting now.
 Here's my update from last time.
1. Most days I've done a few things from my to-do list.  Some days I did nothing but watch the Kardashians.  Eh, thus is life.
2.  I don't miss those people I've deleted from facebook.  Actually, this is the 2nd time I've thought of them.  The first was when I was informed of some gossip.  See!  I don't need to be annoyed with them on Facebook to still hear gossip about them.  Fabulous.
3. Our Financial Freeze, went...okay.  Mid month we got to move(!) upstairs.  No more wet floors, lack of AC, wiggly toilet, toilet that doesn't flush, black mold, and cat poop outside our windows!  WOOHOO!  But because of that little move we ended up spending.  We had a friend help us move furniture, so it only seemed fair that we take him out to dinner.  Then we needed a few things for the new place, like a bed frame finally, and a really wanted an actual desk.  Ok, those were wants, but it was the perfect time to make those purchases.  We found both for less than $40 total.  Not bad.  We also had a hot mess of a kitchen for a few days, so we did more eating out than we wanted to, but when you've been moving all day, and the counters and sink are full of random stuff, cooking is not a high priority.  I'd say the whole month we spent about $150 on the move, eating out, and picking up the few necessities for the fridge.  Not too bad.  We're going to try it again in September. This may be hard for me, since I'm spending so much on things for my classroom...
4. I mailed out 3 boxes of clothes and I don't even remember what was in each of them.  That's how attached I was to those clothes.  Still working on getting rid of clothing though.  I have been doing a lot of sewing this summer and next on my list is a bag made of old t-shirts that I don't want to part with.  The college shirts hold a lot of good memories despite the fact that they are getting too small and most have holes in them, so they are getting repurposed.  I hope I don't screw it all up....
5. As far as eating healthier, I go in spurts.  I'll do really good, then eat junk.  It's hard!  But I have been running and working out more, and have lost almost 10lbs since the beginning of summer!  YES!  The hard part is going to be keeping it off during the school year.  I am going to have a lot of fruits and veggies prepped in advance otherwise I'm going to eat junk - like the candy in my classroom prize box.  Whoops.

In other news, my mom and Earl were here for a week at the end of July.  It was great to see them and we made the best of our time together even though there isn't much to do here.
That's about all I have for today.  It's time for me to get busy at school.
Hasta la pasta.

Some Self Realizations

This summer has given me MORE than enough time to sit and ponder life.  In all of my ponders I have discovered some things about myself.  Here they are:
1. I am lazier than I wish to admit.
2. There are some people on Facebook that annoy the shit out of me.  And I'm pretty sure they annoy me more in real life.
3. I have an obsession with shopping.
4. I have WAY too much stuff.  (and it's all just, stuff.)
5. I need to improve my health.

So what am I going to do about it?
1. I am going to force myself to get at least 3 things on my to-do list done every day.  Don't worry, the to-do list is continually growing.  I'm going to work up to more things.
2. Delete those people.  Will I miss their 5 selfies a day?  Most definitely not.
3. See below*
4. I am going to start selling, donating, and re purposing some of my stuff.  I have an unnecessary amount of clothing, I HAVE to get rid of some of it.  
5. Obviously going to start working out more frequently (my gym is only $10 a month!) and eating healthier.  Dylan and I are signed up for the Color Run in August and I'd like to not embarrass myself.

*Something we are doing for the month of July is a Financial Freeze.  That means that we do not get to spend any money the rest of the month of July (with a very slim few exceptions).  We have more than enough food in our pantry and freezer to get us through the month, our meals might be interesting but we're going to do it!  We decided to start after our trip to Oregon, because well, that wouldn't have worked so well.  But we did give ourselves a budget on our trip (first time that happened) and we managed to come home with money still in our pockets!
I got the idea for the freeze here: http://www.livingwellspendingless.com/  She has some wonderful pointers and great advice.  I really love her blog.  (Check out her 40 hanger closet too, that's my goal.)
This freeze is really solidifying my unhealthy desire to spend money.  It's day 2 and all I want to do is go buy something!  And of course I don't need anything!  I love the idea of saving money but yet I have such a hard time doing it.  I hope that by not spending for the rest of the month that it will help break this incredibly unhealthy desire.  (I'm really hoping that it does not fuel the fire.)
Another reason for this freeze is that we both really want to move to Oregon but want to have a nice nest egg saved. (And our credit cards payed off)  We traveled to Oregon this past week and we were able to travel around a good chunk of the state, and we both fell in love.  So we are giving Burley another year and in that year we are planning on saving as much as possible.  If this freeze goes well, we will probably do it a few more times.  I'll keep you posted.

