We are Back!

Just wanted to let you all know that we just finished unpacking the Jeep.
We woke up in Nebraska, and will go to sleep in good ol' Kentucky.
Hugs!

We are Here!

We made it to Colorado. It was a very interesting drive. We got a bit of a late start, but it ended up being okay. However, in the late afternoon, I started feeling crummy. I had a headache, and it felt like my whole body ached. We stopped to get some advil, and I realized that I had a temperature. Go figure. I haven't been sick for ages, and now I am. Anyhow, we got some medicine, but my temperature keeps getting progressively higher. I got some zicam, and that seemed to lower the temperature and get rid of the aches, but if it wears off, then my temp is up to 100.3 or so. Needless to say, I'm trying not to miss anymore doses.

Kansas was interesting at first, but then it was very very boring and hard to stay awake. We are absolutely in love with Colorado. When we got here last night, it was dark, so we didn't really see the mountains then. When we got up this morning to head to the campsite (we stayed at my friend Shandra's last night) Chris is like "OH MY God" and I thought he had fallen, but he had gotten his first good look at the mountains surrounding Colorado Springs. At campsite is at 9500 feet elevation, so it was hard to setup the campsite. WE ended up having to buy a new tent because our tent is too big for the site, and it is about to blow away. So.

Sorry this has been all over the place. Please pray that I will get over this flu quickly. I'm frustrated that I'm sick, but I'm still trying to enjoy myself.

Love you all!

And We Are Off

So far, so good! Everything fit in the car, and we are on our way. Please pray for safe traveling and relaxing time!

Sarah and Chris

New Carbon Leaf CD TOMORROW!

My favorite band is releasing their new cd tomorrow!

Chris and I will be frantic-ly downloading the cd tomorrow night so that we can listen to it on our trip. Please check out their website. If you click on the launch player button from the main site, you can listen to the cd. It's awesome. So far we have seen them live twice, and we will be seeing them again on October 7th in louisville! Super pumped about that!

We are sooooo close to being completely ready to go. The plan tonight is to finish up all our laundry, and get our bags packed. I know pretty much what clothes we are taking, they just need to be clean, and then we are good to go. Tuesday night we will run any last minute errands, but I am soooooo excited :)

16 Days to Go!!

Woo hoo! That picture is from our last big camping trip to Townsend, TN/Great Smoky Mountains. I'm so very excited. Things are coming together quite nicely. There are a few more things that we need to purchase, but everything is still a go. I spent some time yesterday organizing all of my notes and/or printouts into one binder, so I can start condensing. Chris claims that I enjoy preparing for the trip more than the actual trip. I do enjoy planning, so its like I get to enjoy our vacation that much more! Anyhow, I am doing a lot of planning, but its not like I'm micro-scheduling every minute of every day. There is actually big blocks of time, where it will just be free time. I'm just trying to think through as many things as I can, so there will be less chance for a disaster. Plus, some of the things that we want to do require reservations.

I have posted a poll below. We have one day of sight seeing in Colorado Springs. In the morning, we will be visiting the Garden of the Gods. At lunch, we will grab something simple in Manitou Springs, and then head to Pikes Peak to ride the Cog Railway to the top. Right now, I'm trying to decide what to do for dinner that night. I'd like to do something fairly nice/unique, but we will also be dressed for outdoorsy stuff, so I don't want anything too fancy. I did some research and came up with the following choices. The first one has been recommended to me by multiple people. The next two are ones that I found on the internet, and look really interesting. Can't promise that I will abide by what the poll results are, but it would be nice to get some other feedback!

***poll removed****

no officer, i don't know why you pulled me over

continuing saga of the wedding programs. we got the black high yield ink. it worked great, but it did NOT print the stated 1200 pages that the review said it would print. more like 700. so I had to make another walmart run at 11:30 at night. I HAVE to get these programs done tonight. so i decided to stop at Kroger since it is much closer and see if they have it. right as I was turning into Kroger I saw the flashing lights and heard the siren. i have to admit a few choice words slipped. turns out she pulled me over because we have a head light out. when she asked if i knew why she pulled me over, i said that i didn't know. kind of a fib, cause i had a good idea, but i didn't KNOW for sure. she gave me a warning for the headlight. i knew there was a chance when i went to kroger, because sometimes there is a cop across the street clocking people. but i so desperately wanted to get it and get back home. still ended up at walmart, cause kroger didn't have it. grrr. so i'm finishing the programs. should be done a little after 1:00am. I hope.

procrasitnation + treen/amrine luck = bad combo

A friend from work is getting married Saturday. Way back in December when she got engaged, I volunteered my husband to make the programs. So we had MORE than enough time to do them. But of course, as usual, life got in the way, and we put them off until the last minute. Chris started the drawing about a week ago. He completed it last Saturday (and it looks fabulous - see picture). I finished up the layout using publisher the day before. We wanted my friend to approve it before we started printing it, so I showed it to her at work and we made our final edits. It turned out REALLY cute. So tonight's plan was to print a big batch of them.

