Productive Weekend

I was a solo-parent this weekend while Doug flew to Florida to find us a *hopefully* no to low rust new vehicle. He'd been researching all weekend on forums and with Consumer Reports and had a list of 6-8 vehicles to check out, by the time the weekend came and he got down there several had sold and he was down to 2! So that was a bit nerve wracking. Then an entire day was wasted with a flight delay so by the time he got there the dealer was already closed. *note to self- ALWAYS ALWAYS non-stop flight when possible*.

Anyway, me and my boy had a pretty good weekend and I actually got a lot done too.

My last post was all about how I have a bunch to do before baby comes. And I'm either at that point in pregnancy where you just wake up a lot, or it is my dumb "busy brain" that keeps me awake worrying about packing a hospital bag, where to store clothes, etc. So a couple of those things got checked off, or at least worked on this weekend.

This was 1.5 tubs and several bags of Salvation Army clothes that I cut tags off and sorted into newborn, 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, and 12 months. It was sweet to unpack things that I had bought, yes in my early 20s for my "hope chest" of being a mother someday and wanting a little girl. I can't believe poor college student Anne spent her money like that (mostly clearance from Target and Kohls) but still I was spending money on a baby that wouldn't end up existing for another 15 years!! Guess it shows that desire was there for a long time.

And I washed all the newborn and size 0-3.

So I've been stressed about where to store it all since August's dressers are full of his stuff. But there is a little space in his closet for some of her stuff to hang (especially when spring comes and I can pack away a good couple inches wide of his snowpants/winter coats!). And I'm going to buy one of those underbed storage drawers and just keep her clothes under the crib. Not ideal to bend down, but hey, better than cluttered over-stuffed drawers.

Another thing I did was make some freezer meals.

We did some grocery shopping

I know you can't read these, but had printed out 6 recipes and then had 6 labeled gallon bags and went through one by one cutting and putting in the ingredients.

Big pile of peelings/scraps

An hour and a half later I had 6 recipes to freeze and be ready for the crockpot. BBQ chicken, no-fuss potato soup, coconut curry chicken, tuscan white bean soup, salsa chicken, and one more I guess I'm forgetting. I also bought a couple packs of ready to bake yeast rolls to go with some of them. And at least I'll have 6 meals for when baby is here.

I also started a hospital packing list and started getting stuff together for that too.

And we did have some fun too. We had his 3 little boy friends over Friday night to play while their parents went out and then Saturday we went over to Liz's for dinner and for another boy play date.

Boys in stripes!

I kept laughing because we have the kid sized car that August loves, and Liz has this little grocery cart version for a doll, and August kept trying to get it. "Help it!!" I just was imagining him like, "hey, who shrunk my car?!?"

The next day was waffles, blueberries, and church.

And pretty soon after we got home and were sitting down to lunch, Daddy was home!

The new car seems pretty low-rust and we are thankful to have Doug back home safe. Hopefully it will be a good vehicle for our family. It's always stressful spending a big chunk of money all in one blow, but I know Doug did a ton of research so that makes it better. No more accidents!

foods and cars

I've been in the kitchen more this last week since I just started a new semester and have either had the quiet before the storm, or the feeling of total overwhelmedness, that I just walk away and make dinner.

Made my favorite salmon recipe for Doug and I one night

I also made a big batch of banana flax oatmeal chocolate chip walnut muffins for work/school snacks, I just used a recipe I googled and they turned out pretty good

One perk of a dog in the home is help with accidental spills. The other day I was filling my oats jar and spilled a pile on the floor, and as I stood mustering up the energy to get out the vacuum, little Becks trotted over and took care of it for me. Thank you!

I gave girl whose blog recipes I'm on the fence about lately another try, and made her Chili Garlic Beef Stir Fry.

You know, cutting up beef is not nearly as gross as cutting up chicken to me for some reason

I didn't realize but it said to marinate for 2 hours or overnight.... how about 5 minutes and then fry in the marinade sauce?

(that pile of peppers? $1. Thank you poor-old-little bit-wrinkly rack!)

It was tasty. Not life changing, but good.

The real highlight of meals this week were these croutons I made tonight. Oh. My. Gosh. Heaven's streets will be lined with these. (My thighs) curse my friend Rachel for introducing them to me in their oily, garlic-salty goodness.