Here's fun pictures of our trip to hold you over until next time.

Life Recently

Once again it's been a long time.  My bad.  Here's a quick recap of the past 6 months.

We did some backcountry snowboarding.

We popped into Sun Valley where I injured myself and couldn't ride the 2nd day.  Boo!

I made an impulsive trip to see this woman.

We went to Downtown Disney with this sister.

Dylan and I made a weekend trip to Bozeman.

My birthday at the Hogle Zoo in SLC.  Where I was the only female under 30 without a child in tow.

 

Popped over to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain where I got to see this building under snow.

And I had to stop myself from offering to help a guy dig another building out of the snow.

He would have thought I was a total weirdo.

Ruckus went on his first boat ride.

I got to see this sister!

And now here we are, all caught up.  It's officially summer, thank goodness.  The weather is finally warm and I am finally on break.  I was supposed to have a class this week but our car decided to start leaking fluid yesterday morning, so I couldn't drive to Twin Falls and if I were to miss a day of class, I wouldn't get credit for the class, so I get this week FREE!  

I've decided since it's summer and I'm home by myself that I am setting some goals for myself.

1. Work out daily.  I love that my gym is only $10 a month!

2. Cook/Bake more. 

3. Keep the house clean.  This is something that we struggle at, and now I have no excuse not to keep it clean.

4. Get rid of STUFF.  We have so much STUFF.  I hate it, but yet have such a hard time parting with it.  We moved into our small 2 bedroom from a studio and immediately started filling in all the empty spaces with just STUFF.  I'm much worse about it than Dylan is, but my goal is to slowly (but consistently) keep things moving OUT of our house and to not let more things IN. 

Whenever I talk about that, I always get the overwhelming urge to go shopping.  It's disgusting.

Well there you go.  I'm going to try to stay on top of this over the summer, but you've all heard that before. 

Rozzy, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and all that in between.

Hey All!
I didn't realize how fast time went... whoops!

First and foremost.  We got a cat!  We (I) had been wanting a cat for a long time and Dylan told me not until we move to the lower 48.  Well... here we are!  We went into the pet store to get some dog treats for Ruckus and came out with a kitten.  Whoops!  :)  His name was Clarence, which we did not like.  So while in the car we started brainstorming names and when we came up with the name Rozzy (inspired by my Rossignol snowboard) he started meowing whenever we would say it.  So it stuck!  He fits in so well with our little family and a super social guy, which we discovered over Christmas.  He's pretty awesome.  Except when he attacks my feet.

This past September Brandon and Jessie came and visited for a week or so.  We got Rozzy after their departure to help fill the void in our hearts.  We had a great time hanging out, going apple picking, and took an awesome camping trip to the Boise National Forest to explore some hot springs.  We ended up camping on a fabulous mid-September weekend and had a beautiful day laying in the sun, on the "beach" next to a freezing cold river, with hot springs all around us.  AWESOME!  We drank an entire box of wine, improvised in our cooking, and I got a late sunburn.  Woo!

Doritos in place of salt?  Why not!

 The beach where I napped and burnt.

Even Ruckus was getting in on slapping the wine bag.

Alright, between Brandon and Jessie leaving, adopting a cat (who was a rescue, might I add) and Thanksgiving time, not much happened.  Dylan and I went to work, came home, watched t.v. and slept.  So we'll fast forward to Thanksgiving.

We decided to head to St. George Utah to visit Skyler and Hanna for Thanksgiving.  We had a great weekend cooking a delicious Thanksgiving dinner (we all helped...)

Dylan looked so nice in his apron.

Taking a photo break!

The Feast!

and Friday we went to Zion National Park.  Zion was beyond breathtaking.  I had never seen anything like it before and I felt like I walked around with my mouth hanging open the majority of the time.

at Zion

The pictures are beautiful, but still don't do it justice.

One of the little pools we hiked to (Hanna and I were NOT in appropriate footwear...)

After Thanksgiving we pretty much did nothing but wait for Christmas.  We were finally able to go home for Christmas this year, first time since we moved to Alaska.  It was so great to be home for the holidays. We had wonderful weather for the drive to Illinois and back.  We drove straight through to Illinois right after I got out of work on Friday, which was exhausting but well worth it.  On the way home we had to stop at a hotel and sleep for a few hours.

