So when we were in the process of buying the house, hubs thought it'd be a good idea to scrimp on some of the things that we buy frequently. So we bought cheap coffee. BAD IDEA. It was horrible, Kroger brand swill. I was embarrassed to make coffee when people came over because it was that bad. My mom and sister commented on it and made fun of me for being so cheap. We decided that saving $10 a month wasn't worth drinking bad coffee and tried to finish up the Kroger junk. Well, we finally just threw it out and bought a large can of Timmy's. OH MY GOD. I missed it so much. I'm drinking a cup right now and it is sensational. It doesn't taste burnt or bitter. I told Jim that I'm willing to give up other things, but not coffee. I only drink it on my days off and I'm willing to splurge, ya know?


And that concludes the useless foray into my life.

I've been thinking a lot about babies lately. I just can't get enough of them. It seems like everyone I know has a baby. I see them when I go out to shop. They're just so damn cute. There's just one problem.

They. Absolutely. Terrify. Me.

No joke. I'm terrified that I'd be completely in charge of another human being. Jim and I have this discussion a lot. He knows even less about babies than I do. What do you do with them? Does having children mean that our (lacking) social life will be even worse than it is now? What if my boob doesn't work? Will Jim end up scalding our offspring? What if it doesn't sleep all night? What if I have post partem depression? And the question that's really keeping me up at night: what if it's ugly?? Can I love an ugly baby? Because damn, there are some ugly babies in the world. I was hideous. Long black hair sticking out, tiny little eyes, wahhing and hollering all the time (or so I'm told).

If I got pregnant tomorrow, I'd be happy about it, but I know it's not the best time right now. We're working on making the house our own (can't wait for spring so we can plant flowers!) and have not even tackled the upstairs yet. Every room upstairs needs to be painted and I don't think I could handle a baby, house stuff, and work all at the same time.

But let's just think about the pluses here. The smell of the baby..better than new car smell. The baby powder..mmm. The ability to use a child to proclaim your political affiliation, share a funny segregation joke for all the correctional facility employees/ former inmates, imploring everyone to give peas a chance. But my true crack is nursery furniture and decor. Oh lord, let me at it. Toile, swiss dots, damask, I want it all. When I'm bored, I mentally decorate my unconceived child's nursery. I think about names for crying out loud. I even plan imaginary birthday parties. With the complete absence of cheesy, Walt Disney commercial crap. No ugly crepe paper princess cutouts for my little one. Oh no. That just will not do. I'll probably spend more time and effort planning a birthday party than I did my own freaking wedding.

I think a monster has been created. Perhaps it's always been festering under the surface.

Anyone have Animal Crossing: City Folk? I'm a little bit obsessed. Seriously. Add me :D

2020-3868-9619
Name: Jodi
Town: Polkali

Stolen from Melissa

You preferred Obama's statements 89% of the time You preferred McCain's statements 11% of the time Voting purely on the issues you should vote Obama Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now!

What can I say? I'm a damn dirty liberal. Sorry dad, I know you raised me to be a gun totin' conservative, but it kinda backfired.

Sheesh! I have been spending money like there's no tomorrow. We have over 2000 sq ft in the new house and have no clue what we're going to fill it with. Our apartment is about 700 sq ft so you can imagine the amount of stuff that I have. So we're slowly trying to pick up pieces. I'm excited to get our keys so we can call HH Gregg and get our appliances delivered. We also got a patio set from Sam's Club that we'd been wanting since we saw it at the beginning of the summer. At $897 it was just a little too much for us to consider spending. So we've been paying attention to it and watching for markdowns and they finally lowered the price! So Jim went into the store on Wednesday and picked it up for a little over $600 including tax! It has a counter height octagon table and 6 high chairs. It's locked in the garage right now.



I also picked up a few charms for my bracelet. The jewelry store in town had a trunk show where you could save $50 if you purchased $100 in Pandora. Hello! Sounds like a deal to me! So I got the following beads:




And a couple of clips:




Jim also surprised me with the house bead to celebrate closing!


Next on the list is a mower but I think I'll let Jim take care of that one. I have no idea what to look for!


I'm off to walk Kitty and then start dinner. We're having taco salad. YUM!

Soooo...what's new? Life has been pretty eventful lately. After tons of discussion and number crunching, we decided to start looking at houses back in the middle of June. We saw a cute Cape Cod that we liked, in the perfect area, and called a Realtor to work with us. We ended up not liking the Cape Cod because the living areas were just too small, neither the basement or garage was finished, and we just didn't click with it. So we kept looking.