The thing is, I didn't quite realize how many programs we would be printing. She is having a rather large wedding, and wants 350 programs. We are printing them on our inkjet at home. The programs are 2 pages, front and back on each. That is 700 pieces of paper, but 1400 prints. Dude. Thats a lot. Never fear, Lexmark has some high yield ink cartridges. I told Chris to pick some up at work since he gets a nice discount. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the number of the ink cartridge for the black cartridge, and the stupid girl behind the counter didn't know what she was talking about. When I tried to install the new cartridges, oddly enough, the black didn't print. AHHHHH. Did I mention that I have to have the programs done to take to work on Wednesday so we can fold them. My friend is only work a half day thursday and taking Friday off. So it is imperative that I at least get some printed tonight. SO I headed back into Lex to try and find a high yield cartridge. Couldn't find one anywher. Not Best Buy, Office Max, Office Depot or Walmart. So I headed home empty handed. There was still a little black left in the current cartridge, I would see how far that went. Not too far, only about 25 pages. Not good. So I head to Walmart to get a normal cartridge. 250 pages later, and the black ink is almost empty. Worthless cartridges. (BTW, I also spent about 1.5 hours trying to install office 2003, couldn't get the download to work, then I couldn't get the cd to burn, then I couldn't get the product key from my email).

So. It is 10 till 1:00 (am) and I'm still printing. I am going to be dead tomorrow. But I'll have even more stuff to do then. Here's hoping I have used up my allowance of bad luck, and tomorrow will go smoothly.

YEAH RIGHT!

Colorado Trip

We are still planning our trip to Colorado. We ran into a bit of a road-block when I re-examined our budget. Apparently when I was figuring out the cost of gas, I used the gas mileage for Cora (the corolla) instead of Ghengis (dodge ram). Quite a difference. Almost a $400 difference.

So after stressing for awhile, and throwing up every conceivable option, we have decided that we are still going, but we will be renting an "intermediate SUV". All of our stuff won't fit in Cora, and taking the truck could turn into a disaster. I was talking over all of this with the people at work, and my boss has offered to let me work some overtime on a special project. So cool beans. Very generous of him. Chris may work some overtime as well. We will also be tightening our belts for the next month cause there are a number of things that I would like to purchase. Right now, the plan is for us to camp in Colorado Springs for 3 days, and then go up to the Cache la Poudre area, and camp for 5 days.

I will post more details in the next few days. I may be posting a few polls so people can vote on what they think we should do in Colorado. I will also be finishing up our road trip saga. :)

Finally made it to the gym

Well, we made it to the gym this morning. Yesterday was a disaster. We got up and got dressed for the gym, but DH forgot to put his tennis shoes in his bag, and it took 20 minutes to find them. Then we left, and we were running very late when I remembered I left something for work on the kitchen counter, and I had to have it. So we gave up and went home and just got ready for work.

We did go today. I almost caved, but I wouldn't let myself. I only walked the track, and I didn't even keep track of how many laps I did. My knee started to hurt after 2 laps, so I didn't push it too hard. However, it was very empowering to be there and doing anything. I thought about how far I have to go, and how will I stay motivated. I still have my big goal of 120 lbs. However, I just can't focus on that because it is so far away. So I'm setting up a mini-big goal:

I WANT TO LOSE 20 LBS BY THE TIME WE GO ON VACATION (SEPT 12).

So that is the first milestone that I'm working towards. It will give me something to focus on. It isn't so tiny that I think it is inconsequential. It is a decent goal.

I will try and take a picture and post it on here to help keep me motivated.

Road Trip Part 2

Friday:
We woke up around 8 or so, and got ready to leave. The motel had the lamest continental breakfast ever. It started raining as we loaded the car. Our first destination was Milwaukee. We had picked up a number of brochures in the hotel, and decided to try and visit the Miller Plant (beer) in Milwaukee. Of course, it proceeded to pour down rain. We also re-discovered, that you really can't trust the maps on the backs of brochures, because they are very rarely accurate. After getting twisted around, and instead of finding the Miller Factory we found the Miller Memorial Football stadium (quite nice), we decided to stop for some breakfast. We stopped at an iHop, and Chris decided to try and mimic the Wisconsin accent throughout the whole meal. It was quite entertaining. Milwaukee as a whole was kind of nasty and not very impressive. I didn't help that it was raining like crazy. We finally found the Miller Factory, only to discover that the tour was an inside/outstide tour, and it would take an hour. We poked around the giftshop and then decided to get back on the road.

