susu g designs...

Laid Off

2009-03-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

Wow. It has been 2 months since I lasted posted. I knew that it had been awhile, but didn't realize that it had been that long. The last couple of months have been tough for mostly unbloggable reasons.

Anway, I was laid off yesterday. They have decided to eliminate my position. I was not surprised that it happened & had been expecting to be let go. Ben & I had been talking about the possibility & were preparing for it to happen. Yet I was still surprised when it finally did.

The shock wore off at about 4 am this morning & I could not go back to sleep. I thought that I would be happy that I got laid off. But I'm not happy about it yet. Right now I am angry. I am angry that I worked for the last almost 2 years to improve the product for my company only to not be valued & let go. I went above & beyond what was asked of me. I improved the fit, quality and design of the product for a lower price. And yet it wasn't good enough for them & they let me go.

I chose to leave my job at my old company because there was no room for growth for me at the time. So I searched for a new job & was excited about the opportunity that I found. The company was profitable & growing with little to no debt. The dept I was hired for was expanding. My position would be a promotion. I would begin by setting up systems to help with the growth & then as we progressed, I would be able to have people under me. And I would be able to design again. And I would be learning & expanding the rest of my development skills. I would be learning more about costing & the numbers side. Maybe I was naive but the opportunity really seemed like a good one.

Well it turned out not to be. Obviously.

This is the first time in my life that I have not been employed by my choice. Every job that I have left was my choice. I have worked hard my entire life to make myself worth more to a company than what they pay me. It started in high school. I love working at the fabric store. I learned that by doing really well at my job that I was able to work whatever schedule I wanted. If I wanted to only work Sundays for 2 months so that I could to a play, they let me. If I wanted to take a month off so that I could study for my IB tests, they let me. I always got what I wanted because I was good at what I do.

And it has been that way ever since. I survived 3 rounds of layoffs at Nordstrom over the years that I was there. My bosses fought to keep me during every reorganization.

But I wasn't able to do this for this company. They did not see my worth. So I guess that it is a good thing I was laid off. I no longer have to commute 45 minutes each way to work. I now have the opportunity to re-focus my life. We have a plan in place. Hopefully here in a couple of days I will be happier about this unexpected change.

Little Artist

2009-01-07T11:21:00.003-07:00

So Cade's class drew pictures before Christmas. And his was chosen to be in an ad for a used car company! He is quite the little artist.

Staircase

2008-12-28T20:51:00.003-07:00

Houston, we have a staircase! It has actually been in for almost 2 weeks, but Ben took a picture on his new phone the day it was installed, so I have not been able to post any. He didn't take any pictures of the process of putting in the staircase, so I have no idea how it looked before it was installed.

The inside is coming together very nicely. It should be done in the next week or 2. Here are a few pictures of the progress:

Picture of the staircase installed. It turned out much smaller than I had imagined from the plans.

View of the stairs from the upstairs loft

View of the how the staircase looks in proportion to the room

And here is a picture of the master bath vanities. There will be 2 mirrors on the wall eventually.

And here is a view of the toilet & tub side of the master bath. Just needs a little more glass tile & plumbing fixtures for it to be done.

Well, crap

2008-12-18T14:06:00.002-07:00

There is this new law that goes into effect on February 10, 2009 that creates a standard for lead & phthalates in children's products. It is in reaction to the lead recalls last year in children's toys & jewelry.

I know a little bit about the law because we are dealing with it at work on some of our products because it also sets standards on some adult product as well. I hadn't really thought that much about it because I didn't think it had anything to do with clothing. What little I knew about it, I thought that clothing was excluded....

Remember that business that I am forever talking about starting. Well, we (we being my husband & I) have a plan in place that would allow me to start working on this in the next couple of months. It's a solid plan & I have been very excited as I saw the time when I could begin working on my clothing coming closer & closer.

Today, I was reading one of the designer blogs that I follow. It turns out that the pesky little law designed to protect children is going to make it so that I can not do my business. As the law stands right now, any existing product has to be tested for lead by a "reasonable testing program". The cheapest I found testing for is $200-$300 per style.

And as of August, 2009, all product will have to be tested by an approved 3rd party testing facility. Which is f'ing expensive. Like in the thousands of dollars expensive.

What this means for me, is that the law as it is currently written, will make it cost prohibitive for me to start my business. So that really sucks. I will continue to follow this. As it sounds, people are finally realizing the effect this law will have on manufacturers big & small. So hopefully, there will be changes made so that small business owners are able to sell children's clothing.

But for the time being, I am pissed. I am this close to getting my business started in earnest & now there is a HUGE road block in the way...

Flip Updates

2008-12-08T21:16:00.003-07:00

the Victorian after it was sandblasted to remove as much paint as possible

We have made quite a bit of progress on our flips.

The quick one has been on the market for about a month. We had an offer that fell through. The woman lied about being able to be a cash buyer & could not qualify for financing. That was a little unfortunate, but probably a good thing in the end. The house now qualifies for FHA financing (which is a very good thing) and the showings have picked up quite significantly. Here are some more pictures of it done. I never got any before pictures because the contractor started working the same day we closed. And, well, my husband forgot to take some.

The big project has been, well, a big project. It took several weeks longer than planned to get the new furnace installed & passed inspection because the furnace guy booked too many jobs at the same time. And the drywall & texturing has turned in to a bit of a nightmare. The contractor promised he would be able to do all of it in a matter of days. He ended up taking weeks to finish & used more than 3x the materials that he should have. (The contractor is paying for the additional materials, not us.)

So we are a little behind (by about 6 weeks). But our contractor is working hard to get us done as quickly as possible. And really, with Christmas coming, it is probably OK to be behind a little since it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to put a house on the market right before Christmas anyway.

The good news is that the walls are done; textured & painted. The bamboo floors are in. The travertine tile is going into the kitchen. Lights are all installed. New windows are installed. And the spiral staircase will be ready sometime next week. So things are coming together pretty quickly at this point.

Our camera is having some issues, so I don't have a whole lot of pictures. But I did add some to the group. Sorry that some of them are a little weird to look at.

So what do you think of the progress? Would you want to live there?

Sweaters

2008-12-05T12:43:00.010-07:00

I know, I went a month again without posting. More on that later. Since this is supposed to be a blog about me designing, I figured I should post a couple of pictures of some of the stuff I designed recently for work.

If you click on the images, it will direct you to our website so that you can see these bigger.

What do you think?

I am a dork

2008-10-20T12:24:00.002-06:00

Hi, my name is Susan & I am a dork. I fully admit it. And I am OK with it. Saturday night we went to see Jackopierce play at the Soiled Dove Underground.

Reason 1 I am a dork: I was that girl at the concert. You know the one. The one who knows all the words & is singing along, dancing around and being silly.

While there was no free beer this time, like last year. (This year we had assigned seats so we could not be center front like last year.) But that was OK. I still had a really amazing seat.

Reason 2 I am a dork: Ben bought me a combination very belated, very early birthday present while we are there. He bought us 2 tickets to concert they are doing in Austin, TX in May. Since I had a pretty crappy birthday this year, you know with my husband being in the hospital & everyone forgetting it, he felt that he needed to make up for it. So we will be celebrating my birthday in Austin, TX next year! Yes, I am that dorky groupie who is going to a different state to see them play.

Reason 3 I am a dork: They closed with one of my favorite songs. It is this Irish blessing & I have not heard them sing it for a decade. The last time I heard it was on their farewell tour where they sang "With or Without You" by U2 & then faded into it. It is the same Irish blessing that helped lead up to the cure for Ben's headache. I of course started to cry. But that's not why I am a dork, I am a dork because we hung around after the concert so that I could get my CD autographed & I thanked them for singing it & why it had so much meaning to me. I am sure they were both thinking, who is this dorky girl?

So that is why I am a dork. But I had an amazing night & I guess that is all that matters, right?

Help!

2008-10-15T12:32:00.002-06:00

In exactly 10 days we are supposed to go to a Halloween party... but I do not have a costume to wear. And I can't for the life of me come up with anything. Zip, zilch, nada in the idea area.

The theme of the party is heroes & villains. Ben, of course, will be wearing his costume from last year. I know you are shocked. Even his Halloween costume is Broncos....

But my costume doesn't really fit the theme. I don't know how well it will fit & well, it is kind of generic...

I have been trying for weeks to come up with an idea. Any idea. We even went to the costume store last weekend to get some ideas. And still, I left with nothing. Sure there were super hero costumes for girls like wonder woman or bat girl. And there were witch costumes. But I have this problem, I don't like store bought costumes. My costume from last year is the first store bought costume I have EVER owned. Seriously.

I have always had homemade costumes. Some were more traditional like a witch or a cabbage patch kid, but I was a sack of potatoes one year, and a box of frosted flakes another. So I have this notion that I should make my costume this year. But I haven't a clue what to make.... and it is gnawing away at me.

Any ideas on a hero or villain costume that I can pull together in 10 days???

Before Pictures

2008-10-14T13:04:00.003-06:00

I finally got the pictures downloaded off our camera and started putting them on flickr. (There were over 400 pics on it. Yikes!)

This is what the front of our big flip looks like. Structurally the house was in good shape. It just needs some love to make it look pretty again.

Here is the photo gallery of more before pictures. What do you think?

Something Old, Something New

2008-10-07T20:46:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago a dear friend of mine got married. For her bachlorette party we were asked to bring a gift that fit under one of the categories: something old, something new, something borrowed or something blue.

I had bought this vintage dish towel a few months ago that reminded me of her. When I bought the dishtowel, I was thinking of turning it into something else. So when I found out the theme of the bachlorette party, I knew this would be a great gift.

I wanted to take the towel & turn it into an apron. I looked for some retro prints to use in conjunction with it to stay with the vintage idea, but I could not find any with the right colorway. So I went with a cool indian floral pattern.

And this is how it turned out. Something old, turned into something new.

Stairs

2008-10-03T14:46:00.004-06:00

One of the very first things we had to do on our Victorian flip was have a structural engineer come out to help us with the stairs issue.

At some point, previous owners decided to "finish" the attic of the house. And obviously, you would then need stairs to get into the newly finished attic. So they built a staircase in the dining room. Which rendered the room essentially useless because of how much space was left.

So we were challenged with how to improve the space on the main level, but still have a staircase to access the upstairs master retreat. After playing with several different placements, we realized that a traditional staircase would not be feasible. We either lost the dining room or one of the bedrooms. Our only option was a spiral staircase.

I was not happy with the idea of a spiral staircase. My fear was that it would turn buyers off. Who would want to move their belongs up a spiral staircase? But the structural engineer was able to figure out how to get a 5' wide one in without losing hardly any space in the bedroom. And, came up with the idea of putting a staircase on the exterior of the house so that you can easily move your bed & furniture upstairs. Perfect!

Aerial view of what the spiral staircase will be like. The dashed lines to the left are the original staircase.

Profile view of the staircase

The plans made me feel very professional now. Not only do we have blueprints from a structural engineer but we had to have the plans signed off by the city as well. Cool, huh?

New Flips

2008-10-02T16:39:00.004-06:00

I know you are all shocked (all 2 of you that read this), two new posts in two days. I really am trying to get back into the swing of it.

We have 2 flip projects going on right now. One is a "quick" four week project one in the same neighborhood as our last one. All it needs is paint & updating in the kitchen & bathrooms & some minor repairs.

The other one is our BIG project. Right before we found it, Ben commented that he would like to work on a Victorian home. And that he would like to try a project that needs some light structural work. Well, the next week, he found this smoking deal on a Victorian house that had a badly placed staircase. Perfect!

Here are pictures of what the house looked like before we bought it. Warning, some of the pictures might turn your stomach. We bought it from the "we buy ugly houses" people. So they got the lovely job of cleaning all the crap out. We are in the process of completely gutting. We took it all the way down to the studs & are making it clean & beautiful again.

This is the living room

This is the dining room with the badly placed staircase so room is essentially not usable (even when clean)

Obviously, the kitchen. Yum, Spam!

And the stomach turning bedroom. Don't you just want to snuggle down on that bed for a nice long nap?

Did you know?

2008-10-01T15:57:00.002-06:00

OK, I know it has been a long time since I posted. What can I say, I am a slacker. Here's a baby step in getting back into the habit of posting.

I got this video a few days ago at work. I found it very interesting to watch. I have no idea how much of it is true, but it all seemed reasonable to me.

Good & Bad

2008-06-29T21:44:00.002-06:00

Thursday was both a good and bad day for us. Good because we got an offer on our flip, bad because we had to go to the funeral for Ben's grandma.

Ben's Grandma Dottie was an amazing woman. I did not get to know her very well because since Ben & I have been together, her health has been failing & her memory was pretty much gone. But over the past few weeks I learned so much about her & wish that I had known her better. Dottie was a pioneer for women in the real estate market back in the 60's. She owned her own brokerage when most companies would not even hire women. Every time Ben meets an agent that worked back in the 70's & 80's, as soon as they hear his last name, most will ask if he is related to Dottie.

Knowing how much his grandmother accomplished as an agent and how much she love it, it is no wonder that Ben is such a natural at what he does. It's like he was born to be doing this.

In the midst of all the sadness of the past week, we got a little bit of happiness too. And appropriately so, it came in the form of real estate. On Thursday we got an offer on our flip. And after a little negotiating, it is now under contract. The last couple of weeks have been stressful with it because of the contractor. But in the end it is all good & we will be closing on 7/29. I need to take some final pictures & then I will post them with all of the gory details of what worked & what did not.

Summertime

2008-06-25T15:20:00.005-06:00

So Cade has been here for 10 days & I realized that I had not posted a single picture yet. I know, I'm bad.

