Kitchen, Gym, Gym, Kitchen

This past weekend we started getting the kitchen ready for cabinet installation. BIG JOB! There's so much that needs to be totally finished. This past weekend we got a large section of water-damaged sub floor replaced, then got the half-wall that will be behind the stove built. We filled in the old back door with insulation and drywall and got the first layer of mud on. It was quite a bit for one weekend! Don't worry, I lots of pictures of it all. I just need to get them onto the blog... We still need to do a few more layers of mud (with sanding in between), primer, drywall and mud and sand around the new back door, prime all the walls for painting, and pull up all the old linoleum in the kitchen. THEN I can paint. THEN we can put the cabinets in. So all this needs to be done rather quickly (the cabinets are being delivered on November 3).

I finally got back to the gym yesterday. The doctor had told me to stay off of my ankle for two to three weeks, so I decided two was good. I have to take it easy for a while, though. Yesterday I got up to the same speed I was doing before I got hurt but I didn't add any incline. I felt like I only got half a workout, but my ankle was hurting so I wasn't willing to push it any farther. At least I burned off the triple chocolate cookie I ate yesterday.

I've been at the exact same weight for months but I still feel like I'm getting fatter. I think it's a depression thing, since I haven't been exercising for a while and that made the happy endorphins go away. As soon as I get back into the groove and go to the gym every day again, I'm sure I'll feel fine.

Later today:

I was able to do a little bit more on the treadmill today. A little. I should just be grateful I'm allowed back on it. I do love the exercise (and I never thought I would say that!)!

Scott just went to Home Depot to get more supplies for the kitchen, and while he was there he talked to the guys at the pro desk. When we built the deck, Home Depot had us order WAY more Trex than we needed, and that stuff is EXPENSIVE, so we were kinda mad. It was special order, so we thought we were just stuck with it. It turns out, for a restocking fee, we could sell it all back and get $660 credited onto our Home Depot card! That means we just got $660 closer to affording some counter tops! Woo!

Mood Swings! Mood Swings!

This reminds me of...well, me.

And, on a more serious note, this is one of the best things I have ever read, and I think everyone else should, too.

This message was brought to you by Bipolar Disorder!

She's A Good Bebby

It's been a while since we had some good bebby pictures!

Nyah is ahead of her age in nearly everything. Her motor skills and strength are incredible! If you prop her up she's able to keep herself sitting up:

She can stand for a long time, too, as long as you're holding her hands. She doesn't have the balance down yet.

Playing with toys:

Sitting with Daddy:

She's so cute in her little jeans!

And holding herself up during tummy time:

This little girl has me totally charmed!

Plus she's starting to get giant baby fat rolls on her legs. It's so cute I might just pass out.

Thanks, Kwiddens, for always sending me cute pictures!

Moving To The Next Phase!

Scott and I are totally ready for the next phase of our renovation. We've been paying off the deck and our new bed and we're finally ready to jump back in.

Saturday we decided to go in to Home Depot and design our kitchen cabinets. It took two and a half hours, but we chose what cabinets we wanted, colors, hardware, and set up plans. We got the total: more than $6,000. Ouch. But Home Depot has a price match guarantee, so we took the plans over to Lowe's to see if they could beat it. We were incredibly surprised to find that their quote came to almost $2000 less than Home Depot's!

We like Home Depot better than Lowe's, though.

So we took out the printed list of all the different cabinet pieces and their prices and brought it back to Home Depot, where they were happy to replace all their prices with Lowe's prices, saving us tons of cash. They were also having a sale on their custom cabinetry, so we got an extra $1000 off our order! Total, after taxes and delivery fees and all the little extras we got, we ended up paying only $4600, and they threw in the hardware for free.

We freaking LOVE Home Depot!

We'll have the cabinets delivered sometime at the end of October, and then we'll start ripping everything up in the kitchen. We'll be really careful with our current cabinets, since Mim wants them when we're done for her downstairs kitchen. They're so old and ugly, so she'll have to refinish them, so we're just going to give them to her for free. She also wants our appliances when we get new ones, but that will be a long time from now.

