silby's bad experience

march has already been a very busy month. let's see....

last sunday jake and i went out for a bike ride around our house for some quick exercise. what was supposed to be a 40 minute ride turned into about an hour of riding, then pulling over to fix flats. both of us got a flat tire, and the second we stopped, jake looked at me like "well, you said you wanted to learn how to change a flat..." So, just as soon as I had made my resolution, i was putting it to good use! normally I would have taken a break with my cliff bar as jake changed our tires... but not this time!

the following morning, i was leaving for work and decided to get my sunglasses. i go to open our car and notice all of our stuff is everywhere - papers on the seat, whatever we had in the back seat was moved around, and there was a horrible stench of cigarette smoke. and ashes and some other gross stuff were on our brand new seats! we quickly concluded that someone broke into our car in the middle of the night.... and by broke in, i mean walked up and opened the unlocked door... yes, i think i forgot to lock it when i was unloading groceries the night before. it was a huge bummer, but we kept saying "it could have been a lot worse". at least Silby (our silver blue subaru) didn't have a window smashed or any real damage. they did steal our 2 ipods and some sunglasses though. the worst part was knowing someone was going through our stuff and just hanging out, right in front of our house. taj and zeek clearly didn't hear a peep either!

so as we're sitting there waiting for the police, our neighbor comes up and needs a jump because his battery was dead. we've seen each other briefly walking to/from our cars for about a year and had never exchanged more than a head nod. so of course we help him. we didn't want to move our car since the cops were on the way and didn't want to touch anything... so jake jumps in Doyle, his '81 toyota that is half dead sitting in our driveway. the neighbor is looking at us like "really, with that thing?" as it's trying so hard just to turn on. we had to laugh that Doyle, who is now non-operable with the dmv, taken off our insurance, can hardly idle, and is in need of some serious TLC,... here he comes to the rescue and can still jump start a honda. man that old beast really has some heart  :)

so jake leaves for work, and im sitting there waiting for the cops - still. and this boxer with a collar on comes running up to our fence, in a panic, who clearly had just escaped his house and was on the loose. i grab our dog treats and a leash and take off running after him. so here i am running like a crazy lady, in my cycling shoes, which are really annoying to walk in, let alone run. i pass several people who are like "is that your boxer? he went that way!" and i'm like it's not mine, but thanks...  a cop pulls up and sees i have a jar of treats and a dog leash, and asks if I'm looking for that boxer.... and i ask him if he can please come by my house after this to do my police report that i called in about 2 hours ago!

i guess the point of all that was that morning started off pretty crappy. there's no doubt about that. but yet somehow, just being given the opportunity to help other people always makes you feel good. and i think it's what turned that morning around. without those light-hearted moments, i think the rest of the day i would have been like "awww man, this sucks. so unfair. can't believe our car was broken into. woe is me..." but it's like we didn't even have time to think like that because other people around you need help. i think if we look for it more often, there are plenty of opportunities to stop what we're doing and help other people.

anyways, today will entail a nice bike ride with jake, and then i'm volunteering at Project Wildlife. i'm still training and there's so much to learn there, and so many species of birds i will need to become familiar with! last sunday was the first time i've held a bird that wasn't a pet. it was pretty neat. i think in the beginning it will be a lot of cage cleaning and hand feeding. but that's fine by me. it's still a great way to help. however, i was disappointed to learn i will not be snuggling with squirrels anytime soon, unless i get a $800 rabies shot.

so birds will do for now! :) 

march: growth

march's focus will be growth. there's so many things I've said I wanted to learn, but I knew I'd only set myself up for a daunting task that I could never complete if I named them all! I really want to learn how to play the piano, for example. But I know this isn't something I can just put on a list and check it off. So I will keep that on my bucket list, but know it's not something that will happen overnight...

so here's what we have for march!

learn photoshop: i was going to take a free class at the local community college, but jake said he could show me how since he's been using it for years. so we downloaded a student version for a free 30 day trial. we had our first little lesson... and wow, that program is super complex! I'll keep myself busy this month trying to learn photoshop!