This picture was taken on Father's Day in Roxborough State Park. We went for a short 1 1/2 mile hike. Cade had a great time, except he was very worried about rattlesnakes. Every time grasshopper made noise, he thought that it was a rattlesnake. After our hike, we headed up to Idaho Springs for buffalo burgers & buffalo dogs.

Ben & Cade also have gotten to go see the Rockies play since he got here. This picture was taken without any zoom. We got the tickets from one of the title companies that Ben works with. Apparently the seats were very close. Too bad the Rockies suck & lost the game.

Cade has also been working very hard on riding his bike. Over spring break we took off his training wheels but he was having a very hard time getting his balance right. Not this time, he got right on & after only an hour or so figured it out. We're working on riding in somewhat of a straight line so that I don't freak out when he is riding down the street.

This video was taken on Father's Day when it finally "clicked" for him. You can't see very well from it, but he has the biggest grin ever. He gets better & better every day.

Not-So-Well-Woman

2008-06-23T12:22:00.002-06:00

So I went in 2 weeks ago to see my doctor for a checkup. Turns out that I am not in as good of health as I was just a few short months ago. I have managed to gain 13 lbs in 6 months (!), my blood pressure has also gotten higher & my thyroid is enlarged. See, not so good. Not horrible-life-threatening, but not good either.

They ran some blood work to check my thyroid levels and other stuff that can be affected by an off thyroid. Of course, everything came back normal. Even the thyroid levels were normal. On the high end of normal, but normal none the less. So there is nothing "wrong" with me.

What I love is that my new doctor actually talked to me & took the time to help me. She's actually a midwife, not a typical doctor. Normally, a doctor's visit takes what, 15-20 min max. Not mine; she spent over an hour talking to me, finding out what has been going on in my life & then offering real suggestions. She treated me like a real person & used her own experiences to show that she can relate to what I am going through.

In the end, she suggested a plan of action for me that included:
- some lemon balm & Chaste tree to help with my mood swings. So I take a tincture a couple of times a day that has these in it. It tastes pretty nasty, but I can tell a slight difference already only 2 weeks later
- working with a therapist to find better ways to deal with the stress in life. So I have started that too. It's only been a couple of sessions & it is interesting to say the least.
- and then there is the obvious, diet & exercise. But she did not do the one-size-fits-all answer of limit your calories, yada, yada, yada. She listened to what I eat, where my weakness tends to be (starchy carbs) and that I tend to get dizzy sometimes. Then suggested the Zone diet because it limits the carbs & works to keep you on a balanced blood sugar level which will help with the chips/muffins/bread cravings and with the dizziness.

So even though, she was the bearer of some bad news, she helped me see the best of it & give me the tools I need to get back on track. Now, I just have to do it... EEK!

Week 5 of our 4 week flip

2008-06-03T12:15:00.002-06:00

OK so I know it has been awhile since I posted. Ben had to go and have surgery again so that kind of threw a wrench in our lives momentarily. He is recovering nicely. We had a new surgeon & a new hospital do the repair. The new doctor said basically there is nothing that Ben could do to Tear it apart now.

But enough about that. I'm sure you are wondering how our flip is going.

· ~~scrap popcorn ceiling off of living/dining room ceiling~~ DONE

· ~~re-texture living room, dining room, bedrooms & study~~ DONE

· ~~gut the existing bathroom~~ IN PROGRESS- grout & finishing touches are all that is left

· ~~gut the kitchen~~ IN PROGRESS- still needs outlets, grout on granite, old gas pipes cut out, door for water shut-off, upper cabinet above stove, and appliances

· re-finish the hardwood floors

· new windows

· ~~new roof~~ DONE, well sort of done. The original roof guy did a crappy job & refuses to certify his work. Which is a big problem. He won’t be getting paid & we have to get another company out to re-do the work.

· paint the exterior of the house IN PROGRESS- brick is primed

· ~~remove front fence~~ DONE! Rest of fence still needs to get painted

· ~~tear down existing sheds~~ DONE

· ~~move the washer/dryer hook-ups & hot water heater to new closet~~ DONE!

· ~~build master bedroom with closet & master bath on the existing patio foundation~~

· ~~build family room on rest of patio foundation with french doors to backyard~~

· and, maybe, a little bit of yardwork IN PROGRESS- yard is being watered & mowed. After calculating how much it will cost in gas & time to maintain the yard from the time the contractors finish to the time it closes, we decided not to do any yardwork. If needed we will offer a concession but considering the yard looks as nice as the rest of the block, we are not too concerned.

We ran into a few snags along the way over the past 3 weeks.

Snag 1: The contractor let his Denver license expire and did not get the proper permits before he started the addition because he was trying to save money. Since the house was vacant for so long, it was on the vacant/abandoned list. All that means, is that there is a city official that drives by a couple of times a month to check on the house. He of course saw the work going on & saw that it was being done without permits & shut the job down until the inspector could come by. The inspector came by, told the contractor to get a valid license, and what permits he would need as well.

After a week and a half delay, the contractor had a valid license & permits. The permits cost a grand total of $85. Yes, $85. Seems like a HUGE amount to be concerned about, right. Before the city would approve the permits for the addition, they needed to see a floor plan.

Snag 2: While Home Depot was creating the plan, work was able to continue on the rest of the house. We had the furnace guy come out to certify the furnace. The furnace was shot. It was original to the house & had never been cleaned. So we needed to replace it. Not too big of a deal because we had planned this into the budget.

Well at this same time, the city came back & said we could not use the original patio foundation & we needed to increase the pitch of the roof for the addition. This added about $6000 work which was not budgeted for. So the addition had to go bye-bye :(

But this freed up a little money so we are able to put in air conditioning along with the new furnace, so it was not all bad.

Snag 3: Over Memorial weekend, someone kicked in the back door & stole a bunch of materials & tools. They took off with the tub, sink, toilet, shower tile and other misc things. Basically all of the materials for the new bathroom to the tune of about $1500. The contractor for some reason did not call the police or let us know until this past weekend. So we are trying work with the insurance company & see what we can do at this point to file a claim. If that is even possible.

But all in all, it is coming along nicely. And it is set to be done by Saturday! We already have it on the market & the feedback has been very good. It won't be long before it is under contract.

I have updated the photo gallery with some pictures from the past 3 weeks. Or you can see a slide show of the photos here. What do you think so far?

Math Wiz

2008-05-06T14:22:00.002-06:00

So I am married to a math genius. He gets is from his parents, especially his dad. His dad's favorite bar trick back in the day was to tell people he could add or multiply faster in his head than you could with a calculator. By the time the person could get the numbers into the calculator, he would have the answer. He could supposedly go up to 17 digits (or 100 trillion) in his head.

Last night we were at the grocery store & while we were checking out, Ben goes "the total is going to be $114.25." Want to know what the total was, $117.55. He was off by $3.30. Subconsciously he managed to add everything we purchased as we walked through the store. The only reason he was off was because he was not sure how much all of the produce we bought weighed. He had estimated on the green beans, squash, zucchini, apples, sweet potatoes, avocado, and grapes. And yet was still within under $5. This is a very regular occurrence. He is normally within $5. Expect when we separate at the store & he does not see everything I put in the cart. Then he is off by $10-$15. Ridiculous, right?

Here's another even more ridiculous one... Easter weekend we went to the store where Ben stated we bought $200 worth of groceries. The bill totaled only $149. I was making fun of him for being so far off. I mean, he is never off by $50. So he shows me the receipt, where it showed how much we saved. We had saved $51. $149 spent + $51 saved = $200 worth of groceries. So not only did he add what we spent, he also managed to subconciously add how much we saved on every single item.

So my husband is seriously bizarrely smart when it comes to math. It kind of freaks me out every time he does it.

Next Project

2008-05-04T21:20:00.003-06:00

We closed on our next project on April 25. It is a lovely aqua colored brick house located in the North Park Hill neighborhood.

It is currently a 2 bed, 1 bath house with a study. The original porch was turned into an additional room with 2 storage sheds attached to the house. Both storage sheds were fully sheet-rocked & insulated on the inside. It appeared that they were used as bedrooms. This house is much cleaner than our last project. The paint colors are atrocious however.

Want to see before pictures, go here.

Our plan of action is:

scrap popcorn ceiling off of living/dining room ceiling
re-texture living room, dining room, bedrooms & study
gut the existing bathroom
gut the kitchen
re-finish the hardwood floors
new windows
new roof
paint the exterior of the house
remove front fence
tear down existing sheds
move the washer/dryer hook-ups & hot water heater to new closet
build master bedroom with closet & master bath on the existing patio foundation
build family room on rest of patio foundation with french doors to backyard
and, maybe, a little bit of yardwork

It is an ambitious timeline. We are hoping to be done in 30 days and have the house back on the market end of May or early June.

We are currently one week into the project. (By, we, I mean the contractors.) The new roof is on, the sheds have been torn down, the framing is up for the new master suite and family room, existing bath has been gutted, kitchen has been gutted and the front of the house is being prepared for re-texturing.

Want to see the progress, go here.

Childhood saying comes to life

2008-04-28T13:02:00.008-06:00

Did your parents ever tell you something silly that wasn't really true to get you to do something or stop doing something? You know like when you were little & making a stupid face and your parents told you to be careful, your face might freeze like that? You knew your face wouldn't freeze like that, but you were still scared it might, so you stopped.

Well, my mother-in-law told one of these such sayings to her boys as they were growing up, "if you poke someone in their belly button, their insides will fall out". Most likely it was because she did not like her belly button being touched. Who knows. So my husband has a fear of having his navel touched. And I make fun of him for it. Because really, your insides won't fall out. At least, that is what I used to think until Friday.

Since his last surgery, we have been joking every time I touch his belly button that his insides are going to fall out. And on Friday, we learned that indeed, I have caused his insides to fall out again. The hernia has reoccurred for a 3rd time. So he is going to have to have surgery again to repair it again.

We met with the surgeon today to find out the course of action. Said surgeon was a real ass to both Ben & me. He informed us he will not do the surgery until Ben has lost 40-50 pounds. That it wasn't the fact that he (the dr) had been conservative in his treatment over the past 8 weeks when Ben started showing signs of a problem. No, that wasn't what lead to the large hernia that now exists, no it is solely my husband's weight that caused the problem.

He was such an ass that he decided the appointment was done while we were still in the middle of asking questions about what to do in the meantime and told us to come back in 2 months & he walked out. We have no idea of what symptoms to watch for. Just if it gets unbearable or the symptoms get worse, make an appointment or go to the emergency room.

We are getting a 2nd opinion tomorrow in hopes that we can find a doctor with a better bedside manner and who will provide us with excellent care, instead of the adequate care that we have gotten up till now.

You wouldn't believe me...

2008-04-17T13:27:00.003-06:00

Would you believe me if I told you when I left work on Tuesday it was summer-like outside & yesterday it looked like a blizzard? That there was a 50 degree difference? No? Not possible?

How about now?

(taken at 4:45 pm on Tuesday 4/15)

(taken at 5:00 pm on Wednesday 4/16)

Most people have been complaining about how crazy the weather is. There were several shocked & unhappy people at work when it started snowing after lunch yesterday. The weather had been forecasting snow for days, so exactly how you could be shocked that it was snowing, I don't know. Welcome to springtime in Colorado. The weather can be a little bizarre.

But I personally enjoy these spring snows. It sticks to the grass, but melts on the streets & sidewalks. Which means my plants & grass get much needed water, but I don't have to shovel. And I hate shoveling. Of course, the 80 minute commute because of the crazy snow did suck. But I didn't have to shovel, so all is good :)

Factory video

2008-04-15T14:18:00.002-06:00

Today I googled one of the factories I work with & found a video Patagonia made about them. If you want to see it go here.

I also stumbled upon this video Patagonia had made about another factory they work with. It is the same factory that I went to visit in Vietnam last year. This was always my favorite factory to visit because of how clean & beautiful it is. You can get an idea of how nice the factory is in the video.

EEK!!!

2008-03-21T15:28:00.002-06:00

Have you seen this? They are apparently planning to do a remake/spinoff of 90210! I am not joking; it is seriously being worked on for the fall season. Don't believe me? Here's the plot for the new version.

My only question is which is more pathetic, that they are remaking it or the fact that I actually know about it....

Women of Mt Rushmore

2008-03-19T12:53:00.002-06:00

On the radio this morning they asked an interesting question, if you were to replace the 4 men of Mt Rushmore with 4 women, who would those women be? It came from a poll on this website.

My first thought was how many people could come up with 4 women? Could you? On my drive to work, I thought about who I would pick. I came up with Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B Anthony, and Sojourner Truth. Who would you pick?

I honestly had a hard time coming up with many women. My list totaled probably 8 or 9. Not because there aren't great amazing women to choose from, just that I had a hard time remembering them. I could come up with a bunch of men pretty easily, but women were harder. I did not learn about as many women as I did men during school. In college, I did, since I went to a women's college, but for the other 12 years of my education I did not. You really only focused on women during women's history month. So the names were harder for me to remember.

At lunch, I looked at the poll to see who the winners were. And I read an interesting comment on it that really struck me because I had not even thought of it like this:
"It’s a presidential memorial, so it would take a minimum of 32 years to make four women eligible, some of whom would now scarcely be grown-ups. And as of the moment, we don’t even seem to be getting started." - Judith Martin

Based on that, how is it after 219 years there is not one single woman that we could put up there?

Guide to Hiring Women

2008-03-14T16:28:00.004-06:00

This article was only from 65 years ago. It's interesting to see how far women have come in the workplace in a relatively short time. (If you click on the image it will open larger in another window so you can actually read it.)

