Back yard phase I

6/11/10

Get ready for a lot of dirty pictures! Haha.

This is our back yard. Isn't it lush?!!

This is what the ground looks like. Dry, brittle clay and rocks.

Shovels are kind of useless. Mark and his pickax have become close friends.

Here's what he came across while digging sprinkler trenches.

The plan is to get some sod, plants, flowers, trees, a play area and some nice landscaping gravel back there.

A couple weeks ago we had a dumptruck of topsoil delivered...

Madelyn was in hog heaven.

This stuff you could shovel, so shovel Mark did...

And shovel and shovel and shovel and shovel.
He said, "My arms are killing me."
Madelyn helped. In her underwear.

Luke cheered daddy on

Oh, good she found some shorts...

Plop

Inspecting the hole for the dry well

The sprinkler project

We have water! And.....mud. Which of course caked onto everything and got tracked all over the house. I looove my back yard.

Pretty dang exciting, huh. Hopefully in the coming weeks I will have more to show you. Like some actual green out there. This "beige no more" project ain't just for the inside of the house!

My brain...it hurts...from all the thinking...

6/8/10

Bear with me while I kvetch about grown up things.

PA school was fabulous and all, but it has landed us around $147K in student loan debt (okay, so that's also counting undergrad loans. But PA school was a good $136K of it.). That's more than we owe on our house, people. Super! I know! How fun for us!

So we have been just a teensy bit desperate to find some way to help us be able to afford making the payments. We'll be having to shell out $900 a month at first but the amount will go up every couple of years on our graduated payment plan, which we'll be on for 25 years!

Siiiiiiggggghhhhhhh.......

However, the government might be coming to the rescue. I found out about the National Health Service Corps. Turns out they have scholarships (too late for that) and a loan repayment program for doctors, dentists, PAs and nurse practitioners, certified nurse midwives, dental hygienists and mental health professionals. You work at an approved NHSC site doing primary care in a medically underserved area for two years and they'll give you $50,000 for your student loans! And you can reapply afterward to serve another two years, etc. The potential is that they'd pay up to $145,000 over five years. (!)

And the best part is that Mark is already working at an approved site! Dr. Newbold (who works with Mark) tried getting on the program a couple years ago but there wasn't enough funding--however President Obama just approved $200 million for the loan repayment program. Yesssssss!

So I am in the midst of filling out all the paperwork and online application, which is giving me a major case of brain sludge. Today I typed up Mark's "Curriculum Vitae" and tried to sort out the 15 different federal student loans we have. Blaaaak.

I'll keep you posted about if we get approved or not--I'm trying to keep my expectations low, but it seems like we meet all the criteria. (please oh please oh please oh please)

Anyhoo, Mark's work, aside from being conveniently located where there are poor, rural folk, is awesome because they put on this huge free carnival for the community on Memorial Day. We went sporting our Premier Pediatrics t-shirts and pigged out on free hot dogs, drinks, popcorn, cotton candy, sno cones and Madelyn bounced around on all the bouncy thingies.

The weather was perfect. I'm sure all you people in Hurricane and St. George were melting your faces off. Suckers!!

The candy cannon

I got a piece!

Thanks, Madelyn for ducking away at the last second and making me look like a dork with my hand sticking in the air.

And now I must go because my enchiladas are calling.

Aang and the gang

6/6/10

It's been like, 2 1/2 days and the need to post is back. Does that mean I'm obsessed? Is this a problem?...

Another slightly alarming trend: last night a commercial came on TV for Home Depot and Madelyn had a full on "Look, Mom, it's Home Depot!!" squealing, excited jumping thing going on. Hmmmm.

In other exciting news, we just finished watching the award winning Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender. (It started airing in 2005 and had a three year run--way before that other Avatar came along) Madelyn had started watching it on Netflix but before long Mark and I got sucked in. It was AWESOME.

It is an "American anime" and it was seriously so good. I know what you're thinking: geeeeeeeeek.

Proud of it!

There is a new live action version of the story coming out July 2nd by M.Night Shyamalan. I'm kind of attached to the cartoon characters and voices, but it still looks like it will be pretty good.

Check out the trailer!

Beige No More Part II

6/3/10

This project has been in the works for a while. I got the new towels last year in one of those Target "I really shouldn't buy all these right now but what the heck" moments (they were so thick and fluffy! And they were on clearance!), got the shower curtain and rugs a couple months ago, picked out the paint color and was supposed to have had the room painted for my Mother's Day present. That obviously didn't happen.....

Then the universe blessed us with $5 rebates for Behr paint at Home Depot on Monday and so we at last brought home my gallon of satin Macchiato UL170-2. Happy times.

So what was surely the most boring bathroom in the entire world (with the same blue and yellow towels and the same rugs we got at our wedding eight years ago):

became this!

Isn't this a fabulous shower curtain?!? (Target, people. Go and feel the love.)

I am very happy with the de-beige-ing that went on today.

The old color next to the new

Here's Madelyn talking Mark's ear off as he's trying to work...

She keeps telling me how much she loves the new bathroom and its cozy rugs. I love it, too. Mark will come around one of these days. He was kind of leery of painting a bathroom brown, and said something about me having a penchant for "dark, swampy colors."

Well, I do like dark, swampy colors. In fact, I'm trying to decide exactly which shade of greenish brown to paint in our front room next. Aren't you excited??! I am! Tune in for Part III soon!

There's an army man in the house

6/2/10

Luke has figured out a little army crawl! I set him on the floor this morning and let him come at me.

P.S. Aren't his dinosaur camo jammies the cutest? I love them.

Um...excuse my dirty floor. I promise sweeping and mopping are on my to-do list today.

What's this?

Mmm! (It was a piece of grass)

Hello!