We noticed a town on the map called "Osh Kosh" and decided it wasn't very far out of the way. We headed that way. The Wisconsin country-side is SOOO picturesque. We kept seeing all of these gorgeous dairy farms. Big red barns, and rolling hills, and quaint farmhouses. It really was beautiful. Chris hadn't got much sleep the previous night, so he tried to nap. We made it to Osh Kosh around lunch time, so we had a lunch in an interesting little coffee shop. Osh Kosh definitely had the college-town vibe going. Lots of little shops, but not a lot of people shopping. I always wander how places like that make it. We got back on the road, and headed to Green Bay.
Now, one of the appealing things about Wisconsin, is that it is well known for its CHEESE! And we all know how crazy I am about cheese! We had only passed one open cheese place so far, and I didn't stop, cause it was really tiny, and we didn't see it till we passed. I was so sure that we would see tons more. I didn't see ANY cheese stores on our way to Green Bay, and I was begining to think the made up the whole "cheese state" thing. We got to Green Bay, and went to the visitor's center, to see if they had any brochures on cheese places to go. We didn't find any that would be on our way, so I decided to stop worrying about it. We got to see Lambo field, and it was really cool. Now we were on our way to the UP (upper penisula) of Michigan. We stopped in this tiny town called Menominee in Wisconsin before we crossed into MI to get gas. I stayed in the car while Chris paid. And he came out with TWO kinds of cheese. My thoughtful honey. The first one was a cheddar mixture, and the second was a smoky mozarella. The cheddar was great, but the smoky mozarella was VERY salty, and it was hard to eat more than a few bites.

to be continued . . . .

blech

so far, not so good. didn't really "start" trying to lose weight. not seriously, at least. i brought a WW meal to work today, but i didn't bring any snacks, and i didn't eat breakfast, so that didn't work.

but i'm going to the gym tomorrow. and i will try and plan my meals/snacks ahead a little bit better.

Road Trip Part 1

Thursday:
Well, the first stop was to get our oil changed. We were already 3k over the time to change the oil, and knew that we would be adding quite a few more miles on Cora (the name of our corolla). So off to Valvoline (dude, it was very expensive, now I remember why we were over). Chris, the navigator, took charge and said to head to Versailles. We went Route 60 to Interstate 64 to Louisville. In Louisville we took the bypass (I265) to I65. We took I65 all the way up to Chicago. We passed through Indianapolis, but didn't stop. We had both been there before and weren't too impressed. Indian wasn't all that great, but we were so excited at the thought of what we were doing that it didn't bother us that much. Right outside of Chicago we got on I94. At this point, it was probably 7:30ish. Traffic was pretty heavy. Thankfully we had switched so Chris was driving. I drove most of the time, until I was either too tired or we were going through a big city. I don't handle big city/ heavy traffic that well. Chris was a little nervous becauseof the traffic. We could see the skyline of Chicago and were frantically trying to decide whether to go INTO Chicago or just stay on 94 and get to Wisconsin. I could tell Chris was having a rough time, so I said I was fine either way. I'm not sure I would have been willing to go downtown if I was driving.

So, at the last minute Chris decided that it would be worth it to go see the sights. Neither one of us had very high expectations for Chicago, but we were both pleasantly surprised. We saw the Sears Tower, the Chicago Stock Exchange and lots of cool architecture downtown. We poked around a bit, and then decided to follow Lake Shore Drive along Lake Michigan. It was absolutely gorgeous!! There seem to be so many things to do in Chicago. There was a long foot path/trail/park between the road and the lake. We spent about 2 hours poking around. The only frustrating part is that it took a long time to get back on the interstate. We hadn't any dinner yet, and it was getting dark. We finally found the interstate, and were headed out of Chicago. We stopped at a sub shop (I'll add the name later, I can't think of it now) and then headed to Wisconsin. One of the things that we didn't expect on the trip was the number of toll roads. So there were a number of times where we were frantically search the car for just a few more dimes. Thank goodness we are so messy . Anyhow, they were doing some major road work on 94/41. They reduced the 3 lanes, into 1 lane. It took us an hour to go 20 miles. And they still made us pay 1.50. By this time, it was very very late. We were both exhausted, and realized it was time to stop. We made it into Wisconsin, and set out to find a cheap motel. Now I was always under the impression that a Motel 8 was a cheap motel. However, I don't consider 54.99 to be a cheap price. However, we were too tired to care. It was probably the worst night sleep in a long time. At home, we have a sleep number bed with a 3 inch memory foam mattress topper. We have a FABULOUS bed. I wasn't expecting anything even close at the Motel 8, but seriously, would have been more comfortable sleeping on the floor. The temperature was really impossible to regulate. And Chris discovered that I snore LOUDLY when we stay in beds that aren't our own. But he couldn't nudge me to get me to stop cause we were in seperate double beds. Chris also had stomach problems, and probably didn't get more than 3-4 hours of sleep.

more to come . . . .