Warning, do not make these when you're home alone or you will eat the whole pan. And your poor little dog will risk 3rd degree roof-of-his-mouth burns when lunging four times at a spilled crouton.

So that's it for meals this week. I received that Oh She Glows (my favorite food blog girl's) cookbook as a gift, and I promptly bought one for my friend Liz for her bday. She suggested we do a Julie & Julia and take turns making all the recipes in the book. I suggested she cooks and I eat and blog about it.... she didn't go for it. Haha, but we will probably start doing some of those soon. Yay!

And in car news, on the 1 week anniversary of having my car....

Flat tire.

I was actually driving to school and hearing a strange fwaap fwaaap fwap sound coming from the back and thinking "what's wrong now?!" and get to school and see it's flat. Good thing I have the roadside assistance, the guy came and put on my spare for me. And also good thing I had 3 tires from my last focus, so the next day I just had one of my old tires put on.

And when Dad called me to ask how my tire situation was coming, I commented that I hadn't done a great job of checking out the car in the lot. There is so much stuff to think about and questions to ask, it didn't really sink in that the radio station wasn't really coming in. I just chalked it up to being in a different city and not knowing what their stations were. Turns out my antenna was broken! How does that even happen!? So I was telling Dad and the next day I get a call and he said he made a bunch of calls and had one on order from Ford. Then the next day he calls and says it came in and can he come over and install it. Yes please! What service! So today he came and installed the new base. (I still have to buy the actually antenna part)

Bonus: getting rid of that old crumpled up spider carcass from behind the light :)

Dad explaining where the things screw in to

There it is all ready for a new antenna and to start picking up some tunes!

new wheels

Well finally money from Progressive and picked up the new car with mom today.

Gosh this has been such a frustrating experience. The guy at the used car lot told me that insurance companies always give you a bare bones total when they tell you how much they'll pay for your totaled car. Did not know that. He said they probably would have came up $1500. That would have been nice to know! So for anyone in the future who has a totaled car= don't take their first offer!

My new car is pretty similar to the old one, but was not nearly as nice inside, just spent an hour cleaning gunk off the windows and dash. There is no traction control, I think a bit worse gas milege, and no floor mats. But the good part is it has a working CD player (my old one had just quit) and it has 36k less miles so should last awhile. And it is in decent shape.

Worst case, come summer or when there are more cars on the market I could sell it and look for one more comparable to mine, but maybe this one will have grown on me by then.

We'll see. I'm thankful I can stop bumming rides for awhile and for all mom and dad's help!

my car :(

So Saturday I went up to my parents to have some quiet time and study, and Sunday morning I left to meet Doug at his church. It had snowed, but the roads were ok. I was not 3 miles from their house headed south when I could see one of the side roads and this SUV that was blowing thru his stop sign and headed right towards me not even hardly turning. I had a second to think about swerving, but there was really no shoulder, just a big snowy embankment, and then - WHAM he hit me. Next thing I knew I was tilted in my car, smelling some weird burning smell and saw that my side airbag went off. I got my phone off the floor and started to climb out when two arms were reaching over to help me climb out. There were these 2 young guys and he's apologizing to me and saying it was all his fault. What do you say to that, um, yes, it was. Thanks for not stopping at that stop sign. So I first texted Doug not to save me a seat at church and called the police.

I felt fine, and the boys were ok, but I was worried about my exam the next day and worried about my car.

The policeman came and could instantly tell what happened. He had me go sit in his warm car and when he came back, he asked me how many points I wanted the guy to get. I was surprised to hear that. I found out the guy was 20, so I didn't want his life to be ruined, but now a day later when I'm going through the headaches of endless calls with my insurance and being stranded and had to go get x-rays just to make sure ok so I don't get screwed later, I wish I would've been less nice about it. I mean, this all could have been avoided if he had just stopped. What the heck was he thinking?? I could have been really hurt.

So then it turns out that the boy was the son of a family from my parents church, they didn't recognize me, but I knew the mom when she drove over. The cop was like 'oh no, not this lady' so he somehow knew her. Small world.

Later my mom told me she checked that lady's facebook and she had posted "glad my son was safe from the accident early today... if that girl's car had been earlier or later... etc" and my mom commented "I'm glad they were ok too since that girl was my daughter". I wish she would have wrote the accident that HER SON CAUSED, instead of making it seem like it was my fault. That bothered me a lot. If I was a second earlier or later her dumb son wouldn't have hit me at all. OR if he stopped at stop signs, again, totally avoided. Irritating.

