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. 

My love/hate relationship with our new house

I know I promised to tell you about our move. I lied. This is too important to wait. Why you ask? Well, this is about me and I am way more important that some stupid move. This is sort of related though. (Oh, this turned out to be a really long post so…feel free to stop reading at any time)

I have been afraid of spiders for as long as I can remember. The way they move creeps me out to no end. Their hairy/smooth/shiny bodies and long legs are just down right disturbing. Oh, and then there’s the fact that some of them are deadly. Fine, so not totally deadly but they can make you insanely sick. OR they can make your skin slough off all disgusting-like. AND, some can kill you. Basically, they are just plain scary.

Where you see a small black/brown/red spider innocently sitting on the floor/wall, I see an evil killer planning its attack. Spiders are diabolical and they systematically strategize ways to scare you, make you pee your pants and cry. Really it is sitting there sharpening its fangs and waiting to dart out when you least expect it.

Now, I know that some crazy people have actually taken the time to identify, photograph and describe in detail all of the many killer spiders. However, seeing as I can’t look at pictures of spiders without freaking out this does me no good. Thus, instead of being an informed citizen I just assume that all spiders are poisonous and become hysterical when I see a spider of any shape or color. But let’s be serious even if I did know how to identify poisonous spiders there is no way I would get close enough to a live spider to see it’s markings.

I still remember the first time I heard that you eat spiders in your sleep. I lay awake that night totally freaked out that a spider was going to crawl into my mouth. As I lay there I tried to figure out a way to prevent this horrible thing from happening. Then it came to me! Duct tape! I could tape my mouth closed. Perfect! Then I realized, they could still crawl into my ears. Simple solution, cover my ears with my hair. Oh, no! Now they would have no choice to crawl up my nose. But, I couldn’t tape my mouth and nose closed because then I wouldn’t be able to breathe. This is what I fell asleep thinking about that night. And, to this day, when I see a spider at night I still cover my ears with my hair before going to bed.

While I am a pretty much the biggest pansy ever, I will kill a spider if I have no other choice. By this I mean, I am home alone, the spider charges me fangs barred and it is on the floor. If it charges but is on the wall it is safe until Kevin comes home.

I refuse to kill them if they are above waist height on the wall. If it is on the floor or below waist height you can grab a shoe or something to squash it with. Then, if you miss and it falls, it will hit the floor or worst-case scenario fall on your leg. If it hits the floor you scream, jump back and then step on it (if wearing shoes) or drop something heavy on it (with my hand-eye coordination you may have to drop a few things). If, heaven forbid, it falls on your leg you jump around screaming and swiping at the spider with whatever you have in your hand until it hits the floor and then follow the floor-spider procedure. This last part is why I usually won’t kill a spider on the wall except in extreme circumstances.

If the spider is above your waist on the wall and you try to kill it but fail there is a good chance it will fall on your torso, arm or face. This is simply unacceptable. I will not kill this spider. I will, however, sit and stare at it for hours waiting for Kevin to come home/into the room. I will then make him kill the spider. He can’t just kill it though. After killing it he must then pick up it’s little dead body and flush it down the toilet. I mean, what if it was just playing dead and it crawled out of the trash to get revenge on the person who ordered its death?

Clearly, I was a chicken as a kid. The sad thing is I am an even bigger chicken now. In fact, I think my fear has graduated into a full-blown phobia. The diagnostic criteria for a phobia as outlined by the DSM-IV-TR (the diagnostic guide to all things psychological – which is completely arbitrary and more than a little suspect) are:

1. Marked and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation. – Check. You know how in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Hagrid tells Harry and Ron to follow the spiders. Then they go into the forbidden forest and they meet Aragog, the gigantic spider and all his gigantic kids. Well, when I saw this in theaters, and the spiders all start running at Harry and Ron my feet literally flew over my head. Apparently this is how I protect myself – by lifting my feet as high as possible off the ground – ‘cause clearly that will protect from ten foot tall, fake spiders.

2. Exposure to the phobic stimulus almost invariably provokes an immediate anxiety response, which may take the form of a situationally bound or situationally predisposed panick attack. Note: in children, the anxiety may be expressed by crying, tantrums, freezing, or clinging. – Check. Kevin and I are driving down I-15 (ok, Kevin is driving) and getting close to the belt route exit when I look down and see a spider (a small spider) crawling up my leg. I immediately started freaking out. Luckily I had my hat in my hand otherwise I would have been hopelessly defenseless. Instead, I started screaming like a banshee and swiping vigorously at the spider. I was shouting “Spider! Spider!” but apparently my high-pitched girl-ish screams are unintelligible to Kevin. Although the spider was tiny the fact that it was on my leg made it a matter of life and death. Therefore, my spectacular freak out was completely within reason. I did managed to swipe the monster off my leg and on to the floor. At this point I yanked my feet up on to the seat and searched desperately for the spider. When I saw it, I started squealing again, much to Kevin’s dismay. It was at this point that Kevin told me to calm down and stomp it. I did. But then I could see it’s dead body and I was afraid it would come back to life and take revenge on me. So naturally I pulverized it into the floor mat. However, for the next three and a half hours of the drive I refused to put my feet on the floor.

