Seattle or Bust

It’s official, these country mice have moved to the big city. If you want our address, email me and I'll send you one of these that's not censored :) :

We live about six miles north of downtown and I, for one, am totally ok with that.  

It’s exciting and a little bit scary to be in such a big city. It has been an interesting move for sure. Let’s start at the beginning.

Kevin’s sister and her family were moving to Moscow just as we were leaving. Hyrum offered to rent the truck as long as we would share and move at the same time. So, that’s just what we did. Britney packed up her whole house on the 13^th and Hyrum drove all the way to Moscow that night. Turns out, the air conditioner was broken in the truck so as the night cooled off he decided to just keep driving. Of course, the four days that we were moving were some of the hottest days of the summer. It was 90 degrees in Seattle the day we moved in for goodness sake.

Kevin and I woke up on the 14^th and drove to Hyrum’s hotel to enjoy the hot tub before a long day of hard work. We were packing up our house until about 4 when we went over to Britney’s to start unloading her stuff. We had over half the truck unloaded when Britney, James, and their family arrived. Kevin, Hyrum and I went to dinner after the whole truck was unloaded. This would have been a lot more fun if Kevin and I hadn’t been eating out for the past week. The fridge at our house died about a week earlier and all of our food went bad. And the landlady didn’t seem to care to fix it for us. This was really frustrating considering we had to throw out about 100+ dollars of food and then had to pay for dinner every night, which we really couldn’t afford. Oh, well, what are you going to do?

The morning of the 15^th was spent loading all of our junk into the moving truck. Then, after a quick trip for ice cream we cleaned the entire house and touched up the paint. It seemed to take forever. (I really dislike cleaning.) But finally it was time to leave. Hyrum jumped in the truck, Kevin in his car and me and kitty in my car. Yep, you read that right. Kitty got to come to Seattle! 

This is our no sleep, just spent three hours loading the truck and four hours cleaning look. 

Oh, and apparently the cat is possessed. 

We hadn’t been driving for long before it got dark. We made it to Moses Lake when we decided to stop for the night. When we sat down for dinner Kevin and Hyrum started talking about all the deer. All the deer I hadn’t seen. They were apparently everywhere, including in the road, and I didn’t see a single one. Not one. Scary. And now we all know why I don’t drive at night or when tired – I’m basically a zombie. From what I understand, one deer even thought about running at my car. I was blissfully unaware. I promise I am actually a good driver. Really. I promise.

We ended up staying at the Shilo Inn and sneaking the cat into our room. We didn’t want to be assigned to a smoking room or have to pay an extra deposit for the cat since we knew she wouldn’t make any trouble. However, because we snuck her in we needed to make sure she stayed quiet. Here’s the thing about my cat. She is quiet all day; usually she just sleeps on a chair somewhere or curls up next to me. Kira calls her “squeaker” because she really doesn’t have much of a meow; it’s more of a squeak or a chirp. By night however, she is a completely different cat. She attacks your ankle if you walk by her hiding place, and once you’re in bed she wanders around yowling at the top of her little kitty lungs. That night was no different. We set up her food, water, and a little litter box in the tiny bathroom and put her in there just before going to bed.

Less than ten minutes went by before we realized that was a bad idea. She started crying to be let out. So, we opened the door and let her wander. She was pretty good until about 3 in morning when she started meowing, luckily it wasn’t full on yowling, but it needed to be stopped. I tried pinning her on the bed next to me, and although she was quiet she was struggling and I was just too tired to care so I let her go and drifted back to sleep. I thought she just stopped meowing.

When I woke up however, kevin wasn’t in bed. I looked around and saw his torso and legs sticking out of the bathroom. Apparently, the cat didn’t want to be alone but she also didn’t want to stay on the bed with us. The solution? Be with her in the tiny bathroom. Only problem was, he didn’t fit in the bathroom. So, he had his head on a pillow inside the tiny bathroom and the rest of him was sticking out into the room. Poor boy. He did not look at all comfortable. He also said he didn’t get much sleep because she kept crawling on his head. I think my husband likes me a little bit. I am one seriously lucky girl.