So we'll rip out the cabinets and move the appliances out of the way, then we need to finish up the drywall where the back door used to be (which means we'll need the inspector to come over sometime very soon) and build the little half-wall the peninsula will be up against. After that we can paint at least the part of the kitchen where the new stuff will be (it's a huge room, so there's really no need to paint it all at once) and then we'll need the countertops.

The countertops are going to end up being almost as expensive as the cabinets themselves, and it looks like Lowe's won't have lower prices to match on this one. They'll be a speckled Corian acrylic that goes SO WELL with the cabinets, flooring, and paint we've chosen. So until we get the cabinets delivered, we're going to have to scrimp a bit so we can afford to order the countertops soon after we get the cabinets put in.

Our kitchen will be gutted for a while. I'm going to have to figure out where to put all of our dishes and such while we don't have any functional cabinets.

After we finish all this, we're going to have to wait a while and make money for the next phase: flooring. Brazilian Cherry!

Check Out All The Pix!

I finally got off my butt and transferred a ton of pictures to baby pink lappie, so HERE WE GO!

A few weeks ago Scott and I finally got around to buying a new bed. RC Willey was having an amazing sale, with a couple hundred dollars off plus a free headboard, a free sheet set, free pillows, and a free little HDTV:

Scott's been using it as a computer monitor (surprise, surprise). It actually died on him the other day, but when he brought it back in to the store they were happy to replace it so no harm done.

 So here's our beautiful, soft, comfy, BIG, king-sized bed:

Buster has been getting really good at holding treats on his nose until we say "ok".

The gorgeous Em has gone platinum blonde! She looks amazing:

She and I have similar coloring, so that makes me wonder if I would look good blonde...hmmm...

When we went to Maddox with Li I took a picture of the rolls, because YUM:

I bought a new purse, and it totally makes me think of Indiana Jones. I love it and it smells so good:

I took a picture of the swelling on my ankle last week:

Fortunately, it's getting much, much better. I think I might be back in the gym by tomorrow!

When Scott gets sad (say, when we spend $4600...) he hugs Buster, even though Buster doesn't like being hugged:

We found a new mask for Scott to wear under his cloak when he passes out candy this Halloween:

Of course, we had to put it on Buster, who was not amused:

And that's it!

No Pain, No Gain, Right?

Sometime on Wednesday my left ankle started hurting. It wasn't too bad; mostly just a little ache that went away when I sat down. It felt like maybe something had popped out of joint, or I had bent it too far, or something small like that.

Thursday while I was at work it started getting worse. I shifted all my weight onto my right foot and limped a bit, and when I got home I wrapped it up in an Ace bandage and elevated it for the rest of the night. As long as I wasn't standing on it, it felt fine.

Then I woke up this morning, and from the very first step I knew I would have to see a doctor. It had changed from a dull ache to a STABBING! PAIN! every time I stepped on it. I planned on getting to work, getting everything done as quickly as I could, then going into InstaCare to get it looked at. Work wasn't so bad. I was pretty busy, so I was standing and walking all day, but I could rest my weight on my right foot and the left wouldn't hurt so much (unfortunately, this meant my right foot started to ache...), and I limped around until everything was all set up to run by itself. I asked my boss to report my results when they were finished, and he's super nice so he said he would, and I headed over to see the doctor.

Fortunately, the doctor on call was a sports medicine doctor that I had seen before. I had thought initially that maybe it was a sprain, and then later when the pain was sharper I thought it might be a stress fracture (I had had one like six years ago and it felt remarkably similar), but it turns out I have Bursitis. Basically, there's a little sac in between the Achilles tendon and the bones in the heel of the foot, and mine got inflamed. The doctor thinks it's because I started exercising too aggressively, with the incline on the treadmill too high. Oops.  I suppose over enthusiasm can be a bad thing...

So, I'm supposed to ice it, do stretches, take naproxen, and stay off it for a few days, then be more conservative with my treadmilling. Sad. Really pumping up the incline was what was really increasing my heart rate and making me burn more calories. I'll have to work on going faster to make up for it (or maybe I'll be bad and work the incline back in, gradually so as not to injure myself again...)!

Chromium Sucks!