My Husband Rocks!

2008-03-12T14:55:00.003-06:00

So I just have to brag about my husband for a minute. Yesterday his company had their quarterly recognition meeting and he won 3 awards: Rookie of the Quarter, Top Producer of the Quarter, and a third one that for the life of me I can not remember now. But it was equally as awesome.

He has 5 houses under contract right now, is writing an offer for another one tonight & is in the process of negotiating a contract on this one.

For a market that supposedly sucks, he sure is able to keep busy. What are we going to do when the market "turns" and he sells 3x this many houses in one month?

Updated 3/14: link fixed.

Dilemma

2008-02-21T09:19:00.003-07:00

So I have a dilemma right now. A friend has asked me to help her with patternmaking for her company.

The dilemma is that if I help her, I will probably have to put my own line on hold again. (It's been on hold while I was taking care of sicky.) Since I have been putting it off for so long, I really don't want to continue delaying it.

But helping her would bring in extra money that we always could use, you know, with all the medical bills we have pouring in right now. I could also then put some of the money towards my own projects too. And the more capital I have for my own line, the better it will be & the easier it will be to get it really going.

My job has gotten a little more intense lately with more work & better projects. And I still have my commute, which will get longer here in the next couple of months when we move buildings. And I have the property business that takes time for me every week too. So really how much time do I want to spend working?

I don't have too many details yet on how much work it would entail though, so that part is hard to weight at this point I guess.

So really I guess the dilemma is do I put my own business on hold even longer to make additional money that we could really use? And that in the end would help my business?

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Pure yumminess

2008-02-15T13:34:00.002-07:00

OK so I know that yumminess is not really a word. But it is the best way to describe these cupcakes that I made last night.

Yesterday was my boss's birthday. Since she was traveling on a business trip & HATES big celebrations, we decided to just fill her office with goodies so that she would be surprised when she came into work today.

I made the cupcakes pictured above because she is a cupcake lover. They are coconut cupcakes & are absolutely delicious. She loved them & so did everyone else. I was a little worried since I had never tried the recipe before, but I was pleased with the way they turned out. Where did I get the recipe, you ask? Why from Martha Stewart of course.

Want the recipe? Well here you go:

Ina's Coconut Cupcakes

3 cups cake flour, (non self-rising)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 pound sweetened flake coconut
Cream cheese frosting

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together into a medium mixing bowl, and set the bowl aside. Break eggs into a small bowl, and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. With the mixer running, carefully pour in eggs and vanilla and almond extracts.
Mix in the flour mixture and buttermilk by alternating between 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup buttermilk; be sure to start and end with the flour mixture. Add half the coconut, and mix until just incorporated.
Line a cupcake tin with paper liners. Fill each cup with batter using an ice-cream scoop with a 1/4-cup capacity; the batter should nearly reach the tops of the cups (but not all the way). Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove cupcakes from the oven, and allow them to cool briefly in the tin before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely, about 45 minutes. Generously ice them with cream cheese frosting, and sprinkle with remaining coconut.

Makes about 24-30 cupcakes.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place cream cheese in a medium mixing bowl. Using a rubber spatula, soften cream cheese. Gradually add butter, and continue beating until smooth and well blended. Sift in confectioners' sugar, and continue beating until smooth. Add vanilla, and stir to combine.

Makes enough to frost about 15 cupcakes.

I also toasted the extra coconut for the tops. To toast, put in 350 degree oven on a cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes. Stir several times during cooking. And keep a close eye on it because coconut burns quickly. (Trust me, I know from experience.)

Did I make you hungry? Are you going to try the recipe?

V-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-e-s D-a-y

2008-02-15T12:15:00.002-07:00

Here's how I spent my Valentine's night. Bet you are jealous, right?!?

Political Philosophy

2008-02-13T15:15:00.002-07:00

A quick, fun little quiz...

What's Your Political Philosophy?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as New Democrat

New Democrats emphasize fiscal conservatism, and have a strong preference for the free market. They believe in small-scale programs that provide targeted help to those in need, while working with the business community.

New Democrat

80%

Old School Democrat

70%

Pro Business Republican

55%

Libertarian

45%

Green

40%

Foreign Policy Hawk

40%

Socially Conservative Republican

Organization #1

2008-02-11T20:35:00.001-07:00

Remember, my New Year's resolutions??? Well, I started working on #3.

So last night while I was waiting for my husband to finish an open house, I started organizing our linen closet. I, of course, forgot to take pictures before I pulled everything out. But rather than not take any pictures, I decided to take pictures from when I thought about it.

So here are the shelves emptied out.

Here is some of the stuff that I pulled out. I could not believe the amount of medicine that was shoved in there.

And here is the rest of the stuff. I could not believe how much stuff we (really, I) had stashed on these shelves.

It was a little hard to decide what to keep & what it was time to get rid of. Like the crimping iron, I haven't used it since college, but my niece did a couple of years ago. And having it makes a quick for a quick Halloween costume. So I decided to keep it.

But I did get rid of the home spa, hot rollers, jewelry cleaner and shower shelves. None of which I have used since we moved into our house. And I had not used most of them since I moved back from Seattle

This is all of the medicine that I got rid of. My sister suggested a better way for the environment than flushing them down the toilet to get rid of them. She suggested putting them in the dirty cat litter before I throw it out. The odor will get into the pills & no one will want to take them.

Rather than put all the medicine back into the linen closet, I moved it into the medicine cabinet in the 1/2 bath. You know, the medicine cabinet that has been empty since we moved in.

But it is now being put to good use.

And here are the shelves, all neat & organized. Oh, and not packed to the gills.

Each drawer is separated out. All the band-aids in one, all my spa things in another. I need to get a label maker so I can mark each one. I know I am a dork, wanting a label maker, but I do.

Now to tackle the top shelf with all of the bedding, blankets, etc. that are shoved up there. That will have to wait until another day though. I have to figure out a better place to store it all first.

After

2008-02-07T21:35:00.000-07:00

So here are the "after" pictures of the condo. It is essentially done. All that is left is a few minor details like a couple vent covers, a light bulb and a little cleaning. We hopefully will have a renter for it after this weekend...

This is the first bathroom. We ended up having to replace the vanities because the old ones were infested with cockroaches. Gross!!!

This is the 2nd bathroom with its new vanity. We got this one for $100 off because there were some scratches on the inside (yes, the inside).

Remember the nasty shower from before? Well, here it is now. Much cleaner.

And here is the living room with new carpet & fresh paint. Much more inviting this time....

Finally, here is the kitchen. It has new cabinets (complete with doors on all spaces). AND we added the little pantry so that the stove would not ruin the refrigerator like before.

Another view of the kitchen.

So what do you think? Does it look livable now?

Crunchy Granola Squirrels

2008-02-01T09:54:00.000-07:00

I would love to say that no actual squirrels were harmed in the making of this post, but well, I would be lying...

The other day, Ben saw Sammy with a squirrel hanging out of her mouth. While he was out showing homes, apparently one of the squirrels that regularly tortures my dogs by running across the fence taunting them was stupid enough to go down into the yard. And well, my dogs decided to capture the squirrel.

We called the vet & she said not to worry about it. Dogs are natural hunters. So they will hunt. So we should not be concerned about the behavior. And unless the squirrel bit them, they did not need rabies shots. So I am trying to be calm about it, but it is freaking me out a little. Time to do some reading on dog behavior I guess.

(Was anyone else humming that song "the other day I saw a bear" after reading the 2nd paragraph? Maybe it was just me, but now that song is stuck in my head.)

I am sure you are wondering where the crunchy granola part comes in... Well, I have turned my husband crunchy granola. When he was going into the office on Wednesday, he took an empty travel coffee mug with him. I found it a little strange since he was taking an empty cup. Turns out that he does not like the cups at the office. I figured they were just small & he did not like having to keep refilling them. He said no, it's that they are those styrofoam cups & he does not like wasting styrofoam. He would rather use a reusable cup!

I have turned my husband into a crunchy granola!!! How did that happen?!?

Oh, and the carpet goes in tommorow so I should have "after" pictures this weekend.

1st property

2008-01-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

So we bought our first investment property last week. I say "we" because I find myself
being more involved in than originally planned. The plan is to rent it out.

It is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath condo that is near where the University of Colorado hospital & Children's hospital moved to. The interior is absolutely disgusting. The walls were stitcky. The carpet was black with filth. And it smelled so bad that you could only be inside for a little while before feeling nauseaous.

Here are some of the before pictures. The work will be completed next week and I'll post after pictures then.

This is the bathroom, and yes, it was seriously that filthy. Not sure what the contractors are using but it will sparkle when all is said & done.

This is the living room. The carpet was originally light gray. Could you imagine walking on this???

Another angle of the living room. Notice how filthy the vent is too.

The kitchen.

After we moved the refridgerator. Gross. Makes me want to clean behind mine!

And here was the stove. Would you ever cook on this?!?

Resolutions

2008-01-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

So I do not normally make New Year's resolutions. I can't even remember the last time I did. You always hear how no one keeps the resolutions they make. So to me I have always thought what is the point, why make a resolution if I won't end up following through with it anyway. Why waste the time?

But I have been changing my thought process over the last few weeks. Helping Ben with his businesses, I have noticed the way to be successful is to plan. If you do not have a solid business plan & focus, your business cannot thrive. And then I saw an article somewhere that talked about how the best chance you have to make your New Year's resolutions stick is to make a specific plan before you start of how you plan achieve. (Of course, I can't find that article again to link to it.)

So I have decided to give the whole "making New Year's resolution thing" a try. Here are the few that I have:

1. Financial Security
- this one is pretty self-explanatory, we want to get to the point where we do not have to worry about having enough money each month. We are very close, just not quite there yet.
2. Get healthier
- I want to get to a healthy body fat percentage. I do not care so much how much I weigh, as long as I am healthy.
3. Organize our house & lives.
- Over the next year, I want to go through each room of our house & organize everything. By next Christmas I do not want to spend 30 minutes searching for my spreading knives. I want to know exactly where they are & be able to get them easily. (I never did find them this year, who knows which of the multitudes of storage I have of where they can be...)
4. Continue working on my own business
- I have no idea what my plan is for this one. Or even what I want to accomplish. I still need to figure all that out. But it is on the list so that I do not put it off.

We have a whole detailed plan of how we plan to accomplish each of these. (Well, all except for #4 that is.) I didn't want to put it all here & bore you to death. But there is a plan in place for each.

So do you have any resolutions you are making this year?

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T13:22:00.001-07:00

How did you spend your New Year's Eve? I spent mine in the hospital with Ben. On Sunday he wasn't feeling too well & so he called the on-call doctor to see if we could wait until the morning when he had a follow-up appointment with the doctor or if we needed to go the ER. Of course, he told us to go to the ER. That's our luck, right?

They found that the hernia has ruptured. It is not nearly as big as it was the 1st time, which is good. We are not sure what exactly caused it to tear; it could have been a cough, a sneeze, twisting wrong, or losing his balance on the ice. He has been very careful about what he lifts so most likely it wasn't that.

But he still has to have surgery to repair it again. The surgery is scheduled for some time tomorrow afternoon.

So that is how I spent mine. Hope yours was better than mine.

Snow!!!

2007-12-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

So my office is closed today due to the inclement weather. It's not really snowing that hard but it is frigid outside. And I mean frigid, 17 degrees frigid to be exact.

I'm not complaining about having a surprise extra day off. I got all of our Christmas presents put away & all of the dishes cleaned up from our Christmas Eve party with my family. The laundry is almost all done. And I have swept & dusted the upstairs. And it is only 2:00.

Unfortunately I will not be able to play for the rest of the afternoon. I have to go outside and shovel the driveway & sidewalk before it gets dark. But once that is done, I will be able to do whatever I want. Not sure if I will sit & read a book or play with my new bedazzler.

Yes I got a bedazzler for Christmas. I am very excited about it. I know that I am a dork, it's OK. I have wanted one for quite sometime, but have never been able to justify spending money to buy it.

Christmas was pretty mellow around here this year. I did not really get into the Christmas spirit until about a week before. We did not even get the tree up until the 16th. And we normally have our up the first weekend in December. We spent Christmas Eve with my family. And we drove through the snow to Greeley to spend Christmas day with Ben's family. It was the first time that I spent Christmas away from my family so it was a little strange for me. But all was well.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

Our Christmas tree all decorated. Those were the only presents that made it under the tree before Christmas Eve this year....

Christmas Eve with my dad's side of the family. Yes, the TV is on because the Broncos were playing so the game had to be on.
And Christmas day with Ben's brother's family & his Grandpa Jack & Aunt Linda (she took the picture)

Guess I have procrastinated enough.... I really need to go shovel so I can get it done while it is still light outside...

2007-12-17T12:35:00.001-07:00

So I have been eating this super easy, super yummy lunch lately. It looked very appetizing today so I decided to take a picture of it. Green Giant has come out with these frozen veggie mixes that you steam in the microwave. I like the Healthy Weight & Healthy Vision varieties. All I add is the shrimp. The veggies are lightly seasoned too, which makes them very tasty. Now to figure out how to make on my own so I don't get bored with them.... That will probably have to wait until the new year though.

spools and spools and...

2007-12-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

I discovered that I have a few spools of black thread. 11 to be exact. (I found 2 more after taking this picture!) They multiple like rabbits apparently when I'm not looking.

This doesn't count the 3 or so that I threw away because the thread was rotten. Nor does it count the black special threads I have. I have black button thread, black upholstery thread and black serger thread too. And I wonder how many more spools I have tucked away in odd places.

