October 2009 archive
Tell me something I don't know
My Chinese fortune cookie told me this earlier this week.
Really? I had no idea.
Posted by Ily on October 23, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 4 comments
Bryan is on the road
The weather this fall has been nice so far. We have been wondering why we are moving because it has been so nice here. And then today Bryan drove off to start his new job in Utah. And the nasty rains came.
I took the boys to their soccer games and Micah’s game at 10 was decent weather. Then the sky turned gray and started rumbling during the last 5 minutes. Reece was at the playground 200 ft away. I decided I would let him play a few more minutes before I took him to the van for a jacket just so I could go and drop off the chair and soccer bag in the van before I had to drag him away to go to the next game in a few minutes. Just as the game finished we felt the first few drops of rain. I sent the older boys to the van to get their raincoats and realized I left Reece’s at home. Then it started pouring. Pour little Reece was dripping by the time I reached him and all I had for him to stay dry was a lovely blue and pink vinyl tablecloth. I wrapped him up and we ran off to the van. And now we were all wet and cold. And I could not take them home and leave them with Bryan because he was on his way to Utah, almost 200 miles away at this point! I found a friend to watch them and keep them warm and on my way to her house, I got a call saying the game had been canceled.
So I turned around and came back for my third wet child. We are all still cold.
RAIN. That is why I am glad to go to dry Utah this winter.
Posted by Ily on October 17, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
Seriously, I am impatient
So far we have had 5 people through our house and it has been on the market for 11 days. No offers yet. Boy am I impatient! Though my Realtor tells me that we are getting more action than any of her other listings. And that in this market we are doing fine and not to worry… well, let’s just say I am worrying. I know our house will sell, I just hope it is before Bryan has been at his new job for over a year!
Posted by Ily on October 16, 2009 | Filed under: | 0 comments
The Fabulous Granola Recipe
Okay, there were several requests for the yummy granola that I am in love with. So here is the recipe:
Granola
3 c. old fashioned oats
2/3 c. sliced almonds (2 oz)
1 c. broken pecan pieces
¾ c. shredded sweetened coconut
¼ c. brown sugar
¼ c. maple syrup (real or imitation)
¼ c. vegetable oil
¾ tsp. salt
Posted by Ilywith the help of Bri on October 16, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
Induced Draft Assembly
We had our furnaced inspected as part of getting ready to sell the house, and we learned that our inducer assembly, or draft inducer, or induced draft assembly (it has many names) was cracked. It was going to be $530 to have it replaced, and in Washington you can’t even buy the part if you aren’t some sort of licensed HVAC person. After taking a look at it myself, and doing some research online, I learned that it was an incredibly simple part to replace, if only I could find a place to buy it.
Fortunately for us, Oregon is nearby, and it’s legal there to sell furnace parts to civilians. I called a couple stores and found an inducer motor for our furnace for $466 at AAA Heating & Cooling. Expensive, but less that having someone else install it. Micah and I made the trip to Portland, picked up the part, and in about 20 minutes I had the old inducer out and the new one in.
You should never price compare after the fact, but now that I’m practically a draft inducer expert, I couldn’t resist. I searched online and discovered that I could have ordered the same part for about $200 less, even including shipping. Next time I’ll know.
Posted by Bryan on October 13, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
The Good Stuff
I grew up not knowing how to cook really. I always ate out at a Taco Bell equivalent or my favorite Chinese fast food restaurant. Or I ate frozen dinners. Then I went to college. My food intake consisted of lots of Ramen, canned soup, spaghetti, and meals at the dorm cafeteria- which I thought was really good food.
