Journal post

Its Sunday night and I'm finding myself trying to organize my thoughts about life and where I'm headed, and instead of being a normal person and writing it all down in a journal I'm typing it out here. Being as it doesn't involve anyone but me it's perfectly fine (under my own standards) if I post about it. We recently got to replace our van with a newer more expensive van, and are no longer debt free, but hey we've got a working car! The truck is currently parked at my parents because it broke down on the way there :(. Eventually we'll get it fixed and have 2 working cars!! Its amazing how blessed being absolutely normal really is. Jared is doing well at his new job in North Salt Lake, and so far we've come up with a tentative plan to live here for a year to test out the new job's stability and if all goes well then in a year we will sell our home and move closer to North Salt Lake. One of my closest friends and best running partner is moving far away in the coming weeks and I feel super sad about it all, but am so happy that everything is working out as planned for her cute little family. I will have to find a new running partner and confidant or I may go crazy... so, so, sad. I like the idea of moving myself, I'm pretty restless and pretty soon I'll have all the projects done in my home that I care to do and will need a new project. I should just start drawing or painting again, its just hard to find the time or space.. alone space. I've got one more semester (its seems) of school and I'm dreading the thought of math 1050, people pass it right? The other classes I'm praying will be a breeze, we'll see. Hey my birthday is coming up! I'll be a big 25 years.. ugh that seems old... what do people do when their 25? ... I guess I'm already doing it. Jared and I talked about how many kids were having on our little day trip today, he's still stuck on four.. tops.. I told him we will need a bigger vehicle when we come across 5 :), he said the only way were having 5 is if I were to have triplets, poor boy doesn't know that I may push him past 6, bigger is better right? heck yes. There is just something about seeing a family of 14 kids interact when they've all grown up, that makes you wish you were a part of something big.

Search for Simple blog

To try to keep things slightly organized I decided that I'm gonna have this blog be more of a family blog, and I will post more of my creative endeavors on my 'search for simple' blog - http://www.searchforsimple.blogspot.com , Otherwise I feel like this blog should be renamed Zjani, cuz really its pretty much been all about me. I don't know that many people even follow this blog anymore because I've been a slacker lately, but hey if your still out there and interested in all the projects I do you'll find them on the other blog.

Country mudroom just about completed

This is how our back porch looks now
this is the view from inside the salon

I drywalled and skip troweled the walls then painted them blue

Here's our new door with with two sidelights

The view to the old door, I painted the old paneling white and put up a fake wainscot on the bottom section where the wood was so damaged, I also slated the floors in a brick lay pattern.

my country mud room

This was the start of a post a couple weeks ago, I couldn't find the cameras cord and didn't end up posting, but I'll share with you what I figured out and how my country mudroom is looking.

Hey I'm back... yet again... So for all of you who don't know our house was broken into last week and aside from important things going missing I also have a missing sense of security. To aid in my missing sense of security I plan on adding an outer door to my back porch and making it a mud room. I ripped off the siding of the back porch yesterday, so now I have the lovely country exterior... only it isn't whole like I had hoped. I still want to use it because I like the country feel of it all, I just have to figure out how I can make it work. We should have our new door and half sidelight combo coming in sometime next week. I know that you guys can be pretty crafty so maybe you can give me some suggestions on how I can keep at least a portion of the 114 yr old siding in view.

I went to take some pics of the whole new revamp but my cameras battery is dead... I'll post them here soon.

I cant seem to locate my USB cord that connects my camera to the laptop, and my other camera that I took pictures with while we were in Vegas needs a driver that has been erased to load up any pictures from it :( So its kind of boring to post without pictures but I figured I'd give you an update anyway..
School has been in for 5 weeks now and I cant say that I am loving it this semester, I feel like all I do is assignments and schoolwork but yet I am just making the deadlines not progressing ahead. It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't putting forth so much time and effort (mostly time) and just barely cutting it... why do classes have to be so demanding? Lame. Anyway, I'm looking forward to spring, it can come anytime now.... you have my permission....
Hey Jared and I went to Vegas for our 5 Year anniversary, we stayed at Microtel Inn and Suites which is approximately 3 miles south on the strip, walking from Mandalay Bay its 3.4ish miles (a very late night adventure). While in Vegas we saw The Lion King, it was amazing, and we won $50 gambling (We split it, he purchased a UFC shirt, and I got some suede black knee high boots). Jared was nice enough to come with me to the extremely small art gallery in the Belagio, I was hoping for more of a museum but it was more like 4 large rooms with pictures... the high point would be that I saw original artwork from Picasso with my own eyes. It was a really fun vacation, the hotel was great, we had free breakfast there every morning and I got us a pretty sweet deal so definitely worth it. While in Vegas my friend from high school and hair school Caitlin and her hubby, Steve were nice enough to come clear out to pick us up for church and let us hang out with them Sunday in their great new home! They even drove us over to see the Las Vegas Temple (which is beautiful). Everything was so out of the way for them, and they were just too sweet to cater to our whims, Thanks guys! The only thing I would have changed was the time away, it was just a day too long and I really missed my babies.
If I ever get my camera figured out I'll share our pics. So that is all I can really come up with, life is pretty routine but always busy, I really can't wait till summer break.. only 10 weeks to go.

Lookin forward to 2011

2010 has been a pretty good year for us and I'm excited to make resolutions for the new year. I'll be starting classes come the 3rd of January and they are not going to be as interesting to me as last semesters were but they will knock off a bunch of general credits that I need for my associates. On the 4th of January it will be our 5 year wedding anniversary! This week I am packing and getting everything in order for our trip to Las Vegas on the 6th. I know that I am a basket case the first week or two of school so its best that I get packed before then. I plan on taking some time to get myself all dolled up for this trip :) so I'll probably throw in some low lights, and make my finger and toenails look great!
These past few weeks have been a nice break from school although it would be nicer if I had a car (it should be fixed today sometime) and then I wont be so stranded. Jared will be taking a microbiology class from Weber State this semester, we just paid for it and I really cant wait till the left over amount from Jareds Pell Grant at the ATC comes so that it will pay for it... classes and books are so expensive!
I'll post pics of our trip when we get back, everybody enjoy your new years!

Ah Christmas family pics

So every year its the same, Christmas picture time is a bloody battle that lasts about a half an hour, its full of cursing, crying, begging and finally bribing... no joke....and tonight was no different, although my camera has a cool feature that actually takes pictures when we are smiling all on its own! SO COOL!! Its much better than setting the camera up putting it on a ten second hold and hoping and praying that were all in position and smiling when the pictures start happening! I've been playing with piknic a free photo editing thing on the web and I've got my pictures ready for the 2nd Christmas letter we've ever done so if you want a Christmas letter this year give me your address please! e-mailing it to me is fine (zjanidame@hotmail.com) or you can just post it on here.

School is pretty much over, I have one final project due on Thursday for art, and that's not stressful its just fun for me. I'm thinking that my grades are gonna be pretty darn good... maybe all straight A's or maybe one or 2 A- we'll find out soon, I'm stoked cuz the last time I got straight A's I was in middle school..?

Tomorrow I plan on organizing my filthy unorganized house and that will be delightful, I can't find things and that makes me crazy so were gonna take care of that. Umm a couple days ago I got is a slight car accident so now I'm waiting for insurance to figure out liability and then maybe I can fix my van, its been stressing me out but I have little control at this point so I choose not to think about it.