Being home for Christmas was so wonderful. It was SO good seeing our families and friends.  The first night home was probably one of the most fun, running around Mt. Morris and Oregon with people we hadn't seen in years.  Great memories (too bad I didn't take a single picture the entire trip.  WTF!)  I ate nothing but candy and cookies and fast food and drank nothing but alcohol.  Which repaid me by adding 8pounds to the scale.  Jeez, why aren't the best foods calorie free? 

This was taken on New Years and I feel like it sums up the trip quite nicely.

There are talks of another trip to Illinois this summer.  I know this will be possible for me, but not sure if Dylan will be able to join. :/

Now that we are home the weather has turned apocalyptic.  Just kidding.  It's just a little snow storm with wicked high winds.  The storm was supposed to roll in early Thursday morning but came an hour too late.  So I trudged through the snow (in my 4-wheel drive vehicle) to school and got sent home at 1:30!  Then found out last night that today would be a snow day!  How excellent!   So you can thank this snow day for an update.  You may have to wait until the next snow day for another one... :)

Peace and love

Our 3000 mile adventure

Well, luckily I took notes while on our trip that was err...2 months ago.

Please remember, I had minor surgery Monday, Thursday we went to see my doctor for a post op check up, picked up our U-Haul, bribed our friends to come over Thursday night with free beer, food, and stuff, if they would help pack up the U-Haul, then Friday morning, we were on the road.  So I was still recovering and pretty uncomfortable for the first 2000 miles of the trip.  I'm a lucky girl though and have a great boyfriend who drove just about the entire trip, dealt with my post surgery nastiness, and whining.  

Friday Cody and Chris came over to help us pack up the last of our things.  Stupid boys kept making me laugh, which was extremely painful AND we kept catching Ruckus with his face in the treat box which was also causing me pain.  We drove ALL day Friday and didn't make it out of Alaska.  Texas, you're actually not so big.  The drive through AK was pretty spectacular.  Just north of Palmer is so beautiful.  

Way north of Palmer the roads have tons of frost heaves which kills the beauty.  I was so ready to stop by the time we got to Tok, all the ups and downs and bumps from the heaves were causing me some pretty serious discomfort.

We had planned on camping the whole trip, which would have cost us $200 MAX the whole trip, but because I could barely get myself out of a BED, there was no way I was going to be getting up off the cold ground, so we hoteled it.  The whole way.  Not quite the $200 we were hoping for...

Saturday we left Tok nice and early to get into Canada and feel like we were actually getting somewhere on this trip.  Ruckus managed to get his head stuck in his treat box and dumped treats all over the backseat.  More pain.  We finally made it into "No man's land" the strip where you are no longer in the US but have about 20 miles to go until you make it to the Canadian border.  WTF is that area?  

We spent a lot of the day on gravely roads in road construction for the frost heaves. Hit some beautiful spots overlooking a lake, finally saw a brown bear past Haines Junction (where the Canadian cupcake is)

We ended up staying in a hiccup of a town called Teslin Saturday night.  It was literally a town that had 2 motels/gas stations and that's about all.  We had discussed driving through the night but decided to stop so we could get a good nights sleep.  I ended up only sleeping 3 hours, good thing the olympics were on TV.

 Sunday we decided we were going to shoot through and drive all night and get to Edmonton by the morning. I'm a horrible night driver (not so much anymore now that I have glasses!) so really, it was Dylan who was going to drive all night.  Sunday was the most beautiful part of our drive.  We went through the sign post forest in some town who's name I can't remember and don't feel like looking up.  

We made it through Muncho Provicial Park (I drove!) and it was SOOO hilly and curvy but so incredibly beautiful.  

We saw lots of buffalo, some baby mountain goats and I had a baby caribou run right out in front of the car while I was driving.  Yikes!  

We were able to get Ruckus out of the car for awhile and let him go swimming in the lake, which he really needed.  The water was so crystal clear and not really even that cold, I was wanting to go swimming as well.  

Just past Muncho Park everything turned really green and beautiful hills and farm land.  I cranked up the country music, put the windows down, and was missing Illinois.  (Dylan was asleep, that's why I was aloud to turn up the country music...) 

(not quite where I was missing IL, but close)

Along the way gas stations closed about 10pm, but we made it to all of those stations before they closed so we were able to reach our goal of driving through the night.

We arrived in Edmonton around 8am Monday morning (thanks for driving Dylan!) We quickly found a hotel that would let us check in so early and accepted pets and went straight to our room and passed out until noon.  We then went and checked out the Edmonton Mall.  The mall was really cool, but would have been way cooler if we could have enjoyed the water park and amusement park.  (damn you appendix!!) 

