Strange Desire to Make Aprons

A few months ago I went to my cousin Regina's bridal shower and she got this cute little home made apron.  I thought it was so cute that I wanted to make one of my own.  I looked for patterns online, but could not find one that I liked, so I made one up.  And here was the result....

 Then I made one for my mom and my sisters, Tina and Jana for their birthdays.  

 

This was Tina's, I forgot to take a picture of my mom's or Jana's.

 

It looks really cute from behind though!

Then I made one for Maia and her Mom since they were so nice to let us invade their house in November.

 

 

This one was for Maia, it looks much cuter on her, but I couldn't get the picture off my phone.

 

And this one was for her mom Cheryl who loves ladybugs.

I am still working on Jackie's, but I will definitely have it done before her birthday in July.

The whole thing has served its purpose though, because even though I have no desire to really cook anything, hence I don't really need an apron, I now have fulfilled my mission to make one and am over the whole idea...now it's on to some other random preoccupation.

 

  

Why the BMW dealer stinks!

And by that I do not mean that it smells bad.

Yesterday I took my car in for service. Well not only for that it seems like as soon as you get to the point where you can afford the car everything needs to be replaced so either you can't afford to fix the things and you have a falling apart car or you get so tired of it that you just get a new one, which costs you much more.

So here was my list of things that needed help: service (oil change), left blinker/tail light going in and out, small dime sized dent on the driver door from where Donald's bike tipped over, last year Don's truck was broken into and they took the key, so we had it deactivated and then our neighbor found it in his yard, so I wanted to get it reactivated, and last time I went in they said my rear view mirror was coming apart so they put it back together and then a couple months later all the anti-glare fluid in it started leaking all over and pooled into the middle of the mirror.

Now BMW's are slightly different than other cars for service because you don't have to get the oil changed every 3,000 miles, instead you get this crazy expensive service every 7,000-12,000 miles.

So I take it in for it's service (which last time cost me almost $300)and the guy told me that it needed it's inspection 2, I guess that is when they check everything. I tell him about all the other things and he prints up an estimate sheet....are you ready for this....I can hear you all cringe.

The inspection 2 is $671 (what the...are you coating it all in gold or something), the dent repair is $125, the light was not just a bulb but a short in the entire casing and $377, to reactivate the computer chip key that is way too sophisticated for it's own good was $70 and the mirror apparently can not be opened and drained (so how was it coming apart before, I don't know) instead the whole thing needs to be replaced which costs about $700- for a flipping mirror! Grand total: $1943 (choke, choke).

Yeah right, cause I just have 2 grand laying around to fix little random things with. So I told them to just give me the oil change (still $271) and the dent repair because they said they would buff the little scratch out as well, and the rest I would have to do later. I also had a $50 service credit that they send you in the mail as a new year's promotion. New Grand total: $353

Still that is for an oil change! After 4 hours of them playing with it I finally pick it up, pay the outrageous amount and drive out of the dealership feeling like I have absolutely nothing to show for that money that I could have bought something really cool with. Oh and they got the dent out but the scratch was still there, but by that time the repair guy had gone to lunch, as did pretty much everyone else.

I get home and as I am getting out of the car I see a 7" pen mark across my front seat. I was livid! But the dealer was back in Riverside so I used a magic eraser and it came up- but still I was very very mad at them. About a half an hour later I had to go pick up the kids and when I looked in the back seat I noticed that they had moved Eli's seat over, don't ask my why, nothing required them to be in the backseat. So I get back there to fix it and the entire backseat is just laying there, not attached to anything. They had taken it off -for what I don't know and never put it back on. Therefore, I had to reposition all the seatbelts and get the seat back in the grooves and pop it back into place before I could even go get the kids. I was so stinkin' mad yesterday I could have spit on those BMW people. If I had the time I would have made them put it back in. Note to self- find someone else to deal with my car.

Something new and scary

Today, I am submitting my manuscript to a writer's conference.  A little over a year ago I posted that I was writing a book.  I didn't know whether I would do anything with it or if it would ever get finished, but here I am finally submitting it for review.  I don't know what will happen with it, but it is definitely a leap of faith to try to get other people to read and enjoy something that comes from your own imagination.  I am excited, but I think that the fear is still a bit outweighing.  The conference is in February, so I will not know what they think until then, but I am sure that my fingers will be crossed for the next month in anticipation.  So here is the stamp and address on the envelope to following your dreams even if they only exist in your mind.

Quite an eventful year so far

All right, we are on the 10th day of the new year, yet it feels like much more by all that has been going on. The kids went back to school, which I am divided about my feeling towards. On one hand they are not home bored watching too much TV, on the other hand it means the return of homework and that is definitely not my favorite time spent with my children. Along with the kids return to school came the return of my students from Winter Break. This whole online teaching experience has turned out quite differently than I had anticipated. I was scared and worried that I went through so much training to end up doing something that I didn't like, but to tell you honestly, aside from grading the big assignments, which are only due once every other week, I really am enjoying it. I like getting to know my students and seeing them progress. But hands down the biggest improvement between this and teaching high school is that I don't have to deal with anyone's attitude and I love that.
Another thing that I have been working on lately is getting some of Don's geneology done. In October I finally made it to the Family History Center and they helped me enter what I had and fill in some of the blanks. It was very cool, I felt like I was actually finding people who have been waiting for the gospel, like I was a family missionary. The story gets better....Yesterday we took those names to the Los Angeles Temple. My sister, Tina and I have been talking about doing this for a while and we finally planned it all out. Don and I baptized 26 of his ancestors. We (with the help of some of Tina's friends) performed about 18 initiatories, 5 endowments and 3 sealings, all of Don's family members who I know have been waiting for us. The whole day was amazing, but my favorite part of the day was when I was able to stand as proxy for Don's grandma Amelia as we sealed her to her parents. I have never met Amelia, in fact Don has not even met her, yet I completely felt her surround me as I knelt at that alter. It was amazing. After our long day at the Temple we all went out to dinner for Tina's 40th birthday (which is actually this coming Monday the 11th). We went to a fish place, my food was not that great, but the appetizers were delicious and since I was so full with them before the food came I guess it didn't matter much what the main food tasted like.

Here we all are (my brother in law Dirk, my sister Tina, Dean & Billy Lang, Lisa and Reed LaFeaver, and of course Don and I).  We were sitting right next to a huge window with a beach view, this place was right on the ocean.

 

So I am not the biggest fish lover and therefore, I ordered a chicken sandwich, which came on a weird chabata bun.  I really wasn't that into it, but I was really full anyway.  They turned my left overs into a foil sculpture of a whale, complete with water spout.  Don thought that since we live in Corona, it would be funny to include the Corona bucket. As we were leaving the restaurant a homeless looking man walked by, so I gave him my strange tin foil whale filled with odd chicken sandwich and homemade potato chips.  He seemed to appreciate it, which made me feel better since I probably would have thrown it away anyways.

 

Great picture of Tina blowing out her candle. Check out the giant chocolate cake wedge they brought out to her!

And conveniently I had my camera handy when Dean dropped a large blob of whipped cream on his tie.  Ahhh, too bad! At least it was at the end of the night.

After we got back to Tina's I had to finished grading some papers that were due back by 11pm and then we drove home to finish our talks that we gave this morning in sacrament meeting.  Silly us for waiting until the last minute, but we have been overly busy lately.  We gave our talks on Tithing bright and early this morning at 9am after having stayed up until almost 3am.  Now I can relax a little and maybe take a little Sunday afternoon nap.