Stake Humanitarian Project

Last thursday was our stake humanitarian project. There was quilt tying, book making, sewing quilts, but I chose to crotchet. And this is what they were making at the crotchet table- little baby booties. Now, I can't read crotchet directions, I have to have it shown to me, so this one sister so patiently worked with me so I could learn how to make one. Then I was able to make the second booty all be myself. It was such a blast, I will definately be going next month. Hopefully I'll be able to go faster now that I know what I'm doing.

Splish spash I was taking a bath!

Our first finished home project! (we're still working on our kitchen cabinets). Our guest bath is now completely tiled, yippee! And a big thank you goes out to Rial's Dad who gave up many saturdays to help and teach Rial how its all done. And another big thank you to Rial for giving up his saturdays to learn. As I supervised, it was amazing how much work actually goes into it, cause along with the actual tile cutting, tile glueing, grouting, caulking, and sealing, there was three whole satudays at least of prep work that had to be done to the wall to get it ready.

Here's a close up of Rial and his Dad's fine work.

Fun with blood

I got to draw blood for the first time! And I must say that Jenny had some wonderful veins for me to work with. Now don't you fret, we didn't practice on each other. Fortunately for Jenny and myself, shes not real. Jenny is actually just a fake rubber arm with fake veins and fake blood that would come out when you did the technique right.

I also got to set Jenny up with an IV. It was so much fun.

Its kinda funny, going through nursing school reminds me of what it was like to learn how to drive. I loved going our with my mom or dad and diving around town with them. It was so much fun to learn to drive stick. But after 6 months of practice, my mother said she had had enough and it was time for me to get my license. I begged my mother to wait just a litter longer so I could be sure I was ready, but it didn't work. Without more than an hours notice, I was down at the DMV. And 2 hours after that, I was walking away with my driver's license in hand, having passed the test. I had never felt so free and so chained down at the same time. It was nice being able to drive all by myself, but I could literally feel the weight of my responsibility as a driver resting on my shoulders when i drove too.

And I love going to school and learning new things about Nursing. I wish i had unlimited supplies to practice with, so i could stay after class everyday and go over all my newly acquired nursing skills, over and over and over again. But when ever I think of what RNs do and what it must feel like to be responsible for someone's life, to know that if you do anything wrong, it could have disastrous consequences, it seems like a weight almost too great to bear. But, nursing is what I love, and just like driving- the more I learn, and the more I practice safety and safe use of my nursing skills, eventually, even with that weight of responsibility, I'll be able to accomplish what I couldn't before.

...Who Destroys Sheds

Note to self: Do not kick at the shed wall when its the only thing keeping the roof up.



So now that you've seen my grand project (look at the post below this) Here is the side project I was a'workin' on when my palms felt like they were going to start blister up from too much shovelin' and sawin'.

I never liked this shed. It was dirty, the boards on the floor were moldy (I found 4 different colors of mold) and the ceiling had 2 old wasp nests hanging from it. And Rial got a wrench set for christmas :D.


You see, the shed was basically a wooden frame of 2x2s on a plywood floor, supported by nails and cinderblocks, wrapped in this sheet metal which was secured to the 2x2s with screw-like bolts and a few more nails. That might have been a run-on sentence, but you get the idea. So all I did was, unscrew the bolts with the wrench, and take out the floor nails with a hammer and prybar. Simple, Easy, that was the plan.


Know that in this picture you're turned toward the East. Now, with a little persuassion, I was able to unbolt the west and south walls. Then I was able to remove half of the moldy flooring (I found alot of rusty nails sitting under the boards). Then the framing for the west side came off cause it wasn't fixed to the ceiling. And I was "merrily on my way" (and I'm thinking of that song that Cecil the horse and Mr. Toad sing) taking down the metal off of the frame from the east wall (that crumpled white piece in the back of the pic) , when I came across... a rusty nail-dun-da-dun!!! that was imbedded in the metal wall and the bottom of the frame. And after 5 minutes of fruitless efforts with my prybar, I kicked it. Really hard. And the wooden 2x2 snapped, releasing the nail and the metal frame. And then, the one remaining wall and roof started to lean... and I thought 'oh crap'.