So we have one lab we contract with that sends us samples to be tested for chromium on the MS. Time after time after time, they send us samples, we test them, and then they demand a retest because they aren't happy with the results. Every time. For many months. If it were me, I would send them to a different lab if I weren't happy with the results. It's not that I don't trust our methods, but every method has a flaw, and perhaps their specific types of samples just don't work with ours, or else their samples really don't have the proper amount of Cr in them.

My coworker and I both run these, and we both get different results, and both our results are out of spec: too low. We're a bit tired of it all...

But at least every time we run them, the samples have some Cr in them. When I ran a million of them last night while I was at home, I came in this morning to find that they all had 0.000 ppb...so something wasn't right. The very same method had worked fine the day before. It was reading the Cr QC just fine. I figured maybe there had been a clog last night and started it up again this morning, but I had the same results! Good calibration, good QC, BAD results. ZERO results, actually.

So, my boss and I decided to keep trying different things. First up, we decided to test other isotopes of Cr. We had only been looking at mass 53, but we set it up to read 50, 51, and 54 as well. We started it up again, and VOILA, it was reading and calibrating very well on masses 50 and 51 (53 was crappy, and 54 was completely worthless). HOWEVER. The results were still out of spec, but instead of being too low like they always were with mass 53 they were too high! FRUSTRATION!

First I made a new QC, just to make sure. It was a little high, but still fine. Then I made new standards and started the whole thing over again. Still a little high, but now in the acceptable +/- 10% range. I made a new blank as well. Everything was now working AWESOMELY, but we were still getting high results with 50 and 51, and low results with 53, and complete garbage with 54.

BLEH.

I left it running this afternoon while I went to see a doctor. I hope it behaved for my boss. We'll see if they call us, demanding retests...

Vacationy Things

So these past few weeks have been quite busy! On Wednesday the 8th I picked Li up at the airport. I left for work the next morning and didn't see her before I left. She and Scott hung out all day on Thursday (Scott was able to get more days off than I did) and when I got home we talked and made dinner and watched videos on YouTube. It was just really relaxing and fun. Friday she was picked up by a friend, and she spent the next several days with friends in Provo, and then with her sister in Plymouth.

The following Friday, the 17th, I had taken the day off work so I got up in the morning, went to the gym (and got a great workout in!) and then went to pick Li up in Plymouth. Scott suggested we go to Maddox for lunch, so he came along with me. Lunch was SO TASTY. We almost never go there, since it's such a long drive, but it was on the way home from Li's sister's house. I had forgotten how good their rolls were! I ate WAY too much, but we only go there every couple of years so it's totally ok, right?

When we all got home from that Li and I hunkered down on the couch with munchies and watched movies for the rest of the night. Saturday morning I brought Li along with me to the gym, then we showered and headed down to Salt Lake for the State Fair. We went first thing in the morning, so there weren't too many people, and we didn't have to wait in line for anything until we were about to leave. It was pretty hot, but there were shady spots where we could sit down so it wasn't too bad. We had put on sunscreen, but both of us forgot our chests, so now I have this weird sunburn with my purse strap across it.

I was really excited about fair food. A fair is like the one chance I get all year to eat cotton candy and funnel cake (although we didn't end up getting either of those; we settled on fresh mini-donuts with sugar, a slushie, gyros (the best I've ever had, I think), and fudge). We rode rides, too, which was very fun! I forgot how much fun it is to act like a kid. I also forgot how nauseating some of those rides were...my stomach could handle more than Li's, though, so when Li wanted a rest I would go ride one she didn't want to ride (she doesn't like up and down ones where she feels like she's falling). After we had been there about four hours I was definitely done. I was tired, hot, sick, and thirsty. We headed on home and got frozen custard from Nielsen's on the way, and when we got home it was JAMMIE TIME! and we sacked out on the couch for the rest of the night, watching more movies and some Bones.

Sunday morning Li wanted to go to church, and I didn't want her to have to go alone, so I went along. We went to the building that's only a few blocks from us. Since I'm a heathen, I had no idea what time church was supposed to start, but everywhere I've lived there has been a meeting at 9:00, so I figured that was a safe assumption. Well, there was a meeting at 9:00, but it was a Tongan ward...oops. We figured we were already there, so we stayed. The service was half in English, half in Tongan, which, it turns out, is a very pretty, melodic sort of language. There was a translator, so we weren't totally in the dark, but it felt a little awkward all the same.

