Hmmmm....

So right at this moment, I'm reading a parenting article where the mom is wondering if she's speaking to her child enough and she's dealing with the let-down feelings of whether or not she's a good enough mom. What should she do?

Comes a break in the story, interrupted by an ad for Jack Daniel's Whiskey.

Hmmmmmmm.....rather unfortunate pairing of ad to article. :)

The things kids say....

Well yesterday at church while I was hiding behind the piano in Primary, I heard the little girl that gave the opening prayer in junior Primary. Her mom was helping here and I swear this is what I heard....

"Padre Celestial, Somo Tus Cuates...."
"Heavenly Father, we are homebuddies..."

LOL!

Rant on jeans

First of all, before I update on the last couple of weeks...I need to rant a bit.

Why is it that I am the typically "average" American woman? I'm the average height, average shoe size, I used to be the average weight and dress size (well, I've pretty much stayed the same, I've noticed that the average weight and dress size of the American woman has actually gone UP in the last few years.) So anyways, I make my point, I'm average! Why is it that when I buy pants in a "regular" length, they are inevitably two inches too long, even to wear with heels! So then I have to hem them, and anybody who has ever tried to sew denim on a machine knows how THAT can be...I've broken many a needle. So if I am average, then why is the regular length too long? Just further proof that the designers are designing for Amazon goddesses out there. And just like the Amazon, all the goddesses are in Brazil! :)

Anyhoo!

We've been keeping ourselves occupied here....we just finished painting our Master Bedroom. Have you ever noticed that on all the home shows, everybody has finished decorating the rest of the house, but left the Master Bedroom for last? Leo and I vowed not to do that, so we are going to make sure this room is "complete" first before we work on the rest of the house! I have a hard time focusing and finishing this project. I want to begin on all the other projects in the house...I just popped off the ugly stock mirror in my downstairs bathroom so I can hang my cool Mexican one. Focus Jordy, FOCUS!

So while Leo is in Costa Rica this week, I'm in charge of the paint touch up (don't you hate how paint still leaks under the tape or sometimes peels off?), hanging the curtains and finding some red coral accents for the room. OH! And buying the picture frames and finding and printing ocean and beach theme family pictures. Since the bedroom is supposed to be our retreat and we both love the ocean, we decided to go with an ocean-inspired room. Don't worry, it's not as scary as it sounds. Just a blue accent wall and some red coral-colored accessories, maybe some sea glass...we'll see.

Tiago is about to turn 2 in 16 days! I'm about to turn 28 in 25 days! Leo wants to have a big party for Tiago, but I'm not sold on the idea yet...well, I'd love to, but I'd rather spend the $$ on presents for Tiago! As for my birthday present, it was the cruise that we took a couple of months ago. We agreed to spend a little more on the cruise, and not do birthday presents this year. I know Leo, though...he'll still get me something, which I don't mind. :)

As I said, Leo's in Costa Rica for now for work...(que pena, eh?) He and I turned down the offer from Jafra in Thousand Oaks, CA which would have moved us back closer to my family in a beautiful area, and we turned down a $40,000 salary increase because we felt it wasn't the right thing to do. Keep in mind, though....that the $40,000 increase would just maintain our lifestyle in CA, so it wasn't a truuuue increase. Sometimes, though....I wonder "what if?" I just hope once 4Life finds out, that Leo is so loyal to them, they'll reward him with more $$. I know, it's not about the $$, but it definitely would be nice! We have two cars to pay off, and I would like to pay down the mortgage some, renovate the house some, save for Tiago's college and mission, save for our retirement...have lots of fun.....buy some investment property, lots of stuff!

As for me. I'm getting ready to start giving piano lessons a week from tomorrow. I don't have a piano yet at home, so I am planning on teaching out of the Church until I can bring my piano from CA. I'm nervous, I've been talking about teaching piano for a while, and thinking about it....I just need to make the jump! I guess I figure if I don't attempt to do it, I won't fail. But that's the secret, if I don't attempt, that's a fail in and of itself! I just have to remember that great teachers like the one I had, Mrs. Talevich once were in my position. She was 70-something by the time I took from her, so she'd had over 50 years of experience...of course I'm not going to be as good as her right now! I'll get there, though. :)

Well that's us in a nutshell!

What to call this post?

I'm not even going to apologize for slacking off! I do that in every single post I make, and I think it's getting pretty old.

So you'll probably notice a button on my sidebar that's yellow and says "This is getting good!" That's just the semi-official logo for the community that I live in, Daybreak, and I think clicking on the button will take you to the website. I love it here! But that's not why I put it up. I'm normally against advertising for other companies for free (which is why I like to wear clothes from certain stores, but NOT if they have the name of the store written all over it). But for posting that button, I was given a $20 gift card to REI in the unlikely event that Leo and I ever decide to become outdoorsy people, we have $20 to help us out!

Tiago is 23 months old today, we're working on plans for his birthday party next month. So far, we only know it's going to be a Cars theme. But all the stuff for parties focuses on Lightning McQueen, and it seems that Mater is his favorite character.