As tired as we were, it was time to finish the drive and move in to our new home. As we got closer to the city I became more and more nervous. When we finally made it to our apartment I pried my hands of the steering wheel and they were shaking for about an hour. I was afraid I was going to get lost and I am really not a fan of big cities or freeways. Mostly I’m not a fan of the crazy drivers that always seem to reside in big cities. It took about four hours to unload the whole truck. Thank goodness for my mom and Kevin’s friend Tyson. We could not have done it without them.

It only took about a week (actually about 4 days) to get everything unpacked. Then, about a few weeks ago we got everything put up on the walls. We are pretty happy in our new place and it is certainly starting to feel like home. I think my favorite thing is the fat squirrels that run around just outside our sliding doors.

Now I just need to find a job! I’ve applied to a bunch and continuing to look. Don’t these people know how awesome I am? Why are they not jumping at the opportunity to hire me? Seriously, I’m fantastic. 

When I die...

One day not so long ago Kevin and I were driving back to Troy from Moscow and as we passed the cemetery I got to thinking about headstones. After mulling it over for a little bit I decided that I want a say in my headstone. Now, I don't think that's how it normally works, but I'm not a normal person. So, let it be known now that I do not want a traditional headstone. I want one in the shape of a bird. I want one that when people are walking through the cemetery they can't help but smile because it's so odd and out of place. But more importantly, I want one with a motion activated speaker. That way when people walk past it will yell "Hey you, get off my grass!"

Just thought I'd put it out there.

The three year table transformation

When Kevin and I got married we had nothing. Ground breaking stuff right? A newly married couple with nothing and no money. Well, our families took pity on us and supplied us with all sorts of things with which to furnish our new home and start our lives together. We were grateful for everything we were given but we wanted to try to make them our own. The first thing on the list was our table. 

This wasn’t just any table though – it was a table with a serious story behind it. 

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, there was a table. This table had a very misfortunate accident. This all happened when the table was living in my parent’s kitchen. We were on vacation when the person watching the house took the heat lamp off the chameleon cage to feed the animal. After putting the crickets in the cage and replacing the top this individual left – forgetting to replace the heat lamp. He was completely horrified when he arrived the next day to discover the heat lamp had slowly burned its way through the table and was now laying on the floor. Seeing as we didn’t want to play “try to miss the hole” each time we ate, the table was moved to the garage and a new one took its place. (This new table is the one Kira and Zac received when they got married.) The burned table was given to the pets. The dog slept below it, and the cats slept and ate on top of it. One cat also had the nasty habit of throwing up on it quite frequently. This abuse went on for about five years. 

When Kevin and I were getting married my dad offered to give us the table. However, it would take a lot of work to get the table fit to eat off and it didn’t have any chairs to go with it. (Nothing happened to the chairs when the table was burned so although we had two of the “same” tables there was only one set of chairs and those went to Kira and Zac.) We were hesitant to accept. Not because of the lack of chairs and the state of the table but because we didn’t want to make a ton of work for my dad. However, after looking for dining sets and realizing even the cheapest ones were way out of our price range we asked dad if he would really be willing to repair the table. Being the wonderful man that he is, he repaired the table for us. We seriously couldn’t have been more grateful.

Getting that table back to a useable condition was not easy. First, he sanded off years of grime and various stains from the tabletop and legs. Then he cut away all of the remaining charred wood and filled the hole by sticking in sections of poplar. He then had to sand it one more time to make sure the tabletop was even. The table looked absolutely beautiful. You never would have guessed it spent five years sitting in the garage being battered by animals. You could see the poplar patch pretty clearly in the maple tabletop but it was a functioning table and we were ecstatic to have it. 