sewing:

my mom bought me a sewing machine for my bridal shower and i really want to learn how to sew! my mom has always been able to sew basic projects like comforters, curtains, etc... and i have always admired that. so hopefully i'll be able to pick it up quickly. there are videos and things online, but i was also thinking I may just sign up for a class. we'll see.


look up words I don't know when reading: i just liked this idea... i always breeze over a word I don't know, and thought it would be great if I just started this habit.

don't worry about what others think: this is something that I wanted to work on and felt like it fit best in this category. I think I've gotten better about this over the years. Maybe I'm just more comfortable in my skin now than I was 10 years ago. But i do catch myself worrying about what others think of me, or agreeing with things just to be agreeable, maybe not speaking my mind when I feel like I want to, etc... so i'm looking forward to making a conscious effort towards this change.

blog: learning about "blogging" was put on my list when all of this started, before I was certain if i was even going to start this one! just learning how to embed PDFs and things have been a little bit of a challenge for me, so i'm glad that this is a learning opportunity for me, as well as fun!

learn the parts of a bike: i have had an unusual amount of flat tires over the last 2 years. and each time, we're usually on a long ride and jake is always my wonderful hubby that changes it for me. i really need to take the time to learn the parts of my bike, and how to change a flat myself! as well as tighten the cables, raise the seat, and so on... here's just a few pics of jake changing a flat that was NOT his own....  :)

So that is what March has in store for me! Looks like I'll be keepin' myself busy! And I'm also volunteering at Project Wildlife, so hopefully I do that for a few hours on Sundays also...

february recap

well February flew by so fast... it was over before I knew it! I was quite distracted for the first half of the month planning a surprise party for Jake's 40th birthday!! So that really kept me busy - baking, decorating, scheming, all without him knowing! We shoved everyone in the garage, so when he got back from his bike ride, the first thing he did was open the garage to put his bike away....

 and SURPRISE!!!

It was so much fun to do something like that for him. I could just tell he was shocked, especially by our guests who mad it from afar ... Erika, Shane and Tiersy made it from northern CA, and his Mom and Dad came from Utah. It was so wonderful to have all these people take time out of their day to celebrate with him. And I made a scrapbook of photos, well wishes, notes, etc... from friends and family from all over. It was such a neat gift to give him. So, this was something that kept me quite busy in the first half of February.


So what else did I do for February's resolutions? Well we planted a tree in our front yard like we said we would! Her name is Nelly the Nectarine... lets just hope she get nice and big and produces some great fruit! And hope the dogs don't water it.... if you know what I mean....

And last but not least... we adopted!!! Well, kind of....

I remember being like 13 years old and I really wanted to adopt a manatee. I think a girl in my class had done it and i was soooo jealous. I really wanted one... And if you signed up for some membership then supposedly you adopted one... So i came home, pitched it to my mom, and she said no... i was like this is soooo unfair!! And around the same time, my sister, Erika, wanted to join the Janet Jackson fan club. And it was like $60 or something stupid and you got like a "real" letter from JJ herself... which was clearly a stamped autograph at the bottom. So my mom paid for Erika to become a JJ member, but wouldn't pay for my manatee! This is a true story, and you can tell I'm still annoyed by it... (which, by the way, my mom denies this ever happened...)

So, with that, I'd like to introduce Paddy Doyle....

According to Savethemanatee.org, Paddy Doyle is named by researchers after the famous "fighting Irishman". He bears the distinction of being one of the feistiest manatees in the Blue Springs area.

When I went online to pick one, his name jumped out at me and I knew it was meant to be... as Doyle is Jake's Grandpa's name, and Jake also named his beloved '81 Toyota pick-up after him too  :)
So, hopefully we really did just adopt him and this isn't a scam.... though he still shows up on their website as an "adoptable manatee" so we'll see... haha!

Anyways, February went by without me taking the time to make any entries on here. I kept thinking of it, an then I'd get busy. And several times I thought "maybe I should just quit, this is kinda a silly idea anyways... " And I started to feel like I should just call the whole thing off since I had already slacked off so much.... but then I'd remind myself of that favorite commandment of mine "start where you are". It doesn't have to be perfect. And starting wherever you are is better than not starting at all.

So even though I fell off the wagon a bit.... March is now here and I have a new list of resolutions!