Our Realtor found a few more houses for us to look at and we looked at those about a week later. We looked a 3 that day-- a ranch style, a bilevel, and a normal 2 story. We went to the 2 story first and immediately knew that we had to have the house. It was everything we wanted-- perfect location, big kitchen and living room, finished garage, pool, good backyard, and everything else we never thought we'd be able to afford. We left the house and Jim asked the Realtor immediately how to go about putting in an offer. Being a good Realtor, she told us that we could do that but to look at the other houses as well. So we went to the other houses, liked the ranch, but it didn't hold a candle to the 2 story. The bilevel was just weird. The master bedroom was like a hotel room. The sink was literally right beside the bed. There were no walls seperating the bedroom and bathroom and there was all this southwestern junk everywhere. It was just off putting. We probably would have ended up putting an offer in on the ranch if we hadn't seen the 2 story first.

Anyway. We went out to lunch to discuss and then met back with the Realtor at her office. We wrote up an offer and the sellers countered 2 days later. We accepted their counter and went under contract. Drama then ensued. The sellers were getting divorced and the wife was difficult throughout the entire process. We thought we'd lost the house at one point because the wife refused to sign a contract extension to go past the end of July. Thankfully her Realtor was equipped to deal with difficult people and was able to get everything settled. We were originall supposed to close on August 8, but the seller filed for bankruptcy and the title company would not close until all of that was settled. We finally closed on the 22nd. SOOOO EXCITING! The seller is currently living in the house and has 30 days to get out, so we'll be moving in about a month. EEK!

After closing, we went appliance shopping. We picked out the most gorgeous satin finish stainless steel appliances. I can't believe I'm so excited about appliances. I really never thought I'd get to this point, but I guess my nesting instinct is going in full force.



Soo..here's the house!

This has been a hell of a week.

Jim's granddad passed away on Monday. It was time. The family had refused to allow him to be given pain medication but finally relented on Monday. He died about 20 minutes later. Jim thinks that he just couldn't relax enough until he was given the medicine. It was definitely for the best. He was in pain and unable to communicate with anyone. We flew down to Tampa on Thursday morning. We had an uneventful flight for the most part. There was a 45 minute layover in Charlotte, where I attempted to update on my Treo, but between running around, finding our gate, and getting a snack, I ran out of time. We left Columbus at about 11 and arrived in Tampa at around 4:30. Layovers are the suck.

Jim's mom, bro, and sis picked us up the at the airport and took us to our craphole of a motel so we could drop off our luggage. We then headed over to Jim's grandma's house where the whole family was congregating. We had a nice, albeit awkward visit. No one knew what to say to each other. On Friday, we met up with the sibs and Jim's lovely cousin Renee and went to Target in an attempt to find Dorothy shoes. No luck at Target, but we did find them at Walmart. Afterward, we went back to the house in Tierra Verde and sat. And sat. And sat some more. Jim's mom, her sibs, and grandma went to the funeral home to make some decisions and we all hung out and cleaned the patio so that it would be ready for visitors on Saturday. We ended up having dinner and then went back to the motel to chill. We ended up taking a nice walk down Gulf Blvd. and ended up at Bennigans for drinks and shared a couple of appetizers. It was wonderful just to chill.

The funeral was Saturday. The service was beautiful but it took a lot out of everyone. We were at the funeral home from 9 until about 12:30 and then went to the church for the service, then to the cemetary, and then back to the church for refreshments and to watch a slideshow that Renee put together. Afterward, we went to the motel to change and went back to the gma's to hang out with the family. We had a couple of shots of 86 proof whiskey in honor of Papa and had a pretty good time reminicing and just being together. We eventually left and returned to the motel. We walked down to the beach and just chilled for the longest time. It was really nice.

Said our goodbyes on Sunday and finally got home at about 5:30. It was exhausting! We didn't do much yesterday except chill. Today it's back to normal. I'm heading off to work in about 10 minutes and Jim is just now clocking in. I'm ready for normalcy!

So yesterday was pretty much the worst day ever.

Major cuts are being made within every state agency, including the DRC. This was not news, as we had all heard about that weeks ago. Each agency director had to determine which jobs to cut. In the DRC, each warden then had to decide which jobs at their particular institutions could be cut. Tuesday, we got official word that 19 jobs at our institution would be cut. I wasn't worried until yesterday, when I got an email about cuts at other institutions. It seems that there are about 8 jobs in food service, where Jim works, that are going to be cut. Jim's job is essentially in jeopardy because he is almost at the very end of the seniority roster. He hired in with a few other coordinators who have less seniority, but I don't know how the everything will really work out. There's a lot of legalese in his contract book and frankly, we really don't understand it. So it's kind of a wait and see game.

