As I sat down to write this post I started counting back and realized that this week marked the exact half way point of my little picture project. I set out to take a picture a day for one year. Since we are coming up on a leap year that means 366 days. Which makes day 183 the exact middle.
It's hard to believe we have been in Arizona for 6 months already!
Mike said to me the other day "I was looking back at some of your past posts and you do a good job of making our life seem pretty exciting. I mean I was there for all of it, but you make it look even better."
Here's to 6 more adventurous months!
Moo
Monday, November 28, 2011
Day 183
I tweeted a few weeks ago that cows were mooing outside my window. My friend
Melissa asked if we had become farmers. The answer to that question is no, but there is a dairy farm behind our house situated on the opposite side of the flood control canal, and so frequently cows will graze just behind our home. The weather is so nice lately that we often sleep with the windows open, hence I often awake to the sound of mooing cows.
Why is it so hard to take a self portrait?
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Day 184
I recently decided I wanted to become the kind of person who wears scarfs. So I bought a couple. And today I wore one for the first time. But since I don't frequently wear scarfs (yet) I wasn't sure if I was pulling it off. So I decided to take a self portrait and ask you, my faithful readers, if I was in fact pulling off the scarf look. But taking a self portrait is hard!
Christmas comes early
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Day 185
We aren't huge tv watchers at our house, but I am a huge movie buff. I LOVE watching movies.
So, we have had the same TV for 8 years. I'm not complaining. It works fine. We have enjoyed many movie on it's small screen. But it's just that. It's small, and yet at the same time bulky. It's not HD, it's not anything fancy in fact. But it works so we keep using it.
But Mike gets Amazon gift cards at work sometimes. When you do something exceptional or just help out a co-worker you can nominate each other for these gift cards. So we've been saving them up for 2 years now and finally had enough to indulge in a new TV.
It's not super fancy, according to today's standards. It's plasma instead of LED/LED backlit, it's not 3D, no apps (i.e. Netflix and youtube and such are not built in) but it's big and it's flat and after what we've been using for years to me it's beautiful!
But that wasn't the only beautiful new item for the day. (It was a BIG day)
Our old Audi has been on it's last leg for a while. If you have been reading our Arizona adventures from the beginning you'll remember that it was having serious problems this summer. We finally broke down and got the issues fixed. (Repairs that cost more then my new tv. Seriously.) And then shortly thereafter the check engine light came on. And then the front air suspension sprung a leak. We are a one car family and so having one that I didn't feel confident in was starting to worry me. It felt like a ticking time bomb sitting in my driveway.
So we listed it for sale, being very upfront about all known problems, just to see if an Audi enthusiast wanted to take on our issues. We had a few calls but everybody wanted to know what code the computer was reading that was causing the check engine light. So we finally took it to Auto Zone just to have the computer read. The outlook was bleak-it was transmission problems.
We were hoping to hold out until Feb or March to get a new car but after discovering we also had transmission problems we decided to pull the plug.
This is Harrison waiting at the dealer. Mike had pre-neogotiated the whole deal online prior to walking into the dealership so it was SUPPOSED to be a quick, smooth process. We were still there 2 1/2 hours. (A LONG story for another time.) Why does it take so long to buy a car????? I can close on a new house in less time that it takes to buy a car!
But at the end of the day we drove home in this.
Our very own
Mazda5. Base model, no bells or whistles. But the transmission works, the AC works, and anything that breaks is still under warranty!
The Stockings were hung by the chimney with care
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Day 186
I realized yesterday that it was almost the first day of December. We have never really done any kind of count down to Christmas at our house, but moving feels like a time of change and especially now that we are away from family I thought we needed to have a few more family traditions of our own. So I decided we'd do a countdown to Christmas.
I had a bunch of tiny stockings from years of my SIL giving the kids $2 bills for Christmas. So I strung them all up and numbered them. (I was a few short, but Dollar Tree filled in the gap!) Each night the kids will pull something out of the stocking. Some nights it's a small treat like a candy cane or a pair of Christmas socks. Some nights it is an activity like put up the Nativity or enjoy a cup of hot chocolate.
And, if 1 countdown to Christmas is good then 2 is better, right? So I found the box in the garage that had all our Christmas books in it and started wrapping. The idea being we'd read one Christmas story each night before bed. I was worried I wouldn't have enough. Turns out that I had more then enough! Clearly we have a book buying problem at our house.
Where are all my girlfriends when I need one?
Friday, December 2, 2011
Day 187
My Realtor is a member of a charitable organization that puts on a fundraising event each year called
The Christmas Idea House. She called me earlier this week and said she could get me a ticket. So after I picked the kids up from school today I slipped out to check it out. It is basically a BIG Christmas boutique set up in somebody's big custom home. Totally the kind of thing you are supposed to go to with your girlfriend or mom or sister. I was there alone.
But it wasn't a total waste because I found this and had to have it because it was quirky.
Let there be lights
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Day 188
The note in our Christmas Advent stocking today said to put some lights up in the yard. So we did just that.
Jack Frost
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Day 189
The temperatures actually dipped below freezing last night and left some small patches on the deck this morning. (Of course it was all melted by 10 am, but still.)
We even turned the furnace on for the first time today. And I'm happy to report it works just fine.
