Preventative Maintenance

Let's just say you get home from work and walk over to the sink and turn on the faucet (to do the dishes from dinner the night before) and get nothing. You then go find your husband to tell him the waters off and he's pulling a city water bill out of the filing cabinet and asks you "Where's the phone. It's not on the charger?!"
"Hey Ryan, did you know the water's off?" "Now is not the time to ask me questions, Peaches." Let's just say your husband then disappears. If that were to happen to me, I would start investigating. Holes, lots of holes in the backyard. Looks like someone was working on the sprinklers. Ah hah, a broken sprinkler pipe. And what's this? The husband is talking to Don Dial, our wonderful neighbor who knows a lot and has done even more. Hmmm. The next thing I know, there's an even bigger hole in the front yard...we're talking 4 feet deep.

Now, we have a lot of kids on our street and not much excitement happens on Lynwood so when someone is digging a 4 foot hole the kiddies are going to want to hang around to see what's going on. And that's just they did, if this would have really happened last night, which it didn't. I now have an excuse to hang around too, ya' know, to make sure the little ones don't get in ma' hubby's way while he's working. Turns out, Ryan cut through a pipe fixing the sprinklers, turned the water off to fix the pipe, and 20 mins later noticed an even bigger leak at our main water source. He gets the valve off, and while he's down there he may as well replace the old parts with new ones. Those elbow buggers didn't want to come off. There was a chain, 3 wrenches, rebar, multiple small pipes, a sledgehammer, and a car jack involved. But yes, the elbow came off. After a trip to Lowes, Home Depot, then back to Lowes, 17 man hours, a homemade pizza (my contribution) and working until 11:30pm, the new valve did the same thing the old one was doing.

Lesson learned...if you turn off your water and there's water coming out at a very high pressure from the main main valve, that valve has a pressure release that will release all the water in the pipes. Oh and P.S. the new valve was put on backwards. I'm sure that will be fixed in a jiffy today.

This really would've sucked if it would've really happened yesterday. Thank goodness it didn't.

What's in a name?

My dad calls me "two mules". In the 6th grade I was called "Ostrich girl". Andrew VonNeiderhausern dubbed me "bubble head". As of lately my brother-in-law, Chris, calls me Sar-Bear. Usually it's out of annoyance when I'm having problems getting up on the ski, "Come on Sar-Bear, that grip's not going to {blankety blank} cut it!" Then there's the names Ryan calls me, Princess, Camper, Wife, Peaches and my favorite Sport.

I'm curious about others' nicknames. Does anyone have a nickname that has lasted throught the years or possibly from their spouse they'd be willing to divulge? I'd love to hear them.



Pictured above is Two Mules and her sister. Liz, feel free to tell us the nickname dad gave you when you were a baby. It's a good one.

What to say?

I'm at a real loss of what to post right now. I could talk about the new Yoga DVD and Yoga mat I bought yesterday right along with my Ben & Jerry's and cinnamon rolls. I could talk about my aunt and uncle being sealed today and how excited I am to go to that, even if it is for the sole purpose that I get to leave work 3 hours early for it. I could talk about the Jazz. I could talk about how utterly ecstatic I am that Ryan will be home in three days.

Instead I'll just post this picture.

When we were kids living at the village we would play "toss people up high in blankets". I'm sure it had some creative name but I don't remember it. My dad is scanning slides onto the computer. I love it when he does that because then I get random emails of old pictures, like this one.

You might think this picture is of the same game, but it's actually the day I had to jump from the third story of a burning apartment.


Just kidding.

What am I going to do with all this ham fried rice?

I've done quite well on my list of things to accomplish while Ryan is away. I thought to reward myself I would get chinese take-out and enjoy, hopefully enjoy and not endure 48 minutes of pure agony, the Jazz game. I'm watching pre-game and Big T looks great in his red vest. Now, what was the point of my post? Oh, my take-out. I was talking to someone at work whose opinion I trust when it comes to food, he loves The Mandrin and Little World, he referred me to a particular Chinese restaraunt in Ogden and told me which dishes to try...beef and brocolli, szechwan chicken, and peking rice which is ham fried with shrimp instea of ham. All day I was drooling over the thought of my Szechwan Chicken I would be eating later.

After work I arrived at the restaraunt, ordered the chicken and beef and I wanted to substitute peking rice for the ham fried that came with both dishes. Of course I would've paid extra. For some reason the guy taking my order and I weren't communicating very well, I accept full responsibility. After a confusing order I had spent $26 and had enough food coming my way to feed myself, my husband, my sister and her family, and all of you. I realized the horror of my situation, I panicked. {I do that pretty often and make rash decisions.} Instead of removing some of the dishes, I had him add 3 eggrolls so he wouldn't think all the food was for me. I handed over all my cash, sat down and pretended to call home to report I'd be there in 20 minutes.

I have a serious problem.

I hope I have hungry neighbors.

I know this picture has nothing to with the post but I'm a firm believer that all posts needs pictures and to introduce you to my sister-in-law Kirstin.

Jergens Natural Glow

Ryan always gets up earlier than me. He pokes, tickles, whispers sweet nothings in my ear, all attempting to get me up with him. One morning, I threw the blankets off myslef and he shielded his eyes with his hands and pretented to be going blind because of my white legs, it was an Oscar winning performance. I decided I wanted to have a tan when he came home from his tour of duty. I went to the Wall Marts and bought Jergens Natural Glow Firming Daily Moisturizer. I must say I'm a believer. It's not the over powering smell that other tan in a can products have {there is a smell but not the kind that keeps you awake at night} and since it's a gradual change I don't worry so much about streaks or crazy tan ankles and knees. I told Ryan I was using it and he said it sounds unhealthy, what a goofball.

On a side note, someone I may work with who shall remane nameless may have brought a CD player into work and might be playing CD's of piano music with the sounds of birds and the ocean in the background and the unnamed person may be humming along in her soprano hum. You know what I'm talking about, the token soprano in the ward choir who you can hear above everybody else. That's her.



I guess I'll just sit here and sniff my arm and ignore those squaking hummingbirds.