Now I have been a stay at home mom for 9 years and I have tasted homemade food from scratch. I have cooked food from scratch. I have decided that hands down, home made food is the good stuff. I am a slave to cooking now. Oh sure, it takes tons more time, but we can do it together as a family and I enjoy that time spent with my kids. Here are some examples of stuff that I can never eat pre-prepared or processed or in a can ever again:
- Bread- I have tasted home made bread, I have made homemade bread- and it isn’t that hard, and I can NEVER go back to the cheap $1 variety at the store. If I need a loaf of bread and don’t have time to make, I can only buy the $4 loaf at QFC (the fancy grocery store around here) if I hope to ever have it get eaten. The cheap stuff earns complaints and no one will eat it. I might as well burn a dollar rather than buy cheap bread. Plus the smell of fresh baked bread is the best smell ever.
- Refried Beans- I found a recipe for these in a small little booklet I got from WIC way back when we were newly married poor college students with a surprise baby (we love you Isaac- you were a happy surprise) and no real income. I don’t think I ever made any of the bean recipes until 5 years later because I had heard beans were hard to make. Not so my friends. They are easy. They just take a lot of time. Or a pressure cooker. I have no pressure cooker, but I do have time. And I do know now that homemade refried beans have less fat, taste DELICIOUS and are worth every minute of the prep time. I know they are good because Isaac is so picky and HE LOVES THEM. That is saying something. Can I ever eat beans from a can again? NO WAY. PERIOD.
- Granola- thanks to Bri, bless your heart-but I shall have to hurt you for this, my taste buds for store bought granola are ruined. I eat granola with yogurt just about everyday for breakfast and I had noticed that definitely some brands are much better than others. I had settled on a brand that was a little more spendy, but I could pronounce all the ingredients easily, and I loved it… until Bri gave me a sample of her home made granola. She ruined me. It was so dang good I can never buy a box of the stuff again.
So what am I doing with my free time today? I am a slave to my oven as it toasts the granola. And does it smell good? You bet. It may be cheaper to make it than to buy it, I am not sure yet, but I know that even if is is more expensive, I can never eat store bought again.
Oh the smell is heavenly. I am such a slave to my nose and taste buds.
Posted by Ily on October 12, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 4 comments
Done Commuting
Six months ago I fled the stress and agony of lay-off after lay-off at HP. The job I found was at Insitu, waaay east of our house in the Columbia Gorge. To carry me there each day, I discovered the son of the Power Wagon. I have now found another, job and if all goes to plan, my days of the long commute should be over. Six months was enough.
I saved every receipt from the gas station over the last 6 months. The grand total spent on gas for The Power Wagon Dos (as my Insitu co-workers liked to call it), was $1179.70. That was for nearly 12,000 miles of driving. 12,000 miles in 6 months. It’s going to be good to live close to work again.
Posted by Bryan on October 10, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
The cutest house is for sale on our street
Check it out right here;
http://www.rmlsweb.com/v2/public/report.asp?type=CR&CRPT2=BgUFB2ddDnZdV1JVQFReUQzDzDyo3zBmkjw5iOtkMVndVtvcAzDzDdgh
Now don’t you want to buy it? Or at least don’t you know someone who wants to live in a cute suburb of Portland, OR and live in a great school district with great neighbors? Close to shopping, close to the I-205 bridge into Oregon, Great park a block away. What a great deal!
Go ahead, make an offer! You won’t regret it!
UPDATE: Take a virtual tour
Posted by Ily on October 9, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
What NW fashions will get us funny looks in Salt Lake City?
Living up here in the NW we have acquired some definite fashions and habits due to the weather. Here are some of the things we do now that we never did before we moved up here.
We wear Keens. They are the perfect NW shoe. They work great in a river, the ocean, a puddle, a hike, around town and they come clean pretty easy after they have gotten muddy or sandy. Plus they are comfy.
We wear fleece jackets.
We hardly ever go out with raincoats stashed in the car.
Rain boots: We all have them. They are an essential. I would never think of going to a pumpkin patch without them. Mine are knee high with fashionable polka dots all over them.
Vinyl tablecloths are stashed in the trunk at all times: We use these rather than a picnic blanket. They keep you dry when the ground is wet and the fuzzy side feels kind of blanket like when you turn that side up. Also, they can keep you dry at a soccer game while it is pouring down rain. Also, they make a good cover to protect your van carpet from your muddy rainboots that you wore at a pumpkin patch.