Luckily, I was able to get to where the wall and the roof met, when it had slowly collapsed on top of me, and then crawl out, unscathed.


Now, I hate this shed. And I will be very happy using its pieces of metal to make a chicken coop, for the chickens I plan on getting this spring.

I am a builder...

This here is my grand accompliahment for this week:

And yes! I DID do it all by myself (well almost, rial did help move one of the logs). Well, yeah, so I know it doesn't look like much, especially with all the second-hand building materials. But it was alot of work. Especially since bricks and logs and dirt is heavy-and I'm a girl.

You see, all that dirt inside the walls had to be dug out so I could lay a foundation of broken paver-squares and give my wall some support. Then, you see those 2 smaller pieces of wood sitting in front? I cut those! With a HANDSAW! Oh Yeah! So that the two larger pieces of wood (they were once railroad ties) would fit on top of my bricks, cause they were just a few feet too long. Then I shoveled all the dirt I took out, back into the planter I had constructed.

And I thought about just making a few holes in my backyard so I could use that dirt to fill up my planter a little better, cause it needs more dirt, but I have alot of weeds. No, I mean ALOT of weeds. Like you look out and think, how pretty! Just look at all that bright green stuff coming up in the middle of all that ugly dead grass! Then you walk a little closer and you realize, oh crap, they're weeds, the kind that grow big and nasty and get their sticky little seeds all over your pants. And then you think of how bad its going to be trying to get rid of them all. That is, of course, unless I use a flamethrower. Then it might be kinda fun. Hmmm...

Rial's Special B-Day Cake

So lately whenever we go to visit Rial's parents, and the TV happens to be on, I always want to see if there's a cake show on. I don't know why, but I just love watching it! And a blog I've recently started looking at is called cakewrecks.blogspot.com. and they just show the funniest cakes, we laugh so hard. You should check it out, you'll laugh too, guarenteed. But anyways, So for Christmas Rial got me a bunch of icing colors, metal tips and a frosting bag so I could start decorating my own cool cakes too. So this was my first attempt using it. I put as much detail on it as I could, I even pin-striped the hood!

I know the lighting is bad, but i combined my red and blue coloring to make a purple grape color, in honor of the first thing we ever bought together-our old purple truck, that we sold last year for our civic.

Santa Rial came to town!

So for Christmas Eve, Rial got asked to be a Santa Claus. He handed out christmas presents to all his cousins at his Grandma Griffiths house. And he even had a flaming wallet magic trick for the kids.

And here he is!

PHOTOS!!!

Ahah! So I remembered how incrediably awesome phones are today. So I've got some photo updates. I'll go in the order I took them.

So last year I saw the movie Twilight when it came out. And i walked away from it thinking, 'gee, I really liked alice cullen's hair. That would look so cute. I'll have to remember that for when I start having kids. It'll be my cute mommy hair cut.'

Well, a week before thanksgiving I kept thinking how it would be really cool to cut my hair in a different way than usual. So I debated for 2 days whether I should save alice cullen (aka ashley greene, and thats one more celebrity I know that I can add to my list of celebrities I know, I think I'm up to 8 now). Well, to keep the story short I cut 6 or 7 inches off. Sorry its askew.

new year resolutions for us

Well, I know I have a very boring blog, and sadly with our camera going AWOL, I won't be able to change the lack of photos for a while, but I will be posting more often, so yay for that!

And Yes, Lisa's new years resolutions include being more active with my blog and not relying just on rial to tell me about the comings and goings of people on facebook, so I'll also be posting on facebook more than once a year.

Another resolution we have is to get our yard up to par (cause it still looks dead, but now with 3 foot high weed/leaf stacks every 8 feet, go us!). And of course, finishing our kitchen cupboards and get more out of debt. I say more out of debt, because I really doubt we'll be able to pay our house loan off in a year (it takes most people 30), but paying off the Element car loan for sure. 

So just you see if I don't make good on my word, my posting goal is to 'network' at least once a week for how ever long it takes for me to keep up with everything. I'll keep you posted! haha, get it? POSTED! haha