Apparently I need to start sewing more so that I can use up all of this thread. And I need to come up with a cool project for all of the empty spools I will have. Right now the wood ones go into a mason jar for decoration but the plastic ones & styrofoam ones go straight to the trash.

Got any ideas of what I can use empty plastic spools for?

6 months later...

2007-12-10T14:16:00.001-07:00

WARNING: this is a wee bit long.... It has been 6 months since I read Life Beyond Headaches. It has been 6 months since we found the wonderful Dr. Randy James, the atlas orthogonal specialist, who has fixed Ben's headaches. It has been 6 months since headaches stopped ruling our lives.

833 days ago Ben got the "worst headache" of his life. It came on suddenly on August 29, 2005 while we were folding laundry before bed. Ben grabbed the right side of his head because the pain was so intense. The area above his right eye was visibly swollen. It felt like someone was stabbing a spike through his eyeball. Ben had gotten headaches like this in the past (just not quite as intense) so we were not concerned. He took some medicine & went to bed.

That day we had been working on laying flooring in our condo. It was also the day that Hurricane Katrina hit. Nothing too out of the ordinary that would cause such a horrific headache. But it was the day that his headache started & took control of our lives.

In the days & weeks that followed we went to the ER at least 5 times. CT scan, xrays & MRI all came back clear. The spinal tap came back clear. Nothing looked to be wrong. At this point we did not have a diagnosis. All they did was pump him full of narcotics & steroids.

Our first neurologist called it a "chronic migraine" and only wanted to inject him with botox. But before insurance would cover that, you have to try 3 other migraine treatments. So we tried 3 different drugs, topamax, maxalt, and DHE treatments. None did anything to relieve the headache though. The pain was so bad that Ben could no longer work. Looking at a computer for any length of time increased the intensity of the headache. Being under fluorescent lights increased the intensity.

After the 3 treatments & 3 months, the doctor said there was nothing else he could do except try the Botox. Not wanting that, we researched other options & found the Michigan head pain clinic. The neurologist signed off on it. And we were all set for an appointment Dec 19, 2005 for a 2 week examination. But insurance would not cover it, since it was out of network. We could not afford the $10,000 fee so we were back to square one.

We found a new neurologist who called it "chronic daily headache". She recommended physical therapy & some more drugs. After about a month or so, the physical therapy started to help. The intensity of the headache would lessen. Not go away, but would lessen. With the physical therapy, Ben was able to go back to work.

His physical therapist felt that there was something wrong with his neck though. Every time Ben would come in, the right side would be locked down, like it was protecting the spinal cord. The worse his headache was that day, the tighter the neck was locked down. The body was trying to say something was not right.

So she recommended we go see a neurosurgeon she worked with. The neurosurgeon looked at his MRI, CT scan & xray. What he found was cervical spinal stenosis. And what he told us was that there was nothing he could fix. Yes, his spine was "ugly". But fixing it to make it look pretty was not going to make the headache go away. And he would not do neurosurgery to fix "ugly". (Which we were very thankful for, really who wants surgery especially near the brain if it's not going to make you better.)

So he recommended we go see a pain management specialist. We started seeing him in June 2006. The specialist decided that nerve blocks were the best way to proceed. Se we started the nerve blocks between his C2 & c3 vertebrae. The first one proved to be successful. It was 2 weeks before our wedding. Ben was essentially pain free. It last through our wedding and through the honeymoon. It allowed us to not think about the headache & enjoy our special day. But then pain started to come back. So they did another nerve block. And another. And another. And another. The time between nerve blocks was getting shorter each time when it should have been getting longer. So the PM specialist tried nerve blocks in other places on his cervical spine. But by Dec 2006, the nerve blocks were no longer working & he told us there was nothing else he could do. So again we were back to square one.

We asked the neurosurgeon & PM specialist to recommend a neurologist for us. And we started seeing our 4th neurologist. He diagnosed it as a chronic headache. And had us try a few other drugs. At this point, I also started researching headaches to see what I could find. I found a couple of different drugs (indomethicin being one) that we had not tried & so the doctor let us try them. Still nothing seemed to work. And there were no other headache drugs to try. So after about 4 months, he also said there was nothing he could do, we were going to have to just live with the headache.

Desperate for an answer, we went to the library to see what we could find. I knew that there had to be a why for the pain. And until we knew the why, we were not going to be able to treat the pain effectively. The past 29 months had taught us that much. And that was where I found the miracle that changed our lives.

After 4 neurologists, 3 specialists, countless tests, ER visits, doctors appointments and even more countless drugs I found the why. The "why" was that the C1 vertebrae was at a 45 degree angle. Remember when I said that the neurosurgeon did not fix ugly. Well, this was the ugly. The "ugly" was the cause of the pain. We spent 2 1/2 years treating a headache. And it wasn't a headache at all. The pain was actually referred pain from the vertebrae being off & rubbing nerves the wrong way. The vertebrae being off was what caused the neck to lock down. That was why the physical therapy helped, the vertebrae would slip back into place. And that is why the nerve blocks worked, they deadened the nerve that was being rubbed.

And once we found the why, we were able to quickly improve the pain. Within 3 months Ben was able to function without worrying about the pain. And now 6 months later, we rarely have a time where the pain rules our life. Let alone the days & weeks that it used to. I can't even remember the last time the pain caused him to need drugs or a nap or caused us to miss out on something.

So yes, finding that book & find Dr. James 6 months ago really was a miracle. Because without it we would still be living our life in limbo trying to get rid of the headache. Now we are able to focus on the future. And once the collateral damage the pain caused is fixed in our life, the headache will only be a bad memory.

I love iTunes

2007-12-06T13:02:00.000-07:00

I absolutely love iTunes. I love that I can listen to the music of other people I work with. I just clicked on a new person's music that I had not explored yet. And ran across a band I have not listened to in almost 10 years now.

It's a band I was introduced to in college by my roommate Natalie. The band was SonVolt. We went to their concerts together every time SonVolt was in town. I remembered the words to both songs I listened to so far. It brought back some very good memories & times I have not thought about in a very, very long time.

I love that with a click of the mouse, it was all there for me. Gotta love technology sometimes.

Oh, and Beth, when you read this, does it freak you out that it's been almost 10 years??? EEK! It did me when I was proofing this...

Goodbye Heffalump

2007-12-04T13:20:00.000-07:00

So today is surgery day for Ben. They are going to repair the incisional hernia by shoving his insides back in where they belong. Woohoo!!!

We have been referring to his growing mass as his heffalump. So last night I made him a t-shirt with a heffalump on it. The head is the actual size of the hernia. (It's a little large, huh?)

He even has a little song that he has been singing (to the tune of "My Humps" by Black Eye Peas):
My lump, my lump, my lovely heffalump.

Side view so can see how far the lump sticks out

Updated 3:06 pm- they actually took him back for surgery on time! Right before they took him back, they gave him the "good" drugs. Boy he as goofy. He was playing with his surgical cap making it into a beret & talking in a french accent. Very silly :)

updated 5:06 pm- he's out of surgery & it went well. They did use the cadaver skin stuff. It's called Alloderm. So his heffalump has now been deflated.

Hee hee

2007-12-03T21:46:00.001-07:00

ABC* Cookie Cutters - Gingerbread Man
*Already Been Chewed!

Tuckered out

2007-12-01T22:02:00.000-07:00

The life of a dog is soooo exhausting. Lily & Sammy played so hard outside, they needed a nap. And of course had to be in the middle of everything, so they napped exactly where I was working. Aren't they cute though?

(The paper shreds are not from the dogs. We were shredding old credit card statements & bills. And every time I emptied the shredder, some little pieces fell out. And they both had to be right there by me.)

1st Annual Blogger Craft Fair

2007-11-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, one of my friends at work told me about this online craft fair that her friend was putting together for this weekend. So I re-shot some of my pictures last night & furiously finished up my Etsy page in hopes that I would be included.

I was one of the lucky ones to be picked for the First Annual Blogger Holiday Arts and Craft Fair. Yippee!!! So I will madly be working this weekend adding to my Etsy page in hopes that someone will like what they see & will buy.

So far there the dress I added last night has been viewed 28 times! Not bad for only be on-line for 12 hours. (Of course, who knows how many of those are from people I know, instead of from complete strangers.)

Guess what I did...

2007-11-28T22:27:00.000-07:00

Click here to find out!

Surgery update

2007-11-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

We met with the surgeon yesterday. Because the pain has not lessened & the hernia is getting bigger, the surgeon wanted to repair it sooner rather than later. Which is exactly what we wanted as well.

So surgery is scheduled for next Tuesday, 12/4 at 3:00 pm. Instead of using mesh to patch the tear, the doctor is going to use cadaver something-or-other. If the body rejects the mesh at some point, they have to go in and re-do the surgery. So to avoid that, the doctor is going straight to the cadaver stuff. Basically the way he explained it, it is the skeletal system (or latice work) of the inner layers of skin but without any living cells. After it is attached to your body, your own cells start growing on it & supplying it with blood. Then it becomes a natural part of your body. Much better than a forgein object in you.

And they will do the incision exactly where the gallbladder one is so there will only be 1 scar & hopefully reduce the chance of recurrance. Of course, this is my husband we are talking about, so no matter what, there is a good chance of recurrance. The smaller the percentage of something occuring in the general population, the more likely it will happen to him.

So that is what we know for now. He will have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days after the surgery. But the recovery should be pretty quick.

Not quite 6 months

2007-11-21T16:23:00.000-07:00

Well, we didn't make it 6 months. Monday Ben had a doctor's appointment to go over the results from a CT scan. He'd been having some pains in his side off & on and the spot where his gallbladder was removed was growing.

We had been working since August to get this looked at, but with my new job, that meant new health insurance & we had to go through all of the approvals again. And we weren't too concerned about the bump. So it took until now to get it looked at.

On Sunday the pain started to be pretty constant. So it was a good thing that he had an appointment the next day.

The doctor looked at the CT & checked his belly. Due to the amount of pain he was in & where it was located, they were concerned about appendicitis. So they sent him over to the emergency room to get another CT scan.

We are in the ER enough that the staff remembers us! One of the lab techs remembered us & was showing us his new tattoo of his son's baby foot. It's just wrong that we are recognized.

After about 7 1/2 hours in the ER, they came into to tell us that it was not appendicitis and that they were discharging him with pain medicine. If the pain persisted, we were to go see his PCP. Of course, we were not happy about this as you can imagine. The pain had been constant since Sunday & was getting worse in intensity. So of course, it was not going to go away. And we did not want a repeat of his gallbladder surgery where he was discharged from the ER & the next day he was taken straight from the dr office & admitted to the hospital to have surgery.

We told the nurse that it was not acceptable & she talked to the ER doctor & his PCP. They decided to admit him. So he was taken upstairs at about 10:30 pm for "observation".

We found out around lunch time yesterday that the pain is most likely from an incisional hernia from the gallbladder surgery 11 months ago. But since there is no intestinal strangulation or obstruction, there is no need for immediate surgery. Even though there is significant pain, that's not enough reason for surgery.

Before releasing him, they needed to be sure that he could eat food. So we ordered a yummy lunch of noodles & mashed potatoes. After eating about 15 noodles, he got pasty white & nauseous. So they pumped hm full of anti-nausea medicine. But wanted to "wait & see" how he felt later. This time before dinner they drugged him up to make him eat.

Well, that all went well. So he should have been released last night or this morning. Well, it is 5:00 pm & we are still here. The surgeon already came in to see us around 1:00 & we have an appointment scheduled with him for Monday to discuss surgery. Now all we have to wait for is his PCP to sign the docs to release him. And he is taking his sweet ass time...

Stress...

2007-11-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

A friend shared this about stress with me. I found it to be an interesting way to view the toll stress takes on you. And since I have a tendency to be a stress-monger every once in awhile, it fits me well at times.

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked,"How heavy is this glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.

The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. "

"As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden."

"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can."

New toy...

2007-11-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

I finally got the dress form that I mentioned awhile ago. Here is what it looks like with Makenna's flower girl dress on it. Now I have to find someplace in my house to take pictures of it so that it looks professional. (The back door isn't it, at least in my opinion.) Oh, and, I have to actually make something to take pictures of.

I have got a design done, using fabric from my stash. And the pattern to start from. And borrowed my aunt's serger. So now I just have to put the pieces together. And voila, I will have a dress to sell. Stay tuned...

Trying to be healthy....

2007-11-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have slacked off on posting this week. I would love to say it was because my life has been so busy & exciting, but nothing like that has happened recently.

The reason I have been slacking is I joined the Biggest Loser Club a couple of weeks ago. And I joined a 6 week boot camp on it that started last Friday. Part of it is reading & posting to the message boards. That has been taking up a significant portion of my days.

But it is definitely helping (I've lost 3 lbs in the last 2 weeks!). My goal is to be to a healthy weight some time between March & May so that we can start trying to have babies. Yes, I know, I am losing weight, only to gain it back. I know it kind of doesn't make sense. But it is what I am doing.

I am also working towards having a healthier life in general. Working for an eco-friendly company & all the crunchy granola people that work here, makes me stop & think about how natural & healthy my life is. Now I don't plan on becoming one of those nutty, crazy natural people.

The other reason I am working towards a more natural life is because Ben has issues cleaning our house. We are finding that most of the cleaners give him headaches. Even the carpet deodorizer I use will give him headaches hours after I use it. A few weeks ago, he was scrubbing the kitchen sink with Comet, had to go sit down, and sat in the sunroom where I had used the deodorizer a couple hours earlier. He had to go lay down because he was feeling so bad.