Umbrellas: We don’t use them, they are for visitors. They are one more thing to keep track of for us natives. And they usually break in the wind. And they don’t keep the rain off when it rains sideways. We pretty much only wear a raincoat and rainboots. Or we just don’t care and walk out in the rain without a coat. I don’t even cover my hair much from the rain anymore. Seriously, I love how women just don’t do their hair all big with hairspray here because frankly, it would get squashed in the rain.
Raingear: more people have this than snow gear. We do have both, but that is because we actually drive out to the mountains to find snow at least once a year. Each of us has a rain coat and a fleece. This way we can choose our layer the rain coat over the fleece and stay warm and dry at the same time.
Sandals: These are worn all year round- with socks even. I wear my wool socks with my sandals in the winter and I am perfectly happy and warm that way most of the time.
We have sunbreaks here: if the sun comes out, we drop everything and go outside. Days when there is blue sky from October to June are few.
We mow the lawn in the rain even: If we didn’t, the lawn would be taller than our house after the winter is over.
Soccer games are not canceled for rainstorms. Half the games would be canceled if we did. And even though it is cold and wet, we still all go watch the games. This weekend we had soccer games for the boys and it was chilly. We wore rain coats, because those are the most useful coat we own. We also used vinyl tablecloths as blankets, because they are so nifty and keep the wind and rain off. No rain today during the games woohoo. Today was a treat.
Posted by Ily on October 5, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
Scroll back a bit
We have been so busy that we haven’t blogged lately. Or we have blogged but we forgot to publish the entries. So I just wanted to encourage you to scroll back a bit so you can see the missing entries that we forgot to publish. Happy reading!
Posted by Ily on October 3, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
Maybe you heard it through the grapevine
Well, we have some big news, and you may have already heard it. We are moving. Not across town, not to the moon, not next door, but to Utah. We are not sure where exactly yet, but we are for sure going. Bryan has accepted a job offer to work for a company called Fusion IO that is based in Salt Lake City.
We took the job because a) it is a pay raise!, b) we can live close enough to not have a long commute, c) we do have some friends there, d) it is close to skiing, e) the job is a good career opportunity and f) it isn’t too bad to live there.
Bryan currently works in a cool little town that is 1 hour and 15 minutes from our home on a good weather day. It is also up the Columbia river gorge from us and the roads can get icy in the winter. We looked into moving out there and it is so stinking expensive for being out in the boonies. So we have stayed put, but really I was starting to have panic attacks thinking about Bryan driving out there in the rain and the dark and the snow all winter long.
Miraculously, Bryan was given the opportunity to interview with this new company and they offered him a job quickly and we felt really good about taking the job, even though it means selling our first home which we love, uprooting ourselves and our children, leaving a fabulous neighborhood and school and Melinda’s family and our ward family, and packing ourselves up in boxes and moving mid school year into the great unknown. What a leap of faith. Or jump of stupidity maybe?
Bryan starts October 19th at his new job. We have hustled to get our house on the market so we can sell this and buy another house out in Utah. It goes on the market on Tuesday October 5th (wanna buy a house?). We have been so blessed with wonderful friends who have showed up to help with cleaning, packing, polishing cabinets, decluttering, yard work, weeding, light fixture repair, doorbell repair, useful ladders and saws have been brought over, trucks have been borrowed, paint brushes used, and windex applied all over to make our house the beauty queen in our price range in our neighborhood. It really does look wonderful. Now we are ready. And I am exhausted. At least we only need to maintain what we have done now until the house sells. And we feel confident that it will sell quickly. Don’t know why we should feel that way in this economy, but we do feel like it will.
Wish us luck! And come buy our house. And make sure to come and give us supporting hugs because we need them!
Posted by Ily on October 3, 2009 | Filed under: Family News | 5 comments