The Journey Starts

Well. I'm starting a seperate blog to record my weight loss journey. I don't plan on telling anyone that I know in real-life about this blog (at least not yet). I have had so many failed attempts at losing weight. I've had some successful ones, but I have gained back the weight plus some. So I'm going to start this site. And hopefully updated regularly. With my progress. With my failures. With my thoughts and feelings. I'm just going to let it all out. And I seriously doubt that anyone will read this. But who cares if they do?! They don't know me anyway. I will probably tell my husband, but that is okay, cause I will have probably already told him how I feel anyway.


****edited to add that I have now combined all my blogs ***** 6/3/08

canada trip

We had quite a road trip. It was a fanastic trip. We traveled over 1400 miles in 4 days. That is a ton of driving, which we normally hate, but for some reason, it wasn't that bad. I think it was a combination of seeing completely new things, and a sense of awe that we were actually doing a spontaneous road trip.

On Thursday morning, I headed to Wal-Mart to pick up the groceries for our camping trip, while Chris was going to mow the lawn. However, it was raining so hard when I got back, that I knew that we had to talk about canceling our trip. We looked at the weather channel and the internet forecasts, and realized that if there was even a remote chance that it would rain as much as they said, and it was as hot as they said, that we would be completly miserable. I flippantly said that we should go on a road trip.

An hour later, we were re-packing to go on a road trip to canada via a trip around Lake Michigan. It was very exciting, and kind of out of charachter for us. Over the next few days, I will try and post a re-cap of our trip.

On another note, I tried to order a digital copy of "Dragonfly in Amber" by Diana Gabaldon from amazon.com, and I am having all kinds of fits trying to actually get it. I placed the order, and got the email saying that I should be able to download it from amazon.com's media library. However, when I signed in there is nothing there. I have sent an email to amazon with no response. I found a customer service number on the internet for Amazon, and called and talked to someone, and I am still waiting to get the stupid book. The whole reason I bought it was because I wanted to start reading it immediately, and I didn't want to download an illegal copy. Now, I'm almost ready to head home, and I could buy the stupid book at Joseph Beth. Grrrr.

camping has been nixed

our plans have changed. because we have the worst luck possible, it is going to rain for the next 10 DAYS!! so we are going to be spontaneous and go to canada. yup, you read that right, canada. wish us luck! ;)

- sarah

: well it seems the fishing trip was a wash.. couldn't really plan on rain for 2 weeks straight in the middle of july.. we didnt want to go south because thats been the default direction for all of our endeavours.. so we're heading north through Sault Ste Marie and see what the road brings us.... i figure I have a much better chance of fulfilling my lifelong tream to fight and eat a bear if we go to canada.

camping

I love camping. I have convinced Chris that he likes camping too, because he gets to go fly-fishing when we go camping. I'm afraid if I removed the fishing part of the camping trip, Chris wouldn't be as thrilled.

We are going on a short camping trip next weekend (we have a house sitter). I'm very excited. Today I planned our meals. Chris always complains that I try to make meals that are too complicated when we go camping, so I tried to keep things a lot simpler. The menu will be as follows:

• Breakfast: Omlet in a ziplock, Breakfast Burittos, Squaw corn
  
• Lunch: PB & J sandwiches and snacks *3 (we are having that meal 3 times), pizza burritos
  
• Dinner: Frito Pie, Pork Chop Foil Dinner, Hot Dogs & Chips & Snacks
  
• Snacks: trail mix, cut veggies, fruit, cheezits, diet coke, vitamin water and assorted other beverages
  

I will hopefully get to spend some time tonight, tomorrow, and Saturday going through our camping stuff, and adding in the new stuff Chris' parents gave us. I also plan on setting up the tent in our backyard this Saturday so I can re-seal the tent. I did a weather forecast for our camping trip, and it says "scattered thunderstorms" every day. Go figure. Well, the 10-day forecast isn't usually very accurate, so hopefully it will change before then.