3. The person recognizes that the fear is excessive or unreasonable. Note: In children, this feature may be absent. – Check. I realize that it would have been safe to put my feet down but somehow; I still couldn’t bring myself to do it.

4. The phobic situation(s) is avoided or else is endured with intense anxiety or distress. – Check. I practically refuse to go anywhere that spiders might like to hang out and only go into or near these places in extreme situations. When in these situations I begin to think that all shadows are spiders and every breeze or hair touching my arm is a spider. I then begin to convulse and twitch like and insane person.

5. The avoidance, anxious anticipation or distress in the feared situation(s) interferes significantly with the person’s normal routine, occupational (or academic) functioning, or social activities or relationships, or there is marked distress about having the phobia. – Check. I become practically catatonic after seeing spiders. I refuse to move and allow my eyes to dart around the immediate area searching for additional spiders.

6. In individuals under the age of 18, the duration is at least 6 months. – I’m over 18…

7. The anxiety, panic attack, or phobic avoidance associated with the specific object or situation is not better accounted for by another mental disorder. – Check. I do not have any other mental disorders as far as I know. Thus, this is legitimate arachnophobia.

Hey, I guess my degree is useful for something – I legitimized my own craziness.

I’m sure you are now wondering after all that how this could possibly be related to our move. Here’s how: we are living in a 100-year-old house. I have always thought it would be fun to live in an old house. And I seriously love this place. Well, most the time. Sometimes though, I kinda hate it.

On the day that we moved in I walked in to the utility room and what is the first thing I see? You guessed it, a spider, crawling on the screen, inside the house. Not good. Not as bad as finding a black widow on the door the first night in our Springville house. But still, not good.

A week later, Kevin and I are chilling on the couch watching a show before bed. I get up and go to the bathroom. I open the door to return to the couch and take one step into the living room when something huge runs across the floor right in front of me. I stop breathing momentarily and take a flying leap onto the rocking chair next to the couch. Kevin, busy playing is video game, has no idea what is going on but figures something is up when he sees me standing on the chair. I tell him there is a huge spider that just tried to kill me and it is now hiding under the entertainment center. He grabs the bug spray and goes nuts spraying the floor around the entertainment center. After about two minutes of spraying (puddles of bug spray are building up on the floor) he begins to look at me like I’m seeing things. Then, finally, he sees it. Suddenly he believes me. However, he does tell me it’s just a small one. That is until it runs at him. At which point he runs and gets the stronger bug killer (the other stuff was doing pretty much nothing seeing as the spider was completely soaked and running through puddles of bug spray with vigor). He sprays it down a couple times with the Black Flag and it finally stops moving. He then steps on it – tells me it popped – wipes it up and flushes it. Finally he admits it was a big spider. It was a traumatic experience.

I know I should have been comforted. The offending spider was dead. However, I was more freaked out than ever. Where was that giant spider hiding for a week? And if it managed to hide, how many other spiders are holed up in my house? Needless to say I did not have a restful night’s sleep.

Fast-forward through an uneventful week to two days ago. I am working on the entertainment center in the utility room while Kevin is at orientation. The whole time I am thinking “I just know there is a spider in here. I just know it. Please don’t let it touch me!” Then what happens? A small dark brown spider darts out from under the entertainment center. I throw myself back, realize I am alone and then squash the thing with my flip-flop (it was on the ground). I then force myself to go back to work on the entertainment center.

Even with the events of the previous day I was starting to feel safe in our house. I had been home all day for a couple of days and had only seen one spider. Plus that was just a little guy. Plus, Kevin had also sprayed the whole house with that home pest control system. That feeling of security evaporated last night.

Kevin is rafting today as part of his med school orientation and he needed his sandals from our camping box out in the shed. Last night he is headed to the backyard through the utility room when I see him try to slyly stomp something on the floor (he usually tries to kill spiders without me knowing – it’s just easier that way). Too bad for him, I saw. I carefully made my way to the doorway into the utility room and asked “spider?” He knew it was no use lying to me, so he admitted it was. But he tells me not to worry because he killed it. Then, just being my paranoid self I see something in a fold of the painting tarp that could be a spider or could just as easily be a piece of lint from the dryer. I decided to tap the tarp just to be sure that it was lint. First it just rolled around but then it got up and tried to dart away – SPIDER! I screamed and jumped back and yelled for Kevin to kill it, which he did. I ran into the living room and started to cry softly.

Kevin followed me, gave me a hug and told me to go up to bed. I went in to the bathroom to brush my teeth and what do I see running across the wall behind me in the mirror? SPIDER! I freak out and run back in to the living room and start crying in earnest. (Yes, I am a huge baby.) Kevin heads in to the bathroom armed with Black Flag but can’t seem to find the spider. That is until it tries to run out the door to try and attack me (spiders are vicious and vengeful). Kevin sprays it and it falls to the floor where it proceeds to try and hide behind the toilet. He then sprays around the toilet to flush it out and it takes off toward me again (ok, so it might have been trying to get out the door). Kevin finally gets it and it dies behind the toilet. Three spiders in less than five minutes was just too much for me. I was stuck standing stick straight with my arms clamped around my chest in the middle of the room with my eyes darting around looking for more spiders. I refused to move until Kevin flushed all three spiders and came upstairs with me. It was then that I made him tear apart the bed and shake everything out. I also made him leave the light on all night in the hopes the spiders would stay in hiding.