 I got tired from walking around so much pretty quickly (I think it was from carrying my purse and I'm not the kind of girl to let my man carry my PURSE for me.)  So we went back to the hotel room and spent the rest of the day relaxing, watching the Olympics, and wishing we were in Idaho already.

Tuesday morning we got up super early, found there were no gas stations open anywhere nearby, got on the road anyway, almost ran out of gas, finally used our emergency gas, made it to a town just South of Edmonton and was finally able to fill up.  Phew, close one.  

Edmonton to Calgary wasn't very exciting.  Actually, Calgary to the US wasn't that exciting.  We could see some beautiful mountains way off in the distance.  We had talked about making a side trip out to them and decided we couldn't stand to be in the car any extra.

We finally made it back to the US around 2 after stopping just North of the border to get gas.  This was the first place Canadians were overly friendly towards us.  I had 2 people offer to help me pump gas (trust me, I did NOT look cute.) and I had someone asking about our trip so far.  We finally got back into the good ole USA around 2pm, after we thought we were going to be searched.  That didn't happen, luckily.  

Since we couldn't drive through Glacier (due to our trailer) we drove around it (which really couldn't have been much worse than going through...) 

It was really great to go through West Glacier again, it was fun to see some of that again.  I wish we could have gone through the park since I don't remember a lot of it, but we will hopefully get up there for awhile this summer.

(notice Ruckus.  He was taking the rocks out of the lake for us.  Thanks dog.)

We ended up staying in Missoula for the night.  We were finally going to camp but the campground we went to was beyond packed and it was too dark to set up camp in some of the other places, so we had to hunt down a hotel that had vacancy.  APPARENTLY, it was the Montana State fair that week.  Convenient. 

Wednesday we hit the road with Burley on our minds.  We drove and drove and drove and the landscape went from green to... well this: 

and then we drove and drove and drove some more and we FINALLY made it to Burley early afternoon.   

(Ruckus was so excited he couldn't sit in the back any longer)

We got everything unpacked and into our place.  Dylan once again is a wonderful wonderful man, since I was still unable to do any heavy lifting and grew tired very quickly.  We had to spend our first night on the floor of our new home but it didn't matter, we were so tired we could have slept anywhere I think.

So we did it!  We went 3000 miles in less than a week, pulling a trailer, on antibiotics (which I had an awesome reaction to, hello rash in my mouth), with minimal sleep, no major incidents, no accidents, injuries, or illnesses.  We were very lucky.

I can't believe that we have been here for 2 months already and we still have no friends.  WTF.  We are enjoying Burley very much, missing AK and our friends and family all the time.  Dylan found a job the 1st day he applied for one.  He started working the following day.  This relieved so much stress and made it all feel so right being here.  I absolutely love teaching.  It's everything I have dreamed of.  The teachers I work with tell me I'm doing an awesome job, my principal loves me, and I don't feel like I'm drowning.  It just feels good.  Like my life is finally back in my control.

In other news.  We adopted a kitty!  We have been talking about it for almost a year and Dylan always said once we moved back to the US we could get one.  So last weekend I saw this orange kitty looking at me at PetSmart (don't worry, he was a rescue kitty) and it was love.  His name was Clarence when we adopted him but we couldn't keep that one.  So in the car we were picking names and picked Rozzy (after the brand Rossignal, we wanted something that was tied to snowboarding) and the kitty just started meowing and purring when we called him Rozzy.  So it stuck.

Ruckus has been adapting pretty well to the new animal, he is starting to play with Rozzy and I'm not as worried that he's going to eat him anymore.  We have left them home alone for short periods of time and there has been no blood.  Until we are all completely comfortable Rozzy lives in the spare room while Dylan and I are at work and at night.

Looking at my past posts, I have zero comments so I'm wondering if this is still being read by anyone out there.  If you do read it, let me know.  Drop a comment.  Otherwise I may drop this.

Life is good.

P.S.  I didn't proofread this.

Things I Learned Living in Alaska.

I learned some things living in Alaska for the past (almost) 2 years.  

1. Alaskans party harder.  You think you do?  You're wrong.

2. Despite the parties, I still don't like whiskey.

3. Riding in shoulder deep powder is 98% exhilarating 2% terrifying.  The fear of falling and getting lost in the snow was enough to keep me upright.