So I have been looking for natural cleaning supplies or recipes. Gaiam does sell some of the Seventh Generation cleaners so I can always buy them with my discount. I have also found this site and this site which have recipes. And then today I found a post on this blog about another company.

Of course, I have not actually started using any natural cleaners. But the only reason is I am fully stocked on my normal cleaners right now. And we can not afford for me to throw it all away & buy all new. So as I finish a cleaner up, I am going to replace it with something non-toxic.

Then maybe someday my husband will be able to help clean the house again... Oh, and we will be healthier too.

Halloween Part 2

2007-11-02T11:31:00.000-06:00

So I was going to post this last night but our internet was down (again). Gotta love Qwest! My goal was to post every day this month; guess I'm not off to a good start :)

Saturday night, we got dressed up & went to Milo's (a bar not too far from our house) with my sister. Milo's was having a costume contest where you could win $300 for best costume. We can always use extra money so I made a few alterations to Ben's costume in hopes he might win.

Last year, we bought him a Spartucus costume for a party we went to. He added his Broncohead to the costume & became Bronco Spartucus. But the sash was red & gold. So this year, I replaced it with an orange sash with blue sequin trim. Again he wore his Broncohead, which was complete with the olive headdress.

Well, unfortunately he did not win 1st place. Which was good because it was a $300 gift certificate to the bar. He did win 2nd place though. And won the beautiful dart board he is holding below. We are going to clean the garage this weekend so he can hang it up. In the end he won the better prize.

The evening turned out to be very fun. And we stayed out WAY past our bed time. My sister's best friend from high school, Carmien, was there. They had not seen each other in about 4 years so they spent time catching up. And Carmien's boyfriend was someone I knew in high school so it was interesting to hear about people I haven't talked to in over 10 years.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-31T20:33:00.001-06:00

Happy Halloween! Yes, I am one of those people that dressed their dogs up for Halloween.... I know. I know. But the costumes were just too cute to pass up. So I had to buy them. Lily lasted in hers for about 10 minutes but Sammy lasted in hers for over an hour.

We also dressed up. Just not tonight. Hopefully I will have pictures to post tomorrow of Ben & me in our costumes. Tonight we had about 10 trick-or-treaters. Not too bad considering there are no children on our block.

Here are a few more pictures of the dogs:

My office

2007-10-25T13:39:00.000-06:00

I have been working on making my part of the basement a more workable office. One thing I was lacking is somewhere to hang my inspiration & trend photos. Normally I make trend boards on foam core but I have no where & no way to hang them up. So I had to come up with another way to display.

When we moved to our new building at work, each person with an office got a full wall of cork tiles. So they had a bulletin board the size of an entire wall. So I thought about buying an over sized bulletin board to hang up. They were more expensive than I wanted to spend, but I found cork tiles of my own. Perfect!

So I bought some & hung them on the wall above my desk. Of course, the sticky pads they came with didn't work. The tiles kept falling off. So I finally glued them to the wall last night. And, presto! I had a reusable trend/inspiration board.

And yes, I drew the pictures hanging on either side of the board. The desk is an old student desk. It came from the elementary school my great-great-aunt went to. And my grandfather painted it blue. Some day I plan to strip it & stain it back to it's original color, which was a dark mahogany/cherry color. Someday.

Wedding Quilt

2007-10-24T13:49:00.001-06:00

So my dear, sweet sister-in-law, Ellen, made us a beautiful quilt for our wedding. We got it during their visit in July. We have been using it for a few weeks now that the weather is cooling off at night. I finally got around to taking a couple of pictures of it this weekend. So while the bed was made & there were no animals on it, I tried to figure out how to get the best shot.

It is a difficult quilt to take of picture of that does it justice. It fades from light at the top to dark at the bottom. But since our bed literally takes up the whole room, it was hard to get the effect. But, trust me, it is a beautiful piece of work.

And she took the time to add 2 calla lilies appliques at the bottom corner. They are my favorite flower, so it was quite appropriate. The quilt pattern is a cool, funky swirl pattern which also fits me perfectly.
So thank you, Ellen, for the beautiful wedding gift. We really do love it & really are using it.

Trophy

2007-10-23T16:44:00.000-06:00

So we have a little football pool going on at work. Each week we pick who will win a game (normally the Sunday night game) and how many points total scored. The winner gets a non-alcoholic drink of their choice.

So the game we bet on over the weekend was the Steelers vs Broncos. I was grumpy because I can not go against the Broncos, being the die-hard fan that I am. And after watching the embarrassment a couple of weeks ago by the Chargers, I was sure the Broncos were going to lose this one too. But I had no choice, I had to pick the Broncos.

Miracle of miracles, they actually won the game! And so the oh-so-beautiful trophy landed on my desk. It consists of a candlestick, bundt cake pan & football wrapped in foil. Isn't it lovely? Aren't I lucky to have it on my desk all week? I bet you are jealous :)

Free Beer

2007-10-23T10:31:00.000-06:00

So Saturday night Ben, Margaret (my sister) and I went to see one of my favorite bands, Jackopierce at the Soiled Dove Underground.

The Soiled Dove is a really great place to see a concert for grownups. They have tables to sit at & a bartender that brings the drinks to you. Very chic. We of course sat up front because I did not want to be back with the talkers.

After the opening act, Creede Williams (who was hilarious & decent music too), the waitress brought me 2 extra beers "from the band". I freaked out for a little bit about why I got the free beers, since I was sitting there with my husband, but my sister suggested that it was because I was sitting front row center. And that made sense to me.

The concert was absolutely awesome. Jackopierce is my favorite band to see live. It is all acoustic but there is still so much energy. And they love Colorado, it's like a 2nd home to them. I knew every single song except for the new one. I was probably pretty funny to watch because I was literally bouncing in my seat, clapping, screaming & singing every word along with them. You know you have seen a band a few too many times when you can tell which song they are going to sing before the 1st words come out of their mouths :) This was my 11th time seeing them. (Most of those times were while I was in college though.)

Every semester they would come play at The Blue Note around finals. You had to buy tickets the day they went on sale otherwise it would sell out. I saw them every semester except for 1st semester my freshman year. There was always a bunch of us that would go & inevitably we would run into others that we knew & have a huge group up front. The concerts are some of my most memorable times from college.

New shoes

2007-10-18T14:21:00.000-06:00

So I have a slight problem. I either have flip flops & sandals or boots to wear. I only have 1 pair of plain old shoes to wear. Which sucks right now because it is too cold for flip flops but not every day is boot weather.

So I went out last night to find a pair of shoes to add to my collection that will work during the fall transition time. And I found the most comfy new pair. Normally when I buy shoes, I end up with a blister or 10 on my feet by the end of the day. But not with these shoes. Not a single place being rubbed wrong or a single sore spot. I love them!!! And want them in every color! I totally recommend them.

(if you click on the picture above, it should be linked to more info about the shoes.)

Cleaning & other business

2007-10-15T16:11:00.000-06:00

Our weekend was spent mostly cleaning & working. We desperately needed to clean since it has been a little while & I can not stand the clutter & dust any more. I even moved an old dresser into the kitchen as temporary additional storage. We desperately need more drawers because we only have one drawer for all our cooking utensils which was overflowing. You often have to shake it to get it open or closed. But now I have space for all the utensils, the kitchen towels & even a place for our napkins & place mats. Hopefully soon I will be able to find a bakers rack or some kind of hutch that a) I like, b) is not an enormous piece of furniture and c) don't have to pay out the nose for.

The other part of the weekend was spent working on Ben's new business. He & his father have been discussing for some time now about going into property investment & management. And finally on Friday they decided to go for it and put an offer on a house. The house is a 3 bed 1 bath in desperate shape. We looked at it on Saturday & I wanted to cry when we were done. The outside doesn't look too bad. The yard is dead & littered with trash. But the inside was horrendous. I still can not believe that people live like this. The entire house was stained & filthy. Paint was splattered all over the living room (even on the TV). There were so many flies in the house that there was fly tape hanging in the dining room. In the kitchen, there were gnats all over, eggs sitting on the counter & about 1/2 the cabinet doors were missing. And the back door does not have a door knob, only a deadbolt.

There were 4 kids left home alone. All probably under the age of 9. The front door was unlocked. And no one told them we were coming over to look at the house. But they were not worried or scared there were strangers walking through the house.

And the worst part was there was a bright, shiny new truck in the driveway. These people were taking better care of a car then a house where children lived.

I felt amazingly blessed for the environment I grew up in & live in. And sad that there are children being raised in that environment. I can not fully explain the disgusting state this house was in.

But, we find out in about 2 weeks if the bank accepted the offer. If so, I will post some pictures so you can see what it looks like.

Brand name

2007-10-13T08:45:00.000-06:00

So my business needs a new name. Another woman has already taken susu designs & is using it to design Greek wear. So I have to come up with something else. And this time get it registered so it is mine.

So I have posted a poll to see which one of the options you think sounds best. If you come up with something else that is not listed, feel free to leave it in the comments.

Thanks for your help!

Big Step

2007-10-12T09:24:00.000-06:00

Ok, so remember the whole reason for me starting this blog? Well, I obviously have not done a very good job of working toward it, have I?. I keep letting life get in the way.

BUT...

I have now taken a big step to start working on my own line. I have purchased a dress form!

I bought the smallest one in this picture. One of me reasons for procrastination was not having a professional way to photograph my clothes. I found these on ebay for only $80 (including shipping). It is something to help me get started; I will get a fancier one when later when I have made a little money from my business.

So there will now be more posts about my designing & links to where I am selling.

Before & After

2007-10-05T09:49:00.001-06:00

We have spent the last couple of months working on our front yard. We had a total of 13 evergreen bushes, some of which were dying and some were too big for the space they were planted in. Oh, and Ben & I are not big fans of THIS many evergreens.

So here is a before picture that was taken on August 19. Notice the abdundance of green bushes, but brown yard :)

And here is the after taken this morning. I wanted to wait until my mums had started to bloom so there was a little bit of color. I love how you can see the rocks now. Before, the bushes were so big, you could not see all the beautiful rocks. Oh, and look how green our yard in now all thanks to the fixed sprinkler system.

We still have some more work to do before this project is actually finished. We have 30 years of needles to clean up in some places still. And all of the beds need to be cleaned out & re-edged. The yard needs to be re-seeded with drought tolerant & super sunny grass. And I need to plant some bulbs, flowers & other plants to add some color to the yard.

I am going to plant bulbs in the next week or so & the rest of the project will probably have to wait until spring time. Stay tuned for pictures in the spring of all the tulips, daffodils & crocuses in bloom.

"new" sewing machine

2007-10-04T13:23:00.000-06:00

A couple of weeks ago we stopped at a estate sale & found a vintage sewing machine. I was debating on whether or not to buy it when the lady said she would sell it to us for $30. I didn't need it, but couldn't pass it up for that price. Could you? So I added it to my small collection of machines. 4 sewing machines & 1 serger.

It has been sitting in my car since then waiting for me to figure out the model number & when it was made. Finally today I did some research at lunch contacted Singer, and discovered it was manufactured on February 18, 1914 in New Jersey. Unfortunately, it is not a much-coveted featherweight (which weren't made until 1933), but is a model 66.

I did find out some interesting facts about it too:
- originally it was a treadle machine & later was coverted to electric.
- the model 66 was introduced in 1900. It was seen as the machine for the new century due to the high arm style.
- it was also the 1st machine to have a fully enclosed needlebar, round bobbin and a horizontal oscillating hook. Most modern machine still use this principle.
- the decoration on the machine is Eygptian designs which was very popular at the time.

A couple of other interesting facts I learned were:
- In 1850, Singer made the 1st practical sewing machine by changing the direction parts moved. And also used the treadle instead of a hand crank (which was how all other machines were run at the time).
- the first Singer sewing machine cost $100 (in the early 1850's!!!).

Sizing

2007-09-27T15:22:00.000-06:00

Being in the fashion industry, I am often asked why the sizing of women's clothing varies so much. Why it's not more standard like men's.

I checked out some books from the library for work on how to grade patterns. Grading patterns is how you take a pattern that is one size and either increase or decrease it to the next size. Since I am responsible for the fit of our sizes, I want to get it as right as possible.

Well, anyway, in reading one of the books, it talked about how sizing came about & I found it interesting so I thought I would share in case you might be interested.

Women's clothing was originally based on your bust measurement, like it is in Europe. When clothing was first manufactured in America it followed this system, so if your bust measured 36", you wore a size 36. Then in the 1920's, there was a need for a younger looking garment, which was called "Missy" and adopted the 10-20 size range to differentiate itself from the women's sizes.

A California retailer of better apparel decided to change the labels on their clothes to one size larger around this time. So a size 16 was labelled a size 14. When women were asked what size they wore, the reply became "a 16 in a cheaper dress, but only a size 14 in a 'better' dress."

And this has continued to today where a size 8 has about the same measurements as a size 16 did when the size range was first introduced.

What I found the most interesting is how long ago this trend of up sizing started. Listening to the media, you would think that it was a more recent trend. But really is has been going on for almost 90 years.

best.massage.ever.

2007-09-27T15:07:00.000-06:00

So yesterday I got the best massage ever. My chiropractor recommended I get massage therapy to see if loosening the insane knot in my right shoulder would reduce the pain when I look over my right shoulder.

I was a little nervous going into it because I have always heard that massage therapy is nothing like the "spa massages" I've had. Supposedly theraputic does not equal relaxing especially if it a really deep tissue massage. But this was better than any one I've ever had.

