SURPRISE!!

We've had a few surprises lately. Thursday night Monica accused me of never planning anything, & that was the reason she planned her own birthday party. The only problem was I had planned a surprise party for her Friday night. Me planning it actually meant calling Matt Thomas & telling him I would like to do a surprise party for Monica, & he threw an awesome Hawaiian themed party! The point is, though, that I played a part in it all.
The second surprise came today at 2PM when I locked the keys in the car. I haven't done that in forever, so I thought it would be fun. This leads us to surprise #3--our car is WAY too easy to break into, so I won't tell you how we did it but it involved a stick & Monica's small arms.


Surprise #4 came after dinner when I got a call from Wellston Church of Christ saying they needed a preacher/Bible class teacher for tomorrow morning. I quickly pulled some resources together & agreed to do it.
What a weekend of surprises! We are excited & a little scared to see what will spring up tomorrow.

The BIG 24!

As many of you already know, today is my 24th birthday! It has been a fabulous day so far filled with lots of birthday surprises: lunch with the office @ Mazzios, flowers delivered to my office from my perfect husband, phone calls from friends/family & fun cards that made me laugh. I also had a wonderful birthday family dinner last night @ Ben's house. We had enchiladas, strawberry pie & I got a lot of really nice gifts!


My favorite thing about my birthday is that it's on the other side of the year from Christmas, so I get extra presents & extra attention! I also really like hearing stories from my parents & grandparents about the day I was born & how they all remember it.
For instance, I don't know how many times I've heard how hot it was that summer & all my mom did the last few weeks of her pregnancy was lie on the couch with her legs propped up & a fan blowing full blast on her.

Skip Church & Move

I looked up the rate for a 5X8 U-Haul trailer to pull behind my faithful green pickup to Memphis (keep reading, it gets better). My dad & I think that a trailer of this size will fit a lot of things, but Monica isn't so sure... we'll see who's right & hopefully it won't be her again (I think the score is 1000-237).
Anyway, I was looking to rent it on Thursday one-way to Memphis & the price was $252. I thought, "Wow, that's a lot of money, I guess Monica will have to find another job." Then, I read an article on another site that said to move earlier in the week instead of the weekend like everyone else, & you know how we feel about being like everyone else.


About a week later, it finally clicked that I should see what the rental price for the trailer is if I rent it on Wednesday. I checked & the price dropped to $124. What a difference a day makes! Moral of the story: Don't wait until the weekend to rent a U-Haul, rent on the half-Sabbath (Wednesday) & it will be half price. Another moral of the story: Try to use your common sense a lot faster than I do.
Oh by the way, thanks for all your support on the grammar blog a few weeks ago... but then again, you probably think President Bush speaks real good. As you can tell, I have no hard feelings towards you or the President.

We're no better than anybody else

We did it, & we did it bad. I am talking about fighting about money. Yep, the numero uno of all things that causes fights among married couples. I believe that being personal & revealing on this blog makes us more interesting, so here goes...
I worry my rear end off about money. Yes, I even know all the scriptures about it, but I still worry. I worry about where to come up with $900 in closing costs by next week. I worry about how we are financially going to make it when we move to Memphis. It drives me nuts, & now that we are about to give our lives to a mortgage company... I'll stop for the sake of your sanity.

I need to stop for the sake of Monica's sanity! She hates worry. She can hardly stand it when I get going on a money kick. I had to stop her from cutting her ears off tonight. Somehow, she knows we will be fine & she has that confidence; however, I am in constant fear that the world will end tomorrow. So we fight...
And like every good fight, no one wins & everybody gets frustrated. I was trying to make the point that we will barely have enough to make closing costs (especially since they want all this money at the end of the month), & she was making the point that we will be fine & worrying will be no good. Finally, in our heated argument we came to an overly emotionally decision to not buy anything for the next month & not to go to any garage sales. We also agreed that we became like every other couple--we fight about money. One thing we never do, though, is make personal attacks at each other, & that is good.


By the way, whenever we write a blog & it sounds super serious & you don't want to comment on it for fear of our wrath... well, that is all the more reason to respond. We love any feedback we get, except for the person who spams us & leaves bad URLs, for thou shall experience our wrath someday.

Lists, lists, lists...

Some of you probably know about a crazy little habit I have which goes along with my obsessive-compulsive tendencies... making lists. Apparently, last night I started talking in my sleep (which happens quite frequently) & said "Ben, did you remember the cups & coffee table & dishes..." Ben said that I went on & on listing out a bunch of different things & talking really fast. So besides freaking my husband out I definitely showed my true colors through my subconscious.


Ben makes lists too, only he never uses them & usually throws them away several weeks/months after the fact. When I make lists, I LOVE putting boxes by all the things I need to do & check them off as I do them (I know, I'm sick). I'm pretty sure I get this nifty little habit from my dad who sits down & plans out his daily schedule the night before. We're talking detailed schedule...
5:45 am get up & take shower

6:00 am get dressed & read Bible
6:15 am eat breakfast etc.