4. How to drive using "braille".

5. That the "shuffle" feature on iPods can ruin an awesome run.  Nothing is worse than being in the zone and iPod decides to change your song. 

6. It's a different world in Alaska. Seriously.  I can't explain it, but it is.

7. We deep fry Salmon.  You may never find this in a restaurant in the rest of the US, but we have 50 lbs in our freezers, so why not fry it?

8. A moose encounter is more intimidating than a black bear.  (I hope I'm not alone on this one...)

9. 60 degrees can be freezing or sweltering.

10. It's not cold until you step outside and the chill literally takes your breath away and instantly freezes your nose, eyes, throat, etc.

11. By day 3 my hair starts getting greasy.  

12. You do get to choose your family and they get to choose you too.

13. Lifties are a special breed of people.  They can vomit off the lift, shovel feet of snow, then still go ride harder than anyone else on the mountain. (I'm not including myself on this, we all know that I don't ride hard.)

I'm loving Idaho but I'm still missing Alaska every day.  We just got the 2013 gear guide in the mail, I'm in heaven.

Appendicitis, what?

That's right, this girl, a week before moving, had her appendix out.  Let me explain.
Sunday afternoon I started experiencing some very minor stomach pain.  Our going away party had been Saturday night, so I played it off as a gas bubble as a result from drinking the night before.  Dylan and I had dinner plans with Greg and Nicole so we went and had a fantastic feast of coconut salmon and halibut.  When I got up from eating the pain was much worse.  Damn you gas bubble!  So we went home, I chugged some pepto like it was fall 2008 and went to bed.  When I woke up at 3:30am with pain I started self diagnosing.  Constipation, food poisoning, gas bubble, cramps.  Eventually I was able to pass back out so I could wake up at 6 and go to work.  That's when I started realizing that perhaps this wasn't a gas bubble.  I sat at work (with my head between my legs, crying) for 5 hours until Johnny finally answered his phone to come take over my duties (this is a whole other story that I am not going to put online.)  I had been texting/calling/crying to my mom while at work and she suggested something to relax my stomach, so I baby stepped to the merc and got some more Pepto.  When that had done absolutely nothing for my pain, she started urging me to go to the ER.  To which I thought, I don't want to go to the ER for a gas bubble!  Well, when Johnny showed up and I stood up, I decided maybe mom was right. I promptly called Cody, cried into the phone that I needed a ride to the hospital and 5 minutes later Cody and James arrived in my chariot to the hospital.  Oh, the things I owe those boys.

Waiting to hear my diagnosis.

Upon my ER arrival, I was quickly taken to a room where I was told to put on a gown, which provided zero warmth, in my freezing cold room.  The doctors and nurses arrived (with warm blankets, might I add) pretty quickly and I was told my pain was either a ruptured ovarian cyst or my appendix.  After some poking, prodding, a few doses of morphine (love), a CT scan, and a couple naps, I was informed that it was indeed my appendix.  This was the time when I could no longer be brave.  I was scared, I was alone, and I had lost a friend due to complications with his appendix.  Shortly after a few more pokes and prods, phone calls to my mom, hundreds of texts, and panicky voicemails to Dylan, he finally got off work and was at the hospital. YAY!  I was scared I wasn't going to get to see him before going into surgery, so it was a major relief when he showed up.  My surgery didn't end up happening until 10pm and by then my pain level was at a 12.  The staff was all very nice and helpful.  They explained everything and were comforting and friendly.  I honestly felt like I was in good hands.  My surgery went quickly and had no complications.  I was discharged into Dylans care at 2:30am and got to come home and learn that I could only sleep sitting up.

Before surgery.  That's the morphine smiling.

As of now, I am feeling pretty good all things considered.  My belly is full of gas from the surgery and that is causing me discomfort and my pain is pretty low.  After the pain I was in yesterday this is pretty much nothing.  Dylan has been babying me all day and took the rest of the week off of work so he can take care of me and finish all the things that I was going to do before we moved.  I go back to the doctor Friday afternoon for a routine follow up.  I am optimistic that I will be feeling better by then, considering how I'm feeling today.
We are still hoping to leave Saturday morning, I won't be able to do much driving since I will still be on medications, and I'm not sure that we will be able to camp along the way, but Dylan has already told me that he's going to make the car super comfortable for me.  I am lucky to have him and Ruckus.  Ruckus hasn't left my side since he got home from Cody's.  Good dog.  I am lucky this happened when it did and not next week.  I am lucky to have such supportive and loving friends and family, who have been texting and calling constantly to check on me.  I am blessed.