Moved

Well, we moved.  We are back in our old house in Globe.  It is crazy.  It's also sad because the tenants caused a lot of damage.  And they also smoked in here, which we specifically asked them not to do.  There are scorch marks here and there to prove it.  The whole place smelled nasty.  Thanks to my friend Kathie and some all-purpose cleaner with bleach, the whole place smells... well... better.  I also have covered a lot of the carpet with baking soda.  Ima let it sit for a while so the kiddos can grind it into the carpet for me, and then I guess I'll vacuum it up.  That poor carpet really needs replaced.  It was starting to go when we left, but the family who lived here seem to have surpassed the destruction we caused just by living here for the somewhere around 7 years we lived here.

I am trying really hard not to focus on how mad I am about what they did (and about how they skipped town without paying the damage money the judge commanded them to pay).  After all, I've got to live here, and I can't live constantly being mad when I see the empty spaces there the cupboard doors were.  Breathe, Christine!  Breathe!  I've got to move on.

But there are some things to be thankful for, and I would like to list some of them:

1. The oven works.

2. The range works.

3. Both of the items listed above are plugged into a new outlet down under the counter instead of in my regular wall outlets.

4. The bathtub and shower work.

5. The toilets work.  Phew!

6. They did not ruin my beautiful laminate floor in the living room.

7. They broke doors but not walls.

8. The dishwasher works ok.  And by that I mean not great, but it may be passable.  I need to experiment with how I put the dishes in again.

9. There is a guy outside right now who is cleaning up our yard.  Hopefully this means that our allergies will be less monstrous.  Either way, it should mean that the piles of buried garbage and the broken glass should get hauled away today.  (Please!)

10.  One wall of the living room is red.  I don't like it.  I am not a bold-color person.  But it's not as bad as some colors they could have chosen.  It's not sticking around, but it could have been worse.

There you go.  That's enough for now.

In other news, Timmy is dang cute.  Often when I ask him a question he says, "No," in a sweet little voice.  He has said some words, but not many.  Mostly he walks around jabbering nonsense in the same sweet little voice that he uses to say, "No."  He is really cuddly.  He prefers to fall asleep while laying on my head and eating my hair.  Well, really he usually falls asleep next to me holding my hair, but he seems to have a nightly ritual of climbing on my head for a bit and trying to eat my hair.  He still doesn't like to take a nap, but the other day I knew he needed one, so I sat and rocked him while we watched Cinderella for a bit, and he fell asleep fast.  Nice. :) Before you say, "That's a girl movie!" I would like to point out that Cinderella has a lot of animals in it, and that's why he likes it.  His favorite parts are the ones with the animals.  He also has no fear of running in the road.  I'm happy that we have a yard for him to run in, but that doesn't seem to make him less likely to run in the road.  I hope to spend more time outside with him once the yard is cleaned up.  I think he will really like that.

Jill loves grass a lot.  When we lived in Cedar City she'd go run around in circles on the grass by the van exclaiming, "I love grass!" every time we went out to the van.  I'm sorry that we don't have grass here.  But she will enjoy spending time outside just like Timmy will.  Jill is talking more and more lately.  The other day she was going on and on about how it was scary outside and there are monsters out there when it's dark and scary, and, "I chop dem with mine pink sword!"  (It's all about pink, you know.  Pink is her favorite.)  Then she'd say, "A scratch me!" (And she would make scratching motions, of course.)  And I'd reply, "That monsters will scratch you?"  And she'd say, "No.  A chop dem a mine pink sword!"  We went through that several times before the conversation moved on, but she seemed pretty pleased with herself.  That's my girl!  Choppin' monsters with a pink sword. :)

Can I Please Have a Burro?

I went into Del Taco to get some dinner a few days ago, and I asked them, "How much is your most basic, cheapest burro?"  They lady said, "Huh?  I don't know what you mean?"  I tried to explain.  Another worker came over and tried to figure it out as well.  He said, "Do you mean a churro?"  We went back and forth like this until I suddenly realized that all the signs say "burrito," not "burro."  Aha!  I tried that, and they did know what I meant.  I guess I forgot I'm in Utah, not Arizona.  It's funny, though.  What in the world?  These crazy Utah people!