The massage therapist happened to be blind which may have helped, I don't know. But she knew exactly how much pressure to use; never once did I wince in pain. (And she did use quite a bit of pressure.) And I was completely relaxed when she was done. This morning I felt fine when I woke up, no muscle pain. And since I drank water like a fish yesterday, I didn't even have a headache or feel sick from all of the toxins. Oh and I can look over my shoulder with only a little pain now.

It was amazing to say the least. And the other amazing part. It only cost me $20. Yes, $20 for a full hour. My "alternative" health insurance covers 50% for 10 visits a year to a out of network provider. (I love my job!) Even when all of my insurance is used up, it's only $40. Which is SO worth it. I get to go back Monday for another hour long massage. Ahhh...

143 days

2007-09-24T13:15:00.000-06:00

So my husband made it 143 days without having to visit an ER!!! For him this is a good streak. We visit the ER every 3 or 4 months or so. His last visit was in May for a vasal reaction.

Well last night we paid the Porter ER a visit. After eating a few ginger snaps for dessert, Ben's tongue started to itch, then his throat started to itch. Thinking it was allergic reaction, but not a big deal, we went to King Soopers to buy some Benadryl. As we are leaving the grocery store, he gets really dizzy & disoriented. He ends up sitting on the curb waiting while I go and pull the car up. By the time we get him in the car, he is starting to have a hard time swallowing & breathing.

They pumped him full of Benadryl, Pepcid & prednisone along with 2 liters of fluids to stop the reaction. The dr said the back of his throat was swelling & we would have ended up at the ER last night no matter what. And after 5 hours we were finally allowed to go home.

He is feeling better today, just tired. And he has to take the prednisone for 3 more days while his body finishes processing whatever he is allergic to. Now to figure out exactly what he is allergic to so we can avoid this in the future...

I have asked him if we can try & go at least 6 months this time without having to visit the ER. I know it's going to be hard since he loves the ER so much, but 3 visits in one year already seems like enough, don't you think?

Military Neck

2007-09-13T09:02:00.000-06:00

So I went to Ben's chiropractor on Tuesday because my shoulder has been bothering me for a few weeks. I have been talking about going ever since I started my new job. I have alternative health insurance (in addition to regular) that covers chiro work, acupunture & massage. Ben finally made me an appointment after listening to me talk about it doing if for almost 2 months.

On Tuesday, the chiro looked at my back & took some x-rays. Yesterday I went back to find out what the diagnosis was & get my first adjustment. I found out that I am competely out of whack. I have what is called "military neck". My neck is perfectly straight but should be curved like a banana. And my spine is twisted to the right at about my shoulder blades. And my right hip is twisted forward. Basically when I am laying on my stomach my right leg doesn't lay as flat as the left one. Ben could even see it.

So I am officially out of whack. But luckily it is all fixable. And it should help relax the muscles in my back so I don't feel quite so tense all the time. I had my 1st adjustment yesterday. It is a very weird sensation. It doesn't exactly hurt but is not the most comfortable thing in the world either. He pushes & twists with a good amount of pressure. My shoulder felt better as soon as he was done. And my leg laid flat too.

I used to not believe in chiropractic work because of all the bad stories you hear, but I am now a believer. After what it has done for Ben in a matter of a few months & what it did for me after 1 treatment. I look forward to seeing how I feel in a couple of months when I am all back to normal.

Introducing...

2007-09-05T08:36:00.000-06:00

Sammy Lou!!!

Sammy is our new puppy. She is a 3 month old Border Collie mix that we adopted from the Boulder Humane Society over the weekend. We were not intending on getting such a young dog, but the other dog we looked at did not get along well with Lily so we ended up with a puppy. Lily & Sammy get along great. They chase after each other in the back yard. And Sammy follows Lily around wherever she goes. The cats ignore her for the most part & she hasn't completely figured them out yet.

Lily spoiled us because she was already pretty much house broken when we adopted her (thanks to the foster family she was with until she was old enough to be adopted), but Sammy needs a little more work. When she has to go, she will just go but it won't take too long to train her to go outside.

Here's another cute picture. So far we only have 2 pictures of her since she moves fast & doesn't sit still for long.

What the hell is that?!?

2007-08-21T08:36:00.001-06:00

I'm sure you are asking yourself that same question. What the hell is that crazy looking thing? It is a dragon fruit. When I am in Vietnam it is one of the things I like to eat most, but I have never seen one here. So last night, I was very excited to find them at my grocery store. I was almost skipping through the store to show Ben. Of course, I was not so happy to find out the price ($6.99) but I decided that it was OK this one time since there was not one single item of un healthy or junk food in the cart.

So what does the inside of this fruit look like?
Normally the ones I eat are white inside with the seeds, but this type is fuchsia. All you have to do is peel off the outside layer & then you can eat it. The flavor is slightly bland, so it is better with other fruit. (Kind of like a kiwi, but a little more bland.) In Vietnam, I normally ate it with oranges or pineapple.

So I made a yummy fruit salad of pineapple, kiwi, raspberries & dragon fruit. I bought a whole pineapple & cut it up too! It was a pain until I remembered the really cool knife my stepmom gave me fore my birthday, which made it much easier. And the other cool knife. Doesn't it look tasty?

White pants

2007-08-09T16:22:00.000-06:00

So I did something last night that I have never done in my life.... I bought white pants. Really they are long shorts (the ones that hit at the knee). I have not owned white bottoms since I was allowed to choose my own clothes (which was middle school-ish).

Why did I suddenly buy white shorts then? Saturday morning we are going to play golf & I have no golf-appropriate attire. The only shorts I could find that were remotely flattering & in my size were white. They were on sale, so I bought them. Now the question is, will I wear them any time other than playing golf????

Why do I love my new job?

2007-08-03T15:33:00.001-06:00

This is why I love my new job. Yesterday I came in to these flowers on my desk. My boss just wanted to show me how happy she is I am here. Now mind you, she tells me this at least once a day, every day. But she went out of her way before work to do something nice for me.

The job itself isn't really much different. I am still fitting garments & telling the factory how to change them. I still sit in front of my computer almost all day. But the difference is the amount of work. It is 1/2 what it was at Spyder & because the product is simpler, I can spend more time going into incredible detail on it. I am able to do my best now, not just whatever-it-takes to get the work done. And the other difference is that I am appreciated & respected for what I can do.

And the office is nicer looking and clean. My trash is emptied every day. My cube is vacuumed every day. The bathrooms are cleaned every evening AND during the day. There are plants everywhere. All of this makes you OK with coming to work. I don't dread walking in every morning.

Oh yea, and there is the benefit of yoga twice a week. And since I don't feel so overwhelmed, I can do the yoga & go for walks the other days. I actually now take the time to breathe & walk away almost every day. (It's a hard habit to break though, some days I have to force myself still.)

Since I am no longer so mentally exhausted when I leave work, I now have the time & energy to go out with friends that I have neglected for 4 years. I can clean my house & do yard work in the evenings so I can enjoy my weekends more. I am able to relax over the weekend & feel refreshed Monday morning.

I am still trying to break the horrible habits I developed while working at Spyder. And it is hard now that I have spare time because I don't know what to do. I have to rebuild friendships & remind myself that it is OK to focus on other non-work things.

But coming into to flowers yesterday made me really think about how much better my life has been this last month. All because I changed my job. I wish I had realized how bad it was before & done this sooner!

Am I a dork? You decide...

2007-08-01T09:13:00.000-06:00

So today I had to bring a bunch of books into work. Cade is using my backpack for day camp, so I had to find another bag that would work. Grocery bags wouldn't work because they are heavy textbooks. So I went to my closet to see what other bags I own that might work. And what would better to use than my old Esprit bag?

Yes, I have kept my Esprit bag for 16 years now. It is black with lovely 80's multi-color lettering. It was the 2nd one I owned & is still in pretty good condition. My 1st one was fuchsia with white lettering. The last time I used it was in 8th grade when they were the "cool" thing to carry.

So now you get to decide whether or not I am a complete dork for keeping it. And would I be an even bigger dork if I started using it for my excersise bag???

(Oh, and in case you are wondering, Esprit still makes the bag, go here to see!)

Happy Birthday

2007-07-23T19:57:00.000-06:00

Today is Cade's 7th birthday. When asked to smile for the camera this morning, this was what I got. Yesterday we had a small party for him, a friend from day camp & few family members. The theme was, of course, Spiderman. He even had a black spiderman head pinata. The cake unfortunately was not very good. We ordered it from Whole Foods, because Ellen had really good cake from there a couple of weeks ago. The cake was only about 3/4" thick & had about 1/2" of frosting on it. We will not be getting a cake from there again.

Today at day camp, Cade took cupcakes to share for lunch. And while having his afternoon popcicle, the lead singer from Papa Roach joined them for their snack. Why he was there, we're not really sure. Cade said he was bringing his son to the pool. Very random.

And tonight for dinner we had Noodles. (No, I did not choose it, he did.) He even passed up going to Dave & Buster's to go to Noodles. I know, he's a little strange.

Here is his favorite present: And he also got some decals to add to his bedroom wall. So now he has glow-in-the-dark buildings with Spiderman flying across them. Now I think I need to add some webs to the wall...

I will get our website updated in the next few weeks with more pictures. (First, I have to figure out what my husband did to get his real estate page there instead of our personal page...)

I'm going to hurt tomorrow

2007-07-20T13:54:00.000-06:00

So one of the cool benefits I get at work is weekly yoga classes at lunch. They are Wed & Fri. (Pilates is on Mon, but I'm not up for that yet.) I did my first yoga class today. Fridays the class is held outside by the lake. Luckily today it is not too hot, only 86, and there was a little bit of a breeze the last 15 minutes or so. The class was small only 9 people and the instructor.

I forgot how much I enjoy doing yoga. I love the relaxed, yet energized feeling that you have at the end of class. And the teacher was fabulous. She was one of those spiritual, earthy teachers. All through class she was talking about how these poses were tying us to nature, pull the energy from the sun & ground ourseleves in the dirt. I used to think teachers like her were crazy, but after having peppy cheerleader-type teachers, I found I enjoy yoga better with the crazy teachers.

Of course, since it has been 4 years since I regularly did yoga, I am going to hurt like crazy tomorrow. Guess I will just have to get up & do one of my videos.

Yippee!!!

2007-07-19T13:59:00.000-06:00

So my genius husband never blew out our sprinkler system. One cold December day the back flow valve broke & we had a slight geyser in our front yard. So I have spent the entire spring & summer without a sprinkler system.

Since it takes about 4 hours to water my entire front & back yard, it didn't happen very often. So now I have a very lovely dead grass/dandelion yard. It really a joy to look at :)

We were finally able to bring out the sprinkler guy. After only $161, we now have a sprinkler that works again!!!

AND he says if we start watering it daily then it should actually get green again THIS year. I don't have to wait until next spring to have a green yard again. Yippee!!!

Sick Kitty :(

2007-07-11T12:41:00.000-06:00

Last night we came home from dinner to a house that smelled like shit. Literally. I thought that I has smelled something when I came home from work, but couldn't find anything so I figured it must have been outside.

While Cade was getting ready for his bath, Ben found the reason for the smell.... Poor Bailey did not feel good & had gotten sick on the dressing room floor.

After getting the room cleaned & the litter box cleaned, I headed to the grocery store for some fresh litter, an additional litter box & some of those cat wipes. We tried to use the wipes to clean Bailey, but she HATED it & hissed and clawed until she wiggled away from us. We both have the marks to prove how much she disliked it.

Since she still was not clean, I decided she needed a bath because there was no other way to get her clean. It was the first time I had ever given a cat a bath. Having heard horror stories, I was ready for the worst. I suited up with my cleaning gloves & Ben went to find the kitty. Miraculously she did better than expected. As long as only her back paws were in the water, she didn't squirm much & I was able to get her clean. I had the faucet on the whole time & she even played with the running water a little.

And since Ben held her so she could not see me cleaning her, I was able to dry her off with ease. She felt safe & happy that she was out of the water.

Since no blood was drawn during the bathing experience, I will now be torturing my kitties with baths a couple times a year :)

Happy Anniversary to me, Happy Anniversary to me...

2007-07-08T20:51:00.000-06:00

Today was Ben's and my 1st anniversary. So what does one do on a one year anniversary? Well, I cleaned the house & Ben did an open house. We did have fun in the afternoon though. We went to the driving range & spent about an hour hitting golf balls. Then we got ready to go out to dinner.

Not very exciting I know. We plan on celebrating in August after Cade goes back to Delaware, though.

For dinner, we were originally going to go to our favorite steak restaurant, Steak House 10. But they are not open on Sundays. So we went out for Italian instead. The restaurant that we went to is called Gaetano's. It has been in Denver since the 1930's. The food was very delicious.

And for dessert we get to have wedding cake. The place we got our cake from gave us a free 1-year anniversary cake so we do not have to eat freezer burned cake.

Fireworks & Work

2007-07-05T20:22:00.000-06:00

We got to see an amazing fireworks show last night! We went to Progress Park again. It's a small park in Arapahoe County, right by Pirate's Cove. We were watching a show a few miles away when all of a sudden there was a HUGE boom behind us. I jumped about 3 feet into the air & the show began. We were so close that the shell casings & carbon bits were landing on us. When you are that close, the fireworks are amazing!!!!

I started my new job today. It is going to be a much more manageable position where I can actually do a good job, not just whatever it takes to get the job done. I have the world's smallest cubicle for the next month until my dept moves into a separate building. So far it seems good...