Then his mom called. His grandfather is not doing well, and we may have to hightail it to Florida soon. When she called at 10, the news was bad. According to a nurse at the hospital, he was slowly suffocating and they didn't know if he'd make it until midnight. Then Cathy called again and said that he seemed to be doing better, so I don't know what's going on. We'll talk to her tonight to find out if there have been any changes.

I am the best wife eva.


After walking the dog, I went to the grocery store and bought hubs a 12 pack of Heiniken Light, his favorite ice cream, and I'm going to order a stuffed crust pizza for dinner. If he didn't before, he'll definitely love me foreva.


I'm all of a sudden fond of substituting "a" for "er." Meh. I'm sure it's just a phase.

Remember those lofty plans I had for my spring break?

Yeah. Didn't really accomplish them.

I'm sitting here, dressed shabbily and in severe need of a shower and I just can't bring myself to do anything. I put clothes in the washing machine about an hour and a half ago but haven't ventured down to the basement to put said clothes in the dryer. I also need to go to the grocery store to pick up some milk and a few other things that we've run out of. Jim is working over. AGAIN. He's been on the regular rotation at work for about 3 weeks now and has gotten a lot of overtime. It kind of stinks because he left here at 4:30 am for a 5:30 am shift and probably won't make it home until 8. On the upside, he goes in at 11 tomorrow and will get off at 7. Thank goodness the kitchen closes at 7! I'll be able to actually see my husband with his eyes open for over 3 hours. Poor guy. I'm going stir crazy. Being off from work is no fun when you're all by yourself :( At this point, I'm just ready to go back to work so my day will actually go by reasonably fast. Blah.

I survived Easter at my Auntie's. Don't get me wrong-- I love my family. I just don't particularly like being around them in large doses. My cousin, for instance. She's a bit...well, let's put it this way. She looks like she's been ridden hard and put away wet. She's barely 30 and looks about 45 because she's lived a hard life-- drugs, drinking, screwing random men. So she has 3 kids to show for it. None of them live with her. Her son is a doll. He's fabulous on his own but when he gets around his sisters, all hell breaks loose. They were all screaming and running around and just generally irritating everyone. They're old enough to know better but it made no difference (12, 13, 14). My grandfather looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but there.

And then my step-cousin. Oy. She's 24 and left her husband and kids last year for an old ass trucker. I kid you not. He has a grey beard and looks older than my uncle. She drives me crazy because she spent the entire day saying how she missed her kids so much and I'm just wondering why she left them for an old man if she loves them so much. Grr! This is the stupidity that is rampant in my family.

I spent my week baking. I think I baked at least 4 batches of cookies and I was finally happy with the last batch. I made rolled buttercream to decorate them with and then topped with royal icing. I loved my cookies. I was sad to see them get eaten. I also made Cheesecake Nibbles which were a big hit. They were super easy too.

My cookies! I'm already trying to think of more excuses to make cookies.














I'm on the hunt for a key lime pie recipe. I'm making one for Jim for his 26th birthday on the 2nd. I also need to get him some goodies. I'm definitely getting him an Xbox 360. Aside from that, I'm at a loss. Hopefully I'll have a Eureka! moment and will think of some other things.

Just got an email from my faculty advisor.

"Jodi, attached is a copy of the portfolio review form sent to Walden to verify completion of this final program requirement; congratulations on the successful completion of the Walden Program; celebrate!"


I HAVE MY MASTERS DEGREE!! Ok, not in hand, but yeah, as good as. My stomach is doing flip flops right now because I just can't believe it's all over. Now I can really relax. I was loving the time off, but I was concerned that I might have to redo some of it. Guess not!


Now I'm going to lay in bed and read. ALL DAY.


Just because I can.

Ahh. First real day off. Jim left early this morning, at about 4:30. He'll be home by 2:30 though, so it was perfectly fine. I fell back asleep after he left and didn't get out of bed until about 10:30. I took Kitty for a walk around the block, made a half a pot coffee, and had a shower. Now I'm watching Martha Stewart. I'm planning on straightening up the kitchen in a bit because my neice and I are going to be decorating sugar cookies in a few hours. I spent the Sunday afternoon baking cookies and then made icing last night, so we're all ready. I'm going to pick her up from preschool at about 2 and I'll have her until my sister gets off at about 6. Should be a fun day.

We ended up going out to my sister's place on Saturday night and had a fun night of pizza and Rook. The kids were home so it got a bit loud, but they mostly behaved themselves. We brought Kitty with us so the kids had fun with tormenting her. We got home at about 12:30 and promptly went to bed.