First Day of School



Well, it's all done. The four older boys are officially off to school. Hyrum is in 6th grade - middle school! Joshua is in 5th grade, Benji's in 3rd, and Michael's in 1st. They'll only be at these schools for a week, and I'm sad about that. But we still had the traditional first day of school pictures.

Now to get my buns in gear and get the house packed up...

In Which God Shows He Cares about Box Scrounging

It's sad that it's taken me nearly a month to post again.  I really should have posted more often while Jeremy was gone.  I mean, who doesn't want to hear about all my pains and trials while playing single mom?

I just really need to record something today because it's kind of funny.  For those of you who haven't heard (that's you, people reading my book in the future - because the rest of my 2 readers already know), we are moving back to Globe in 11 days.  Here is the low-down:

Jeremy got back from Paris on July 24th, and we knew we'd need to hurry and find a job.  We also knew that meant we'd be leaving Cedar City.  We talked about it, and we had a rough plan to find a great job in or near a big city.  With Jeremy's international business degree, he could get paid pretty darn well.  And then we figured after we did that for a while we'd move wherever the heck we wanted.  (Isn't that a lovely way to say it?)  Also, Jeremy knows that he'd like to someday work as a research professor at a university.  However, he does not currently have any work experience.

A week after Jeremy got home we left for Arizona to visit family and go to the Burk family campout.  Somewhere along the way Jeremy's brother Aaron called and told us about a job teaching business classes at Globe High School.  We kind of dismissed that notion because we knew it wouldn't pay much.  But then we went to the Temple, and while we were there it was made clear to us that our plans were not the same as the Lord's plans.  He wants us to move back to Globe, and he wants Jeremy to take that job.  We both sat there scratching our heads in the Celestial Room.  We both do not want to move back to Globe.  But, by golly, we are going to do what the Lord asks of us!

So we have been going ahead with the new plan.  Our old house in Globe was recently vacated.  Unfortunately, there's been a lot of damage to it.  However, we can get that fixed, and we will have a roof over our heads.  And because Jeremy doesn't have teaching experience and the school needs him anyway, they are taking his prior work experience as a substitute.  Everything is working out really quickly.  And this job will help Jeremy along on his plan.  He can use this teaching experience to go work at a college where they can help pay for his PhD, and then he can work his way up to a university.  It may be a pretty good plan after all.

All of this means, however, that we have got to move quickly.  And that means I have to do some fast box-scrounging.  Usually, I will start scrounging weeks in advance.  This time I started today because that is the best I could do.  So I was doing the dishes this morning, worrying about finding enough boxes quickly enough, and I said this prayer: "Heavenly Father, this move is your idea, so you have to help me find some boxes."  Then I realized that was kind of a bratty way to say it, so I apologized and tried to rephrase, saying basically the same thing except adding "please" in somewheres.  And then I went out to hunt boxes.

I went to Smith's first, and I got a few good ones there, but they made my car smell produce-ish.  Still a box is a box, and I was thankful!  Then I went to Wal-Mart.  I'd called earlier and the guy promised he'd save me some.  He gave me five banana boxes.  That's about what I got at Smith's.  I figured that was all I could find for the day and vowed to get out early tomorrow morning so I could have a better haul.

But then I realized I'd better get some milk and some disposable plates and such, so after I put those boxes in the van I headed back into Wal-Mart.  And, as it happened, I passed the cereal aisle, and lo and behold, there were a whole bunch of boxes because there was a group of people stocking shelves with cereal.  Hallelujah!  I asked if I could have some, and they said, "Yeah!  And we've got like 4 more pallets to unload too!"  So I took a lot and then bought my stuff.  And then I went back, and they gave me a bunch more.  That was it, but that's ok because the car was getting pretty full - and you all know how big my van is!  I was so thankful.  Heavenly Father heard my prayer, even if I said it in a bratty manner.  And I thought maybe I should say bratty prayers more often.  Just kidding!  At the same time, it just reiterates that He does want us to make this move, so we are going.