And here are a few pictures of the floors now that the furniture is all in place. The dining room floor still needs the gunk cleaned up & to be polished. But otherwise, I am happy with how they turned out. The added bonus is that the front of the house is no longer 8 million degrees; it has dropped to about 5 million degrees! That's what I get for having a west-facing house. though :)

It's legal

2007-07-03T21:17:00.000-06:00

I am now legally Susan Edna Grisinger. I spent the morning at the DMV & Social Security office getting my name changed. The DMV wasn't too bad. I won't know how the picture came out until my new lisence arrives in the mail....

The Social Security office was another matter. I was not there for long, maybe an hour, but it smelled bad, the air conidtioning was barely on & everyone was complaining about how long it was taking. When I came home all I wanted to do was take a shower.

In other news, both bedrooms to our condo are now painted. We chose a very nice neurtal called "Antique White". It looks great with the white trim & cherry floors. We had a couple look at it last night to do a lease to buy option. Hopefully they liked it & do not want us to paint the rest of it. But we are offering to paint it all in the antique white if needed. What do you think of the color?

On Sunday, we went 4x4 in Georgetown up Saxon Mountain so that we could get out of the heat. The car read 107 degrees on our way up!!! It was an easy trail with many tight switch backs so that my sister could work on her 4x4 skills. We made it about 1/2 way up the trail before Cade was feeling sick so Margaret (my sister) turned her Jeep around so we could head back down.

Here is a very pretty view while we were stopped so I could unlock my seat belt. Riding on a rocky road in the back seat while being busty is not fun. I have a bruise on my shoulder from the seat belt. This was about the only picture that came out clear. It's kind hard to hold a camera steady while driving over rocks :)

These are 2 rocks that my sister expertly maneuvered around without getting a single scratch on her beautiful red Jeep.

And here is where we took a right instead of a left & had to turn the Jeep around. The road became even too steep for the ATV'ers that came up behind us. They helped Ben turn the Jeep around. Where the guyin the white shirt is standing is pretty much the edge of the cliff. I didn't think to take picures of the steep hill or how high we were until we were back on the highway home. After a 12 point turn or so, we had the Jeep turned around & Maragret drove us back down the mountain.

The floors are done...

2007-06-27T21:02:00.000-06:00

well almost done. We still have the 2 hall closets & both bedrooms to tackle at some point. But the majority of it is done.

There was only one minor freak out when I started pulling up the carpet in the living room & found raw wood. The carpet was already cut, so it had to come out no matter what, so we started ripping & found the raw spot was about 1x3 feet.

I'll post pictures tomorrow after I get the floors mopped again & furniture in place. They were NASTY!!! For 55 year old floors, they look pretty darn good though; much better than the "realtor beige" carpet we had before.

What to do on vacation?

2007-06-25T20:04:00.000-06:00

So Friday was my last day at Spyder. I worked like crazy, didn't take lunch & got almost everything I planned on done. There wasn't much said about me leaving on Friday. My big boss even left without saying goodbye. A few of us did go out for drinks after work, which was fun & relaxed me a little bit. But it wasn't until today that I was really excited about my new job & stopped being quite so stressed.

Saturday night Cade got here. Here's a picture of him on Sunday morning:

Yes, he has a mohawk. AND, the it is red, like red red, not hair red. We were both a little shocked by it. He really loves it & doesn't seem to mind people looking at him. And since he is a really shy kid, that's a good thing.

So the question everyone has been asking me is: what are you going to do on vacation? I've been asked if I am going to just relax or maybe do a little sewing. I, of course, have a laundry list of things I would like to do in the next 9 days (besides get my house clean & spend time with Cade & Ben):

rip out the carpet in front part of our house
paint both bedrooms at the condo (and possibly the whole thing, we haven't decided)
organize my laundry room
organize my garage
go to Social Security & get my name changed
get a new driver's liscence with my new name
finish a baby quilt
weed my rose garden
organize my closet
get Quickbooks set up for Ben's real estate

So far, it has started out great. After we dropped Cade off at day camp, Ben came home & worked while I began on the carpet. The carpet was brand new when we moved in a year ago & I have already cleaned it 2 separate times. The old owners had a "sick" cat that had peed in the house, and since the carpet padding was not replaced, the anilmals could smell the urine & would sometimes pee. I have cleaned the carpet 2 separate times to no avail, so since I had the time off, it was the 1st priority on the list.

Here's a couple of pictures before:

Here is the hallway after it was all finished. We found a bunch of nails hammered in one area. We think they were trying to prevent the floor from squeaking. (didn't work, it still sqeaks!) We are debating whether to remove them & fill the holes now or wait until we refinish the floors & fix the holes then .

And here is the dining room partially done. We had to stop because the sun was setting & it was too hot to work in the there. (Our houses faces west, so it was broiling!) Only dissapointing thing we found was some residue by the kitchen door. It looks like something was glued to the floor, like a rug. (Guess I now need to add to my list to remove glue from floor.)

Tomorrow we plan on tackling the living room & finishing the dining room. And by we, I mean, mostly me because Ben has a doctor's appointment tomorrow & has to do a bunch of real estate stuff. But he will help after that is done. So tomorrow there should be pictures of my clean, lovely hardwood floors.

Fun part of my job

2007-06-19T16:50:00.000-06:00

So this is what I like about my job.

I get to take this:

And turn it into this:

I get to cut, tear, pin & draw all over clothes to make them look better & be comfortable. Of course to most people, the bottom picture does not look better. But I can see how it is better.

It's especially fun when you are cutting up a jacket that sells for over $1000. (Not this one though, it's part of a $300 jacket.) It is amazing how easily I can hack something so expensive to pieces.

Need to sell a house?

2007-06-15T08:40:00.000-06:00

My husband can get it under contract in 58 days!

He got an offer on his brother's house on Wednesday which was pretty crappy, but he did an amazing job negotiating & was able to get a offer that was at least reasonable. And yesterday, 58 days after it went on the market, it was put under contract!

So now he as a track record of selling his properties in 58 days. He rocks!

I did it!

2007-06-12T07:41:00.000-06:00

I just gave my notice. I was completely nervous & scared to death because this is the first time I have quit a job for no other reason than I am unhappy. It went OK. I felt really bad for my boss because she found out late last week that another person is leaving as well. So she is in a pretty tough position. But completely understood that this was an opportunity that I could not pass up.

Yesterday I got offered the position with Gaiam which comes with a significant pay raise. I was excited to recieve the offer because of the 3 jobs, it was the one I wanted most. I have not accepted the position yet, I am waiting to see what the other 2 have to offer. But it is the one that I want the most & would enjoy working there I think.

The morning interview went well yesterday. It was forever long & I got asked several of the stupid questions like "if you were stranded on a desert island what would you take from you job?". The company is a little scary though. They laid off the entire development team about 1 1/2 years ago when the filed for bankruptcy. An investment company bought them, so really they are not the same company, only the same in name, but it makes me a little nervous.

And the afternoon interview was the worst I have ever been on from a company side. First they made me wait 40 minutes before my interview even started. Then they talked for 1 1/2 hours in circles around each other. One would say that the hours would be 40-45 per week. Then the other would say the hours would be long & very similiar to what I currently work. One would say there would be little travel, maybe once a year. Then the other would say I would have to travel significantly, like once a month. Needless to say, it was not a company I could ever work for.

So my last day here will be 6/22. And I will start my new job on 6/27.

Holy Crap!?!

2007-06-07T19:17:00.000-06:00

So I decided a week ago I was done with my job. Absolutely positively done. I'd had my review 2 weeks ago where I found out there was no job growth or career path planned for me for the next 3-5 years. It was expected that I would stay in my current position & just take on more product.

We discussed what I enjoyed about my current position & what I did not. I explained how I liked the hands-on part & working with other on getting the fit consistent & appropriate to the customer.

The less than a week after my review, my boss informs me that they are dividing my fit responsibility out among myself & 2 other people and that I would be taking on significantly more product.

And that was when I decided I was done. So Ben spent some time looking for jobs for me & I spent Saturday afternoon looking as well. There was only 1 posting that I was qualified for & interested in. But I also emailed several companies who were not looking.

All because I am so desperate to get out of my current position.

Well, I had an interview today with Gaiam (the yoga company). They are looking for a soft goods manager who would be responsible for their apparel product along with bedding, towels, etc. They are seriously understaffed & it is a new position they are creating. I could make it what I want & can focus more on design if I want. The job is in Broomfield which still means a 1/2 hour commute but she was appalled when I told her how many hours I normally work & said they never work that much. So it may not be that bad even with a longer commute.

AND I have 2 more interviews on Monday with 2 other companies who are VERY interested!!! Holy crap, I so was not expecting to actually be able to move on from my current job. And not only will I be able to, now it is looking like I will have my choice of where I want to work! I never would have expected this.

It Worked!

2007-06-06T15:49:00.000-06:00

Ben went in for his first treatment appointment yesterday. Turns out the C1 vertebrae is off by 50 degrees. Which is 7mm. So it is pretty significant. The most likely cause was one of the 2 car accidents Ben was in years ago. It is a common long term injury from whiplash.

While the dr was doing the procedure, Ben's pain went away. Of course, afterwards the headache returned. But it shows that this will get rid of the daily headache! It's going to take about 2 months to train the vertebrae to stay in place & train the muscles & reduce their swelling. He has to go 3x a week for the rest of the month, then 2x a week for July & it will gradually reduce to where he goes 2x a year.

Now don't ask me to explain what they are doing, I didn't go with him so I have no idea. But I am going with him tonight so I will be able explain it later.

Finally, after almost 2 years we have the problem figured out & the treatment plan in place!

Suspicious Guy

2007-06-01T15:24:00.000-06:00

So Wednesday night we had a guy come to our door after 8pm trying to sell us a security system. Ben of course said no & came back to watch TV. Lily was at the front window barking & would not stop and it was her "something is not right" bark.

So I went to look and the guy was aimlessly walking around the street. It had been at least 10 minutes since he finished talking to Ben. He then watched as a neighbor 2 doors down left & only then walked up to the door. At that point, we were really suspicious of him. So Ben called the police while I went to talk to the guy. (The thought was that I am the less threating of the 2 of us so it made sense for me to be the one to approach him.)

The guy refused to give me his full name, phone number, business card, or even a brochure for the product he was pushing. All he kept saying to me was Firstline works with GE & I have heard of GE hadn't I? When he realized I wasn't going to just believe him, he decided to walk away.

Ben had been watching the whole thing & decided to follow him to see if he continued to up to other houses. Until he noticed Ben was there, he did not go up to a single house. (I know this may seem like a little much but I have never been weirded out by some one more.)

About 1/2 hour later or so, Lily is once more at the front window barking. I look out the window & he is back standing in the street looking at our neighbor's houses, one who has a HUGE flat panel TV that can be seen from the street & another who is moving. So we called the police once more as he started walking again. They did stop him, but we don't know what came of it.

Since most of our immediate neighbors were not home, I wrote a quick letter telling them out the suspicious guy. And I am happy that I did because I took it to one house where the owner let him inside & the guy commented on his extensive video collection & wanted to meet their dog because he noticed the food dish. And that really just sounds more like someone who is scoping out a robbery.

Turns out there were several guys for the same company. All tall, white, brown haired nondescript guys canvassing our neighborhood. And several other people were suspicious enough to call the police. We got an email from the neighborhood association alerting us today to the same situation because he harassed an elderly person; even the mailman said something to the association.

At first I was worried that we may have overreacted but after finding out that others were as suspicious & concerned as we were, I feel better about it. Yes, I may have been a little nosy but I would rather be that then not doing anything & find out later that a house was robbed or someone was hurt because I didn't do anything.

Happy Day!!!

2007-05-31T14:23:00.000-06:00

So first, happy birthday to my sister Margaret. Unfortunately she does not get to celebrate tonight because she has class. But we will celebrate this weekend.

And happy anniversary to Dan & Ellen. Hope you celebrate your long, happy marriage.

And finally, for the final reason today is a happy day.... Ben went to a chiropractor today who is an atlas orthogonal specialist & the doctor believes within the next month that he will be able to significantly improve Ben's headache. Oh, and he is 1 of 300 specialists in the world who practice this.

How did we find this random specialist? It all came from a book I read from the library over the weekend, Life Beyond Headaches. The way he described the headaches caused by the C1 vertebrae being off was almost an exact description of the last 2 years of our life. And the passage at the end of the book is one of my favorite Irish blessings:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God hold you in the palm of His hand

I know it sounds corny, but to me it was a sign that we needed to pursue this further. And now we are very close to not only knowing the cause of the problem, but knowing what we need to do to treat it. And no more medicines to treat the symptoms and the lovely side effects they come with. But some solid answers & improvement in the problem!!!

Definitely a good day :)

How to know when you have a good party

2007-05-30T12:52:00.001-06:00

So how do you know if you throw a successful party where other people have as much fun as you did? This is how. (Thanks Connie, that made Ben & Margaret feel very good.)

Ben & Margaret did a great job pulling together a semi-surprise party for me to celebrate my 30th birthday. It was only a semi-surprise because I knew there was going to be a party, but that was all I knew. Not where it was, who was coming or anything else.

The theme was 70's Disco- Star Wars. Complete with a colored disco ball, lava lamp & Darth Vader pinata. I even got a beautiful brown & orange 70's dress to wear. The dress was called "Alice's date with Sam". That gives you some idea of what it looked like...

They even took the perfect baby picture of me & had it put on the cake:

Complete with the Bronco bib & Schlitz beer. (And no, I am not drinking the beer. I was only chewing on the cold, unopened can because I was teething. I didn't tolerate the taste of beer for another 17 years. And didn't like it for a few years after that.)

Unfortunately I do not have any pictures to post from the party. The only person who had a camera was my mother-in-law so I have to wait until she gets the pics developed.