Woke up Sunday at about 9, walked the dog, and headed into town to run some errands. We had to get some doggie treats at the pet store and then went over to Walmart to get a few groceries. After getting home, I worked on the cookies while Jim made Potato Leek soup. Sooooo good. There's still a bowl in the refrigerator waiting for my to warm up for lunch. I can't wait. Anyway, after all that baking and cooking, we watched Stardust, with Claire Danes and Michelle Pfieffer. What a cute movie! It was a fairy tale, but definitely not childish. It was a bit formulaic, but very witty and fun. It's definitely the best movie I've seen in a while.

Martha is now showing Waterford crystal. How gorgeous is this stuff? The cake plate is phenomenal. Mayber I'll be able to afford it one day :) Until then, I'll keep myself content with cut glass :)

I overnighted my portfolio to my faculty adviser this afternoon. SQUEE!! I can't believe it's over! Well, I hope it's over. If my portfolio is accepted, I'll have a master's. If not, I'll have to do some revisions and then I'll be a graduate. Keep your fingers crossed.

I also finished my last day of work until March 31. I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself for 2 weeks. Some ideas:

1. Bake Easter sugar cookies

2. Go shopping for Jim's birthday pressies

3. Sink my teeth into digiscrapping

4. Read. FOR PLEASURE, NOT LEARNING!

5. Buy new shoes

6. Purchase a few charms for my Pandora bracelet

7. Sleep in until at least 10 am everyday

8. Take Kitty to the park every afternoon

9. CLEAN!!

10. Clear the computer of crap/ add infrequently used files to CD-RWs


I'm just totally chuffed to not have a set schedule for 2 weeks. I want to make it over to Beavercreek at some point..maybe I'll kidnap my mom. There's also a craft show in Lancaster that I'd like to attend, but that's not until the beginning of April.

Hubs and I had dinner with some of my college buds tonight. We met at Max and Ermas and Tortilla Soup was had by all. YUMMO! It was a little on the spicey side tonight, but still quite good. Afterward, we came home and started watching Stardust but then my mom called. I talked to her for a few minutes and by the time I was finished, Jim was sleeping. He's still in the same position, just sort of slouching on the couch with his mouth wide open. Kitty is on the other side of me, napping just like her daddy. I'm feeling pretty keyed up despite getting out of bed at 5:30 this morning. I'll probably pass out as soon as I hit the pillow though. I fully intend to lay in bed tomorrow until at least 11, at which point I will make a pot of coffee, walk Kitty, and procede to drink the coffee until it is gone. MMMM. Leisurely coffee drinking. Will perhaps play cards with sis and bro-in-law tomorrow, but nothing is set in stone. I'd actually be content just to chill out here at home, but we'll see what happens.

Just returned from voting. I was surprised at the speed in which I got in and out. There were only 2 people ahead of me so I was done in about 10 minutes. As I left, about 7 people were going in so I made it in perfect time.

So my adopted hometown, Chillicothe, was on 60 Minutes Sunday night. (I tried to embed the video but got an error message.)


It went well, except for the redneck who claimed that he was told that Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Oy. Here's a thought-- don't just listen to everything you're told! Take the time to do some research yourself.

There are a lot of places of interest in the video. The footage at 2:20 is the street I live on! I get my gas at that BP. At 2:30, you see the Majestic Arch, which was the location for a few of our wedding photos. The building at 3:22 is the Men's Shop where we got our tuxes and my dad worked at Thompson Electronics, and was laid off about 5 years ago. A lot of what was said rings very true for me. I can't wait to hear what happens with the primary today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Sen. Clinton!

Off to work now. Must adminster Pre-GED testing and try to get my Earned Credit for March started.

I effed up my back last night. We've been having some insane weather lately-- think snow and freezing rain, so the all of the sidewalks had a layer of ice on them. I think I slipped a bit when we went out to walk Kitty and I must have pulled a muscle or something. I reek of Icy Hot and the smell is grossing me out. I'm trying to get motivation to put my reflection paper together, but I'm just not feeling it right now. I'm in such a lazy mood. I finally took the time to clean up my eyebrows so now I don't have stray hairs poking out everywhere. I like plucking in natural light so I usually set my magnifying mirror on the window sill to do my business. So I'm plucking to my little heart's desire and see several WHITE hairs at my temples. EEK! It's a good thing I've got an appointment to get my hair done in a few weeks because I want to get those bastards covered up. I'm only 26-- way too young for white hairs. On the plus side, I guess that means that when I'm finally old..ahem, mature enough to pull off grey hair, I'll be able to rock gorgeous, sexy silver hair.