Oh yeah, sorry for the lack of pictures but as previously mentioned, pictures of spiders freak me out. If you have any sure-fire ways of protecting your house from spiders please let me know. Oh, and they have to be safe for pets. I’m hoping to bring my cat out here. However, in light of recent events I’m regretting the fact that my cat is as big a pansy as I am. I’m pretty sure she would run away faster than me. Not so helpful. But at least she is cute and furry and would let me hold her while I’m scared.

Big News

It’s finally here: a new post from the Conradicals! I’m sure all of you have been checking daily for the last ten months waiting for an update. Well, wait no more – your prayers have been answered.

Since I obviously haven’t been very good about keeping this blog up to date I think it’s best that I give a little background before launching in to the present. Seeing as this will be background, you may already be aware of this information. If this is the case feel free to skip this blog and leave a nasty comment about how lame and boring it was. For those of you who find this to be new information, feel free to enjoy and leave a comment about how awesome and funny I am. (Just kidding, you can tell me I’m boring…but…you will be on my list. Just so you know.)

O.K. Now for the good stuff…this is exciting news everyone. Drumroll please! Kevin got in to medical school! Not just any medical school though, he got in to the University of Washington School of Medicine. And to add to his amazingness – he got in on his first try. For you to fully appreciate this you must understand that it takes most people at least two years to get in to UW.

I know many of you are probably thinking that it was I who encouraged/pushed Kevin to go to UW. However, this is not the case. UW has been Kevin’s ideal school since I met him. The reason for this you ask? I shall tell you. Kevin is an Idaho resident, yes the poor boy grew up in the cow poo state (just kidding all you Idaho lovers…kinda). However, Idaho doesn’t have a medical school. This means that any young Idaho kid hoping to be a doctor would have no choice but to pay out-of-sate tuition at the school they attend. In order to encourage Idahoans to become doctors Idaho has made a deal with the University of Washington that allows Idaho residents to pay in-state tuition. Idaho pays to reserve twenty seats at UW and then makes all the ambitious people duke it out to get a seat.

Kevin was one of these twenty supremely awesome people who managed to snag a seat. As a result we will save much money in the coming years and he gets to attend a really good med school. Which is a big deal considering how crazy expensive it is to go to med school. Is there a downside to this neat-o arrangement you ask? Yes, yes there is. You have to move A LOT. The first year is spent in your home state – for us that means the University of Idaho in Moscow. The second year in Seattle at the University of Washington and the third and fourth years are rotations. There are all sorts of places you can go for rotations so we really have no idea where we’ll be yet, which is a little worrisome but…what are you going to do?

In other, not as exciting news, I finally graduated from college. I say finally not because it took me ten years but because I have been threatening to drop out since my second year and about twice a week my final semester. It would probably be more exciting if I didn’t have a worthless degree. But lets be honest, considering how much I disliked college the fact that I graduated at all is something. Hopefully everyone that tells me just having a degree is a good thing are telling the truth. Of course it is definitely possible that they are just trying to make me feel better for graduating with a super lame degree.

Something fun that has come of my graduation is watching other people’s reactions to my telling them I have a degree in Psychology. There are two main reactions. The first is: “oooh… I guess I better watch what I say from now on.” This reaction is clearly coming from someone who is unaware of the fact that having a Bachelor of Psychology qualifies you for absolutely nothing. The second is: “soooo… what are you going to do with that.” These people DO understand that your degree is worthless and they are curious why you wasted four years and then have no plan for what you are going to do now. Well ha! Joke’s on you, I like having no future.

Just kidding. I took my first psychology class in my second year and although I really liked it I knew it wasn’t for me. See, my teacher told us flat out that to do anything with psychology you would have to go on to get at least a Masters Degree. I had been in college for exactly three semesters and I already knew I didn’t want to do any more school beyond the four years I was already doing. Thus, Psychology was ruled out as a possible major. When the second semester of my third year rolled around and advertising was out of the picture, I decided it was time to get out of school with a degree. Any degree. Psychology turned out to be the answer. It would let me graduate in my four years (plus a spring term) so I made the switch. I loved the classes and the subject is something I really enjoyed. That being said, more school really doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me. So what am I going to do with my worthless degree? Hopefully put it to use getting a job. Any job. I just need something that will help me support my family (just me and Kevin – don’t go gettin’ any crazy ideas about kids) for the time being. Maybe it’s a blessing. It could just give me the time I need to decide what I want to be when I grow up. :)

Tune in soon for the move. I promise it will be exciting. You may want to find some of those old-time sock suspenders to hold your socks on while you read. Yeah, it’s going to be that good.