We had all sorts of grand plans for the table – we were going to stain the top to be nice and dark (it kinda’ had to be to disguise the patch) and paint the legs – but we just never seemed to make the time – isn’t that always how it seems to go? We finally got the kick in the butt we needed when we found out we wouldn’t be able to re-up our lease in Springville for another year. See, our condo in Springville had a garage, which would be the perfect place to do staining and painting, where as our new apartment would not. And we did not want to work with stain in a carpeted area or inside the house. 

We decided to try to complete the project before we moved, so off to Home Depot we went. We decided to go with a really dark stain with a red tint to it. Neither of us had ever stained a piece of wood in our lives and it was certainly a learning experience. A few things we learned along the way: 

1. Maple is really difficult to stain 
2. Do not try to use a stain and poly in one for your first staining attempt 
3. Do not listen to all the directions online and the guy at Home Depot who tell you to wipe on the stain, let it sit, and wipe it off – this is not what you do when working with a stain and poly in one. 
4. You won’t learn lesson three until the second coat because you somehow managed to wipe off the stain pretty well and have a decent looking table after the first coat. However, every time you try to fix a mistake on the second coat you will only make things ten times worse. 
5. When staining a difficult piece of furniture with a difficult to use stain you will likely fall out of love with said piece of furniture many times before becoming completely overjoyed with the final product (not to mention that the project from you-know-where is finally done). 

Yes, the first layer of stain looked ok. The second coat was a complete disaster – we would try to fix a streak and would end up completely messing up the stain. I became very discouraged and kept repeating over and over how much I hated this table and how I couldn’t believe I had ever suggested trying to stain it. Hadn’t I learned anything from Kira and Zac’s difficult ordeal trying to stain their table? 

Kevin and I quickly decided that we would wait until my parents came down to help us move before trying anything else with the table. We convinced our landlord to let us use the garage for a few days after moving out so we could finish the table. When my dad arrived he sanded the table (again) replaced one of the pieces of poplar (it was pretty green and was a lot darker than everything else when stained) and helped us with attempt number two. Attempt number two also failed. Although by the end of attempt two we had figured out a technique we thought would work. So, dad sanded the table, again, and we started over, again. Attempt number three was the charm. It still wasn’t perfect. There are still lines – but we decided to embrace them. We made sure we went from one edged of the table to the other, following the grain of the wood, in one stroke. We figured as long as the lines were straight we could pretend they were part of the wood grain. 

After a few coats of stain and a few good coats of polyurethane we had a beautiful tabletop that we were incredibly proud of. And, happily, I actually loved the table again. It was as though I suddenly forgot what a pain in the butt the table had been and all the times I had loudly declared how much I hated it. By this point we had been using the garage for about three or four extra days since moving to North Orem and it was time to leave for real, so we loaded the table into the car (which was quite the ordeal in itself) and brought it home without having time to paint the legs. 

As a result the table legs remained in their sanded and unfinished state for another 6 months. We finally painted the legs when we went up to the Conrad’s house for Christmas. Kevin suggested that we paint the legs white since he thought the combination of the dark tabletop and white legs looked really nice. I, however, thought it would look even better with more of a cream. I thought it would fit better with the red-ish hue of the stain. It just goes to show that I should listen to Kevin more often. We ended up getting “antique white” which turned out to be quite yellow and even a little orange. Neither of us loved it when we were spraying it on but as we had already purchased the paint and started the process we decided to just go with it and see how it looked with the tabletop when we got home. We weren’t in love, but seeing as it was finished we left it rather than painting again. Yes, we are in fact that lazy. It stayed that way until about a month ago when I finally got around to making the table legs match our newly painted chairs. And guess what color it went? White! Yep, the hubs was right, the white looks absolutely amazing and I am seriously in love with the table now. I don’t think Kevin and I will ever want to replace that table. It has such a great story behind it and we have put so much time in to it. And hey, its various changes are part of our first three years of marriage, which is fun. 