I found this cool website that will generate a map of the usa, based on where you have visited. A lot of people on the Camping Life forums use it to show what states they have been camping in. So I have decided to create one for Chris and I. We have been camping a lot in the state of Kentucky. I'm kind of fudging a little, by checking off Ohio. I have been camping in Ohio, and I know that Chris has as well. And when we were dating, he came and visited me and my family at the campsite (I think we were dating, NO! we were engaged, and he brought the new truck out to visit us!). Anyhow, I'm going to count Ohio, because we were at a campsite together! It's my map, I get to make up the rules. And later on this summer, we will get to check off Colorado!! It will probably take a long while to get some of the other states, cause right now we primarily do tent camping, and we just go on long weekends. But hey, it gives us something to work towards!

busy busy

wow things have been busy lately. we are still trying to fit into our new routines, and it is exhausting. we were never very good at keeping house at our townhome, so now, when we are trying to maintain our house, we are getting overwhelmed at times. Plus, we are trying to do the "summer" things. tonight, the plan is to move a bookshelf into my office, and try to unpack most of the stuff in my office. I will have to figure out a temporary location for a few things, because I still need to get a table for my scrapbook stuff. plus, the extra bed is propped up against one of the walls in my office. we are planning on selling it, but didn't want to leave it in the garage cause it would start to smell like the garage. anyhow, i want to finish my office tonight. I also need to pick up a few things from the store. i think the plan for saturday will be to get the rest of the stuff from our storage unit, and to semi-organize the garage, and definitely organize all the camping stuff. We are going to be taking an extended weekend camping trip to the Great Meadows Campground from in the middle of July. So I need to have the camping stuff organized by then.

finally blogging from the new house

oh, the adventures in setting up a home wireless network. my FIL bought us a wireless router and a wireless adapter, and i was thinking it would be easy-cheesy to get it setup. initially, it was really easy to setup. i followed the instructions for setting up the cable modem, and for configuring the router, and everything worked peachy keen. the problem came the next day when chris hooked up his computer to the network. for some reason it kept dropping the connection, or it would say that it found the access point, but couldn't see the internet. a frustrating 2 hours later, and it just started working. who knows. at least now i can sympathize with some of the users that i talk to. i was ready to pull my hair out, because it wasn't working, but there wasn't an apparent reason why it wasn't working.

anyhow, i am on my new computer (new to me, thank you very much mom and dad treen!) i haven't really got it configured for me yet. it is my MIL's old computer and she has some stuff she still needs to get. i tried to "clean" it as much as i could, cause she had some invalid shortcuts and spyware and such, so i got most of that off, without deleting anything important (don't worry if you read this, i seriously didn't delete any personal stuff). the new computer is a cute "cube" computer. chris and i are talking about getting him a new high end computer, and then he has to "pay" us back with his freelance money till it is paid off. don't worry, we would pay cash. :) we are too far along in paying off our debt (minus the house) to get into anymore debt. if we do get a new computer, we may donate Chris' old computer to our church. it is a very nice computer, and would be good for the associate pastor. i wander if we could count that as tax deductible??

i haven't been feeling very good lately, so keep me in your prayers. it isn't anything major, just enough to make me feel like crap. i have done something funky to my back and it is bothering me on a semi regular basis now.

i will try and borrow the digital camera in the next few days and post some pictures of the house and of Lucy (oh, didn't I tell you? chris has named the lawn, Lucy!)

entry for june 09, 2006

i had all of these ideas/thoughts to blog, and i totally let time get away from me. hopefully we will get our computers set up this saturday and i will be able to get online at home! :)

btw, i did have my ingrown toenail operated, so i'm limping a little, but it went really well.

whew

well its done. we are in our new house, and we have finished cleaning the townhome. sorry for the delay in posting. i promise a nice, long, juicy post of the following topics

• the adelphia cable/internet drama
• the uhaul saga
• the never-ending cleaning journey
• saying goodbye to Chris' parents as the move to northern africa

Needless to say, everything didn't go as planned. But the good news is, we are done. The closing went perfectly, and honestly, only took about 30 minutes. The actual move itself went really good, and we had the most amazing helpers. I can't thank them enough!! It is just the OTHER things that went down this weekend that made my life a little stressful. But like I said, we are finished with all of that!

Now we get to unpack the house, but we are taking it one step at a time. The kitchen is completely unpacked, and that is the most important. Our clothes are accessible and the tv/dvd/cable is hooked up. We are good to go. We did find some time to go furniture shopping, and we think that we have our dining room chairs picked out.

My parents got to come down and help, and it really meant a lot to me that they were here to share this with me. I'm such a sap, but when my dad told me he was proud of me, I wanted to bawl.

I know this post is all over the place, but that is where my brain is right now. Part of me was relieved to get back to work, because the work would be easier than what I have been doing!