It was a great day even though I felt yucky for most of it & did not get to eat any cake or drink any beer. I couldn't have asked for a better birthday :) Thank you to my loving husband & amazing sister for all the planning. And thanks to everyone who came to celebrate with us.

P.S.- if you are the person (or persons) who rearranged my kitchen drawers & shelves during the party, you made us smile. We still haven't put things back yet; we just keep opening the wrong drawers on a daily basis :)

A new post finally....

2007-05-29T12:53:00.000-06:00

OK so I know that I have not posted in awhile. At first is was because I was exhausted & sick from my trip. Then I was completely slammed at work & didn't have time to.

My return flight from Vietnam turned into a little bit of a mess. I had an 8 hour layover in the Seoul airport. Luckily I was upgraded to business so I could sit in the Red Carpet room & have a super comfy seat from Seoul to San Fran. Business class will spoil you. I had fillet Mignon for dinner with chocolate mouse for dessert. And my seat almost reclined completely flat. About 1 1/2 hours before we were supposed to land the pilot tells us that we are being diverted to Seattle because 2 f the 3 generators were out & we needed to land as soon as possible. From this point on we do not get any water or food. After we land, they keep us on the plane for 2 hours while they fix the problem. Surprise, surprise, they can't fix it. So we all have to get off the plane, go through customs & then get on other flights. I called my travel agent who was able to book me on a flight in the afternoon, which was good. Finally after going through customs & standing in line forever to get the ticket for my flight from Seattle to Denver, I get to eat. At this point is has been like 13 hours since I had food & water. I am exhausted & so hungry that I am starting to get dizzy.

I did count my blessings. At least this time I did not have to run through the world's largest airport to catch my connecting flight & get to the gate after the doors are closed. OR get stuck in the Bangladesh airport over night.

As I mentioned, I have been sick since I have been back. I go to the dr Thursday so they can figure out what is wrong & tell me whether I can travel back to Vietnam in 3 weeks or not...

More tomorrow... must get back to work so that I don't have to be here too late.

I am SOOO bored!!!!

2007-05-14T02:27:00.000-06:00

I can't even tell you how bored I am right now. We got everything we had to review today by about 2:00. So now I have nothing to do but we are here for another like 2 hours!!! Part of it is that one person I work with was not able to get her information to the factory today. So we can't review it with them. I don't have any emails to answer since I have had so much extra time this trip. And I can not get into our systems so I can't even do any of the work I have to do. All the websites I normally look at haven't been updated recently since it's 2am in Denver right now. So I have been sitting here completely bored with nothing to do...

Save me!!!

Now in Vietnam

2007-05-13T09:20:00.000-06:00

I haven't posted in a couple of days because by the time I get in at night I am so tired that all I want to do is sleep & I've had to get up early in the mornings.

Friday was about as exciting as Thursday. I got up & went to a meeting then went back to the hotel & worked until dinner. We went to a Thai resturant off of the bay. Several of the people from our Bangkok office went to dinner with us & did all of the ordering. I thought the food was delicious; they thought it was only probably about 60%.

Saturday I had to get up VERY early (4:30 am early) so that I could get everything packed up & ready to leave for the airport at 6:00 am. We flew to Hanoi, where we were picked up by a driver from the factory & went straight to the factory & started working. We spent the afternoon looking at mockups of the product I am in charge of. After the end of the day, I started to feel better, that my product is actually going to work. We spent 3 hours talking at the factory bar with the owner because he can't stop talking. (And yes, the factory has a bar area in it.)

While at the bar, I met a Vietnemese Australian. It is very interesting to see someone who looks Vietnemese but talks with a heavy Australian accent. And we heard stories about some of the factory workers who were working during the Vietnam war, where they had to work underground by candlelight. And listen to the factory owner talk about how diverse he is while talking down about women, Americans, Vietnemese & pretty much everyone.

This morning we had to get up early because the factory was taking us out for something fun. They had said the place where they were taking us, but we had no idea what it was. We had a 3 hour car ride to get to the day's activity. Riding in a car is always an experience here. It is kind of like an organic dance of sorts. The roads are marked with lanes, but no one pays attention to them. People are walking, riding bicycles, riding scooters and riding in cars all on the same road. Everyone is swerving around each other & weaving together while somehow managing to never hit anything. All this to the music of honking horns & flashing lights.

And you see the most interesting things while driving. Today I saw a dead cow tied to the back of one motor bike. And 2 live pigs in baskets with a dead pig over the top of the baskets on the back of another motor bike. I couldn't manage to get good pictures, but several other people took pictures so hopefully I will be able to post some tomorrow so you can see what it actually looks like.

After a 3 hour car ride, we arrived at Halong Bay. It was amazingly beautiful. There were these huge little islands sticking out of the water.

We had a private boat which took us on a tour around the islands. The boat was very old looking. I didn't get any pictures of our boat, but it looked similiar to the boats below.

Before lunch we went to the fresh fish market. You would think that this would be a market on land, right? But it's not. There are these homes on the water that the boat pulls up to & you climb out & pick your fish from the tank areas they have. They picked a dragon squid for us.

Lunch was amazing; we had fresh shrimp, clams, crabs, grouper, the dragon squid and some other seafood as well. There was WAY too much food. The picture shows only a portion of the dishes. And this was food for only 4 people!

After lunch we pulled up to an island where we went on a tour of Hang Dau Go cave. It is a huge cave of stalagtites & stalagmites. But not like the ones I've seen in Carlsbad caverns. These were actual rock. Unfortunately, the camera I have from work does not take good pictures without the flash or in dark areas. So I do not have any pictures :(

Then we got back on the boat & went back to the harbor. And sat in the car again for 3 hours. After taking a shower to scrub off the layers of sunscreen, bug spray, sweat & dirt, I feel human again. It was a fun day!

Hong Kong Day 1

2007-05-10T18:49:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a VERY exciting day here in Hong Kong. I met up with 2 people from our BKK office & took a taxi to my meeting which only took a couple of hours. Then we got lunch at this American resturant. I came back to the hotel, worked for a little while, then started to not feel good so I laid down & finished my book. Very exciting day, huh?

The book I finished was "The Time Traveler's Wife". It turned out to be a very good book. It's a love story about this guy who travels through time & the woman he falls in love with.

Hopefully today will be a little more eventful.

Made it to Hong Kong

2007-05-09T07:23:00.000-06:00

I made it to Hong Kong safe & sound. The flights were pretty non-eventful except for the old guy near me who kept farting. It was lovely :)

I've been up for 26 hours so I am a little sleepy. Off to sleep for awhile.

Surgery went well

2007-05-07T16:13:00.000-06:00

Ben's surgery went well. Turns out it was a vein gone wild, not an artery. I haven't talked to him myself since I had to work today. But his mom said he is fine & as soon as he wakes up enough they will take him home.

I'm off to Asia very early tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to the 19 or so hours of travel ;)

ER & Surgery

2007-05-04T15:45:00.000-06:00

Ben goes in Monday for surgery to remove the wrist bump. Yesterday's artreiogram showed that the whole bump is on the arm & should be pretty simple to just "pop" out. We're not sure whether they will graft in a new piece of artery or will just tie off the open ends. And it's a day surgery so he won't have to stay overnight.

So that's all very good news. Of course, we got the joy of spending the night in the ER due to the arteriogram. Ben woke up at like 1:45 VERY sore & went to the bathroom. On his way back to bed he got VERY dizzy & I had to come help him. By the time I got to him he was not only dizzy but disoriented, short of breath, clammy & sweaty. Due to the risk of blood clot from the procedure, we called an ambulance.

After several hours & several tests of his heart later, they determined that he had a vasal reaction to the extreme pain & his blood pressure dropped WAY too low (like 90/60 or something crazy like that) causing all of the above symptoms. Basically he had an extreme fainting spell. No blood clot or any other seriously bad things. All is good now. He feels much better, but continues to be sore.

And we found out something interesting on the headache front yesterday. The nurse who helped with the arteriogram, suggested that he get his heart looked at. Apparently there can be a tiny hole in the heart which can lead to migraines or severe headaches by allowing blood to bypass the filter process of the lungs . It's a simple, minimally invasive surgery to fix.

So now we get to find a cardiologist & have them order the test. Yay, more doctors :)

It has been confirmed...

2007-05-02T12:59:00.000-06:00

My husband is weird. Another doctor has told him that :)

We met with the vascular surgeon today. Before he can do surgery, Ben has to get another test. He needs an arteriogram because they could not tell exactly how the blood flows through the artery from the doppler ultrasound. So he goes in tomorrow for the arteriogram, after which the doctor will tell us what the treatment options are.

The good news, he also does not think that it is a malignant tumor, so the chances are pretty slim on that one.

The bad news, the doctor only deals with vascular surgery on the extremities so he was of no help looking at the brain MRI to see if he noticed any malformations that could be causing the headache.

That is all for now!

And the best husband award goes to....

2007-05-02T07:42:00.000-06:00

.... Ben Grisinger!!!!

So I have the best husband in the world. Last night he took me on a surprise date to go see Dirty Dancing in the theaters. I had seen a preview for it last week during Grey's Anatomy. I called Ellen & told her she needed to move back here so we could go see it together. She's the only other person I know who loves the movie as much as I do :)

Since that didn't work out, Ben bought tickets & surprised me with them. Instead of previews they had this rather dumb Dirty Dancing Past & Present bit. But other than that it was fun. Ben even liked the movie (though he probably wouldn't admit that now). There were a total of 4 guys in the theater; all with wives or girlfriends.

Yes, I know that I am a dork :)

Good News/ Bad News

2007-04-27T14:21:00.000-06:00

Good news: Ben's brain MRI looked normal.
Bad news: Ben's brain MRI looked normal.
The neurologist said everything looked normal to him. There is still a cyst on his right sinus cavity. But as we have been told before, this isn't likely the cause of the headache. Based on our other recent experiences, we are still going to find a ear, nose & throat specialist to get a 2nd opinion & confirm that one. At this point we are back to square one though...
(We go to the vascular specialist on Wed & hopefully there will be good news about Ben's wrist. And, hey, maybe they can figure the headaches out too.)

Bad news: I have to get braces
Good news: I get to fix the little imperfections I don't like about my smile
I saw a new dentist to get a cleaning. I was very impressed with him & the office. The dentist spent about 1/2 hour looking at my teeth. He explained the reason I have problems with my back teeth & constantly need fillings. The issue is that my bite is off so much it is putting too much pressure & stress on the back teeth & wearing them down too quickly. When I was a child, my orthodontist told my parents I had an overbite, but that it was only cosmetic & we didn't need to do anything to fix it. Fast forward 20 years and my overbite has now caused dental problems. So now I get to go see an orthodontist & spend thousands of dollars on braces and then spend thousands of dollars to repair the damage to the actual teeth. Sounds like fun, right!?!

Good news: I'm pretty much healthy.
Bad news: It took a trip to the ER & $75 to determine that
Saturday night I had a very sudden onset, severe pain in my abdomen. It was on the level of the pain I experienced when I had my gallbladder removed. So I decided it would be prudent to go to the ER. 4 hours & $75 later, I am released & told I probably have a mild virus. That there was nothing wrong with me... Which was reconfirmed by my doctor yesterday.

That's the good news & bad news of the past week. Hope everyone else had a better week than I did.

My wierd husband

2007-04-19T15:04:00.000-06:00

So my husband is officially weird. A specialist has confirmed it. Remember when I was complaining about how he wasn't normal? Turns out he is not.

We found out on Tuesday that the bump on his wrist is not a ganglion cyst. The MRI report showed it was most likely a malignant tumor. Yes, as in a cancerous growth. The hand specialist could not give us any more of a diagnosis since this is out of his area of expertise.

Let me tell you that was a hard 36 hours. Trying to not think about the fact he could have cancer & what that would mean. Luckily his friend, Christie Ann, took us out to dinner on Tuesday & bought us champagne & whatever we wanted off of the Fresh Fish Company menu. So I got lots of very yummy crab. And yesterday we just tried to stay busy & think positive thoughts.

The hand specialist referred us to a limb specialist who would be able to give us a more clear diagnosis. We met with him today. He told us it is either a cyst with an artery running through it or some kind of tumor or an arteriovenous malformation, which is basically abnormal growth of the artery.

He thinks most likely it is the arteriovenous malformation. And he thinks the chances of it being a cancerous tumor are low. Which is good news. The other good news is that the nerves, tendons, muscles & bone marrow are not affected. And the blood flow to his hand is good.

We went & got a doppler ultrasound after visiting with the doctor. The doppler ultrasound shows where the blood is flowing & also showed if the bump was solid or liquid. We should know later today or tomorrow morning what the doctor thinks of the ultrasound reports & what the next step is. He was going into surgery right after he saw us, otherwise he would have gone over the report with us while we were there.

He also thinks this could be linked to the headache. Which, oh yeah, I have been asking the doctors since the beginning, if these headaches could be connected to something else in his body. They always think I am weird for bringing up any new family history or any new symptoms. But I don't know that much about headaches & I do not want to leave anything out that might help them diagnose what is wrong with my husband. Maybe I was right for asking all this time.

We had already gotten his neurologist to agree to a MRI of the brain (with & without contrast). Which he has not had one of since the headache started. I know, we have been asking for one, but since the head CT came back fine, all of the doctors felt it was not necessary. Luckily we got his new doctor to agree to it.

Even though it sounds scary if this what is causing the headache, at least we would know what is wrong & what we need to do to get rid of the headache (and the wrist bump). His brain MRI will be next week some time & we should know more tomorrow about the wrist. I will post more as I know.