We came home, changed back into pajamas, and set up a LAN. For the rest of the day the three of us played Warcraft 3 (nerdy!), since it's sort of a tradition that we play every time Li visits.

Monday we slept in, then watched more Bones while we waited for it to be time for our SPA APPOINTMENTS, OH YES. We went to a spa I had never been to before, but will definitely visit again, because for only $65 we got our hands, feet, backs, arms, and faces massaged and exfoliated and steamed...we were soft like buttah. We smelled good, too! After that we went to Zupas for lunch, where we had the most awesome salads and sandwiches, and we even split a brownie, but it wasn't as tasty as it looked. When we got home we decided that we should watch Pride And Prejudice (the BBC version), so we started that, and we were only half watching it while we talked about boys and such. Around 7:00 the three of us decided we were hungry, so we went to Olive Garden for dinner, and then when we got home we finished our movie and then went to bed.

Tuesday morning I drove Li to the airport, after which I went to Nyah's three-month doctor appointment with Kwiddens and Isaac. Poor Nyah had to get shots, and she was NOT happy about it. We all went to lunch, and then at that point I was really starting to feel sick, so I headed home and napped.

So that was my mini-vacation with Li. It was really fun, and so nice to see her, and now the next time I see her will probably be next summer, when I'll fly out to Boston for a change.

Other, semi-related or un-related things:

Taking three days off work is apparently a really really bad idea, since I came back to utter chaos and a giant pile of samples. I'm not even close to caught up. It doesn't help that we had people cleaning in the lab today, so we didn't have use of the hood until around noon (usually I start working in there around 9:00...so you can see how far behind I was). I'm sure I'll get a lot more done tomorrow, and I'll probably be completely caught up.

I've been slowly getting sick over the past week or so. Whatever it was, it hit Scott and Jon much harder than it hit me, thank goodness. I think it's just a mild flu, but I really lucked out, since all I have is a very sore throat, a stuffy/runny nose, and body aches. I can deal with that and still go to work.

Buster desperately needs a bath, but I'm too lazy, so I'm thinking about just spending the $35 to have it professionally done.

I found a really good deal on a heart rate monitor watch. It has a calorie counter thing in it, too. I'm really excited to try it out, but I'm going to have to wait until I don't feel like I got hit by a bus to go back to the gym.

I finally got a new purse last week while Li and I were shopping. It's from New York and Company, and it was on clearance for only $10. I win. It looks like a slightly more fashionable Indiana Jones bag. It smells lovely. I love the smell of new leather.

I think now is a good time to go collapse into a hot bath, then drag myself to bed early. I hope I can beat this bug, and soon. I want my voice back.

Priorities?

So I was at the grocery store the other day and I was waiting so I was looking at the magazines and I noticed something that made me laugh out loud and people stared at me.

The store had covered up "Cosmopolitan":

But had left "Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition" uncovered:

I know Cosmo can be a bit risque, but at least it isn't bordering on porn.

People make no sense to me.

I'm still on vacation with my dearest friend Li, so this is all you get.

Text Time 9

This Text Time is brought to you by Kwiddens's mother-in-law, whom we...ahem...dislike.

Kwiddens: Isaac's mom pronounces Hercule Poirot "Haircool parrot".

Kwiddens: Oh wait. "Haircool purroh".

Kwiddens: I am going to kill Isaac's mom.

Me: How?
Kwiddens: Any ideas?
Me: There are lots of guns there.
Kwiddens: Too messy.
Me: Rat poison?
Kwiddens: Is that easily traceable?
Me: Probably.

Kwiddens: How many birthday cakes does it take to satisfy a bitchy mother-in-law?

Me: How many?
Kwiddens: I'll let you know when I find out.

Kwiddens: When I go to jail for killing her will you visit me?

Me: Absolutely. I'll bring cake...whom do you want to kill?
Kwiddens: Isaac's mom :)
Me: I should have known.

Kwiddens: Did hell just freeze over?

Me: ???
Kwiddens: Isaac's mom took out the trash
Me: I love you.