Doug left church and came to get me. Here was what he saw when he drove up:

There's my car way over on the embankment. The cop said there was no way the other guy hit me hard enough to push me way over there from a stopping position.

And here's the damage:

So yeah, now I'm stranded and my parents are carpooling to loan me a car to get to clinicals, and Doug's offering to take me to work 25+ miles out of his way, while this guy drove off in his parent's SUV and probably just got his xbox privileges taken away for a week. Well, and a 2 point ticket.

So today I'm kind of bitter about it.

BUT. I am healthy, a bit of a sore neck, but that's nothing compared to dying or being paralyzed. And in a few days I should know if they are going to fix it or total it, so all in all, it's not the end of the world. But very inconvenient, yes!!

First Date

hahahahaha, this makes me laugh, oh Sheldon

So I went on a date on saturday. It was actually much closer to the top of that picture than the bottom.

Some pictures from my night:

There was dinner, dessert, ice-skating, cards, flowers, he drove me somewhere and lit off fireworks, a walk, and to top it all off, he even let me practice starting an IV on him! I failed :( He had said earlier he'd let me practice on him, but as I was about to poke him I was feeling like some weirdo, and was asking if he was sure, and he just said 'well I really like you, so go ahead', haha. Ok! But then I felt really bad for not getting it. Maybe on date #2??

He told me some funny things like how he'd spent a good part of the day driving around to everywhere we were going to go ahead of time to map it out. And practiced his cursive for my cards. He had told a lot of his friends about the date and they kept texting him to ask how it was going. I saw one text that he sent to his friend: 'Anne looks really good' :) When we were driving out to the place for the firework he asked me if I was cold, and then before I could even reply a blanket was being laid on my lap.

This guy is actually someone I sort of knew 12 years ago in InterVarsity at school. A few weeks ago I randomly saw him at a friend's party and we chatted a small bit. I wondered if I would see him on facebook, and then sure enough, the next day I got a message and we've been talking ever since.

I feel alternately scared and excited about it.

We'll see.

So then yesterday as I'm midway to church my car wouldn't go into any gear at all and I was in the middle of traffic with cars lining up and beeping behind me. And I found myself calling him to see if he could come get me. And I was instantly mad at myself. I didn't just spend the last 2 years becoming self-sufficient and independent to become some damsel-in-distress overnight. I jammed it into gear, U'ed in the middle of the road, and made it back. And today I'm being a big girl, called my own tow truck, found a place to get it fixed, and taking care of it.

I took the day off clinical to get this car stuff figured out, and I think it's really good to have some time to process and get how I feel figured out too.

Maybe that dichotomic picture is perfect for how I feel at this second; but I'm feeling gradually more ready to put down the spray can.

One thing that I really really hated about being divorced was how I just felt so embarrassed about it. I hated that everyone knew I was a Christian, and getting a divorce, I felt like such a bad witness. The people who know me, know it wasn't my choice. But it was still embarrassing having to tell my co-workers and others. And even in that, God was SO SO good to me, and really only a few people said things that hurt my feelings (and I think that was unintentional, altho it did hurt). Mostly people just loved me and prayed for me and walked thru it with me. But that is one fear I have now for sure. I'm afraid to get excited, and to potentially 'fail' again. I was talking it over with Liz the other day and that helped a ton. Just realizing that a lot of it is probably in my own mind. She said for her she would look at me, and be happy that I was happy and moving on. And if it didn't work out, she would be sad if I was sad. That was really nice, and I think it'd be true for the other people who care about me as well.

God has been so good to me, He truly has provided everything I need, He has taught me so much and brought me through something I could not see any way out of. So I think I can keep trusting Him.

first snow

Tuesday we got our first snow! It didn't really do much, besides tack on a few minutes of chipping my car out of an ice block to my morning routine. I want to add a new scraper to my Christmas wish list, I just don't know if I can make it that long! I don't know when mine suddenly turned to crap, it worked last year!