I have two more weeks of teaching, then a week of in-service, and I'm off for 2 weeks. CANNOT WAIT! I've got so many plans! First, I'm going to bake and decorate cookies for the kiddos at my sister's church. I don't care if I eat any of the cookies, I just want to decorate them. I'm bidding on the cutest 3d easter themed cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma and I hope hope hope that I win them. If not, I'll be using cheapy generic easter cutters.

I'm also going to do some digital scrapbooking. I need to take the time and reacquaint myself with Photoshop because it's been SOOO long since I've used it for anything design related. My free time is usually taken up by school so it'll be so nice to have some of that extra time back.

Meh. I've come down with the winter doldrums. I need to remove my butt from the couch, walk Kitty, and write this stupid paper.

I need to write two more papers and put together my final portfolio and I will be finished with grad school. FOREVER. I cannot wait. After that, I think I'll take a break for a few months and then start working on my masters plus 30 hours. I feel like I've been going to school for the last 20 years. Oh wait, I have.

Kitty is trying to sit on the keyboard. Makes typing difficult.

Plans for today include baking a pink cake for V-day, going Krogering, and vacuuming. Fun will be had by all.

Visited Auntie Christa yesterday. I finally saw our wedding quilt. Sort of. I saw the fabric, none of which has been cut. But it'll be so pretty! She got 3 coordinating fabrics in red, blue, and ivory. Each color has darker stars all over it. I can't wait to see the finished product. She's using the Ohio Star pattern and it'll be slendifferous. I teased her and said that we'd like it by our 5 year anniversary if possible. I also told her that she better pencil me in after I'm finished with school so that she can teach me to sew. I bought a sewing machine 3 years ago and haven't used it much because I really don't know how. I bought it to make curtains and pillows and things but did none of those things. My crafty plans somehow never really come to fruition.

Ugh. I feel like I've been run over by a semi. I blame hubs. He's been sick for about a week (cough, runny nose, sinus pressure) and has passed it on to me. I don't have the cough he's been fighting, but my sinuses are horrible. It feels like there's a bunch of cotton in my forehead and nose. My eyes are watery and my nose is dripping like a faucet. It's not a pretty sight! I would prefer not to spend my weekend sick, but what can I do besides take nasal decongestants?

We've been busy the last few days. We both took Thursday off because we had a lot of errands to run. We ended up buying another car for Jim to commute back and forth in. It gets great gas mileage compared to the S-10. He starts his new job tomorrow and is super excited. It'll be soooo nice to actually come home to him instead of the other way around.

We also got new cell phones. I upgraded my RAZR to a Treo 750. I'm loving it so far but bought it simply so I could add the WW On-the-Go to my phone. Unfortunately, my phone has a Windows Mobile OS and I need to either purchase a $50 program that allows me to run Palm OS software or hunt for a different option. I'm leaning towards the low cost option and have been looking everywhere for something that resembles the On-the-Go. The closest thing I found doesn't seem to work on my phone so I'm still on the hunt.

Three more papers, plus my portfolio, and I'll be done with grad school forever. I CANNOT WAIT. I'm burnt out! My Saturdays are usually spent working on school and I don't have time for much more. If I had better time management skills, I'd do some of the work throughout the week, but this is me we're talking about. I like waiting until the last moment. My portfolio is due by March 15 and I'm a free woman after that!

Thinking about starting the tanning bed soon. Anyone have any lotion recs?

(Hehe. Just noticed the sick mood indicator. How cute is that?)

Racists are alive and well in Chillicothe.







Read the full article here. What a dick.

Sister-in-law put together the sweetest wedding album for us. Some of the pictures she included were ones that I had no idea even existed. There's a great one of my dad and me at the rehersal and one of my mom and me in the "girls' room" after getting ready. It brought back so many fun memories and seriously made me cry because I'm that sentimental.

I'm so over work. These guys are really irritating me more and more everyday. I'm tired of the whiny bullshit. I don't think I ask too much of them. All I ask for is 3 hours out of their busy days, 3 hours that they can't watch Days of Our Lives or work out or hang out w/ their boys and discuss the hos they knew back in the day. Whatever. Come to class and do you work and don't bitch about it. Call your lawyer on your own damn time. You belong to me from 12:30 until 3:30 so get used to it. It's insane though. They ask me all the time if they can leave early to get a haircut. Sure, because everytime I schedule an appointment to get my hair done, I always make it for an hour BEFORE I get off work. Here's a thought. Get your ass out of bed earlier than 11 and go to the barber. How's that for an accomodation? Tommorrow (I guess today?) will be better, right?

Confession time.

My Christmas tree is still up. And decorated :D It's seriously on my to-do list this weekend. Perhaps Monday?