A new neighbor and fun facts

We have a new neighbor on our little street. His name is Reginald and I am not a fan. He is obnoxious, annoying, rude and has absolutely no respect for anyone else. He is constantly making noise in the wee hours of the morning with no regard for anyone else. And worst of all, he struts around his back yard completely naked and unashamed. Oh, and Reginald is a rooster. A very loud and annoying rooster who likes to wake up the whole street with his loud crowing around 5 o'clock every morning.

There have been a number of mornings I contemplated setting a fox free in the neighbor's chicken coop. Then I remember I don't have a fox, I have a lazy and easily frightened cat. Honestly, between the cat running up and down the stairs yowling as soon as we go to bed and the rooster cock-a-doodle-doing at 5 it's amazing we ever get any sleep around here.  


Now for some fun facts about Troy so I don't forget:

1. It's a seriously tiny town nestled in a valley completely surrounded by trees. It's absolutely gorgeous in every season and the air always smells clean and fresh.

2. In this tiny town there are the following shops:
      - the post office
      - a floral shop
      - a barber
      - an antique store
      - a convenience store
      - 3 bars
      - a liquor store
      - and one awesome "restaurant" called the filling station that makes the most amazing sandwiches

3. On the edge of town there is a second antique shop in a little barn. I don't count this one as a shop because it is only open when they put their sign out on the side of the road and I think I've only seen the sign 4 times in the whole time we've lived here.

4. Every morning, when the whole town is quiet, you can hear the birds singing and the saw at the cedar mill running. It's a little whining/whirring sound that's not at all unpleasant.


5. The nights are almost silent here in the winter and in the summer you can hear tons of bugs chirping. Oh, and there are tons of moths which is actually pretty gross...


6. There is a "bell" (which sounds like a tornado siren) that goes off every day at noon. We were told it signals lunch time. The first day we were here it scared the ever living daylights out of me but now there are days I don't even notice it. 


7. The aforementioned neighbors recently put in a chicken coop and there is now a constant low grade clucking which really isn't so bad. It's just that stupid rooster that I want to kill. 


8. The toilet in our house sounds like it has an angry gremlin living in it every time it flushes. (I've gotten used to this one too. I didn't remember how freaky it was until we had some visitors comment on it, which made me smile.) 


9. Ever since moving to Troy Kevin has had the strange desire to steal wood and become known as the Cedar Bandit. When asked why he wants to steal cedar he responds "so I can burn it." I think he forgets our "wood stove" is gas powered...  Almost every time we drive past the cedar mill he says "the cedar bandit strikes again" it cracks me up. 


10. We have two gigantic trees in our front yard that not only keep the house cool in the summer but are also super awesome because they look like the whomping willow from the Harry Potter movies. 

Kevin and I have loved living in Troy and there are definitely things we will miss when we move away but we are ready for our next adventure and we are sure we will fall in love with Seattle just as we fell in love with Troy.

Updated Blog

My resolution to update the blog more often was clearly a colossal fail but, better late than never right... right? I've decided to update the look of the blog in the hopes that the happy new colors will encourage me to visit more often and keep things updated. However, I have decided I'm not going to play "catch up" per say... It's more going to be fun stories and things that the hubs and I have been up to in no particular order so feel free to not read along, I'll completely understand. (However, I may snub you from now on.)

Now for the biggest news of the past year as a quick little teaser: K + K = 3K

Wait for iiiiiiiiiiit...

Kitten fluff joined the family! 

I had you for a second there didn't I? She's always been my baby and I love having her around. Kevin is amused by her and although he is constantly threatening to shave her I think think he genuinely enjoys his kitten snuggles. I know he loves giving her treats... She comes running if you shake the bag and we've taught her to beg which is fun. 

I think she is the thing I'll miss most when we move to Seattle. We are hoping to get in to student housing but it doesn't allow pets so back to Vancouver she goes. A very small part of me is hoping we don't get in to student housing and we can live in an apartment that allows pets.