I had some car tire drama this week. A couple months ago my tire was completely flat and I went and had belle tire look at it, and they said that there was a burr on the rim and it created a slow leak. So $20 later it was fixed. The other day, I was driving along, minding my own business and someone is yelling out their window to me that my tire was flat. I said thanks and continued on my way to a party I was already late too. A few miles later another kind Samaritan also told me that my tire was flat. After the party I filled it back up with air and went home. The next day I went to belle tire and asked what was going on. Anyway, there was a dent in the inside of the wheel rim and that was creating the leak. So I could either buy a new wheel, or ship mine out to be fixed (for $50 less). Who in the world is out there throwing away good money on a perfectly fixable wheel?!? So in a few days it will be back. Meanwhile I am driving around on the spare. The guy was like, don't go over 50. And I was like, oh I'll be going over 50, I still have to go to work. I should have asked the signs and symptoms to look for if something bad was happening! Oh well, I think I'll be fine. It was just irritating when I already took care of this issue, and now I have to ask people to do their job again. At least this guy was nice and said he'd reimburse me for the last 'repair' cost.

Every car issue just reinforces my desire to take a few auto mechanic classes after I'm done with nursing school. As I was at the counter talking about the tire problem, I was trying to differentiate between the tire and the wheel, so I'm telling the guy 'that silvery part' and I see him getting a little smile, and then I ask him if wheel and rim are the same (they are), and then he was like 'but you can call it 'that silvery part' that works', I don't think he was making fun of me, but I felt kinda silly. Anyway, hopefully my spare hangs in there a couple more days and hopefully it will be fixed for good!

Lately Jill and I have heard some scratching coming from the AC unit. Jill investigated yesterday

But we didn't see anything, so it remains a mystery. I'm too chicken to take the AC panel off or turn it on.

Lastly, I feel like this OB/GYN part B is really tricky, so I'm trying to study more than usual :(

My little lap warmer keeping me company!

buy one, get one free

Last weekend the car lot was running a special: buy one, get one free.

They didn't say that the free one was a GIANT NEST

Last saturday a craigslist guy came and bought my beloved trusty saturn. So I bought my mom's old car off her, and she got a new car last month. I had a friend drop me off at my parent's saturday night to get it. Right away I noticed it was not running that great. It would barely accelerate and going up a small hill I noticed my speed dropping from 55, to 40, to 30 while the pedal was to the floor. Anyway, it was dark and cold and in the country so I abandoned going to the party I was going to and just went home. I stopped by an autozone that miraculously happened to still be open and got the codes checked. It was blowing codes for ignition coils at $104 each. Not great news when you just got a 'new' car. Anyway, the next day I opened the hood and saw that beauty. I was really glad I hadn't opened the hood for the autozone guy... 'oh pardon that giant nest... didn't see that there'... that would have been so embarressing!

This nest was perplexing in that in the nest I found 3 different shirts of my dads. I knew they were shirt rags from the basement- but how did they end up in the hood of the car under the carport 100 yards away!? Later my mom solved the mystery and said they were rags from repainting the barn and they were just in a box outside. Not as exciting as the riveting tale I was imagining of the squirrel smuggling them out of the basement, but oh well..

Anyway, good ol' dad came to rescue me again. The great news was that whatever animal had only chewed up some wire which he was easily able to solder and it was as good as new! (the other good news is that I didn't find any engine chopped up animals in the nest, extra glad for that!)

(chewed up wires and removed nest)

I got to return the parts and now it's running great. Hope this car can make it to a quarter-million miles too!

Father/Daughter Car Repair Strikes Again

So I finally got my new car panels! The new door, fender were painted and my dad picked them up and even got me a new mud flap thing that goes around the tire. Good thing, my old one had a hold taped up with duct tape and held to the car by a wire!

Here again was the deer damage:

The inbetween shot before installing new fender:

and the new fender and door installed!:

I love having such a handy dad :)

Other events of this week included making this indianish butternut squash hummus:

Pretty tasty, but oh my gosh, the breath, the breath. Wow.

Anyway, TGIF! It feels like it's been such a long week and I am ready to relaxxxx.

Father Daughter Car Repair

So father-daughter car repair was busy this weekend. After hitting the deer a few weeks ago, the ol Saturn had damage to its fender, door, hood, and broke out the headlight. We got some insurance money, but to make it stretch even further, decided to do the repairs ourselves. My dad's car guy is still looking for a new door panel and fender, but he got me a new headlight which we installed this weekend.

The damage:

The new headlight

Getting ready to put the new one in:

New headlight!

We also installed a new car horn, my last one was so sickly sounding and was barely audible. So now I can honk at people to my hearts delight. Haha.

thanks father-daughter car repair! :)