Leo is busy at work as usual. He's headed off to Costa Rica next week, then to Colombia, Peru and Chile next month (or so the plan is so far), then to Spain in October. Oh well...the best benefit of all this travel is the SkyMiles he gets in his account. We almost have enough miles to pay for two tickets to Mexico for Christmas, so we'll just have to buy one! (for a savings of at least $1400....whew!)

I'm working on the stuff I need to start teaching piano lessons in September. I never realized there was so much more to it than just showing up and charging money for my time! At least not if I want to do it right and do right by my students. :) It'll be nice to have some extra money coming in to help pay bills and for the fun stuff. We don't need it, this is going to be more of a hobby than a necessity, but you can't argue with extra money!

I also have a new responsibility. I am now a contributing author on the Belcher Family blog. My mom was a Belcher, so her cousin set up a blog for all Belcher descendents, and I am in charge of posting events about my mom and dad, Lisi and Jake, and Leo and I. I'm just glad I didn't ever have to grow up as a Belcher. :)

Oh! So I remember what initially prompted me to post this posting to the blog.

Have any of you ever fantasized about being on bed rest during pregnancy just so you have an excuse and a large block of time to sit down and work solely on scrapbooking? I do...I have lots of photos to scan and catalog, and approximately 27 years of my life to scrapbook. Then Leo is never going to scrapbook his own stuff, so I'll have to at least catalog his photos in chronological order. Then I want to keep Tiago up on his scrapbook, I think that's just a small favor I can do for him. Bed rest would give me an excuse just to lay there (literally!) and work on that for a couple of months at least.

On another pregnancy note, (no, I am NOT pregnant!) if any of you reading this are planning on having any more kids, take note of the Hospital Indemnity and Sickness plans. Leo and I got ours from AFLAC, and basically after 10 months, it'll pay you for your time in the hospital, doctors fees and surgical benefits (they consider delivery a surgery). Regular delivery scores big $$, but C-sections score even bigger $$. So for just over $100 per month, I will get $3200 once I deliver a baby. So it's a fantastic deal if you time things carefully, to only pay premiums for 10-12 months and deliver after you've had the policy for at least 10 months. It's completely legit and legal. But I'm not an insurance salesperson, so you'll have to find out your own information. Our salesperson told us that AFLAC is considering changing the terms of the policies to exclude maternity and delivery because they lose a lot of money on that, but as long as you purchase a policy before they change it, then you're good to go!

The $$ can be used however you want. Leo and I have excellent insurance plus great benefits provided by 4Life to cover the cost of our deductible, so this isn't a necessity, but like I said up above, you can't argue with extra $$!

Well, I'm off for now! We're in the process of painting our bedroom, so I need to tape off the accent wall and maybe get ready to put on a coat of primer during Tiago's nap. We decided to paint the rooms in our house in the theme of the 4 Elements, Earth, Water, Fire and Air. So our Master bedroom area is water, our hallway, stairs and part of our living room is going to be Fire, then we haven't worked out the rest of the details. :)

Au Revoir!

California, Cruise, Birthday...Christmas

Much has happened in the past month after getting out of credit card debt. We went on a 7 night Mexican Riviera Cruise, DH finally received an offer from the company that is looking to hire him away from his currently company, DH celebrated his 31st birthday and DS continues to awe and amaze his parents.

It's also time to start thinking about Christmas! Strange, isn't it? Since it is our year to go to Mexico, we've got to start planning ahead of time, especially when DS will need his very own ticket since he'll be over the age of 2 by then. Yikes! There is a car seat and a travel crib waiting for us down there, but those will have to be shared with our nephew. So we will have to bring one or the other, likely the car seat since we'll need it for the flight.

Doing some preliminary pricing on tickets, riddle me this. Why is it cheaper to fly to Guadalajara THROUGH Salt Lake City from Vegas or Orange County than it is to fly to Guadalajara DIRECTLY from SLC? It's over $300 cheaper PER ticket to fly out of Vegas with a 13 hour layover in SLC than it is to fly directly from SLC. So for savings of close to $1000, why not drive to Vegas, leave our car there, fly to SLC, spend the night at our own house and then fly on to Mexico?

I will write another post later with more details on the cruise and our trip to California, as well as Leo's birthday. I should go work on actually scrapbooking the cruise before I postpone it too long!

Free of Credit Card Debt - Free at last! :)

As of 10:25 AM on Friday, June 12 2009, Mr. Monkey and I are free of credit card debt!

I made the lum sum payments on mine and Mr Monkey's credit cards and I feel liberated!

This was made possible due to some awesome tax breaks we received last year, resulting in a HUMONGOUS tax refund. First, all taxes that we paid while living outside of the US while in the employ of a US comany, was returned to us. Then we had the $7500 tax credit, the child credit and a couple of other things that resulted in our taxable income being really small and the majority of our taxes refunded to us.

So now all that remains is to build up our savings, pay off our car loans (two of them), and pay back my mom and dad for some money they loaned to us. So we're not in the clear just yet, just MUCH closer to our goal. :)

Wow, I've been blagging

I learned a new term a while ago, when a friend asked me why I've been blagging. I naturally said "huh?"...so it's a combination of blog and lagging...so lagging on my blog. That was my something new for that day, not as profound as finally completely grasping the theory of relativity or completely grasping all the Gospel has to offer, by the way. But it's a start. :)

It's now pouring down rain outside (oh! And lightening and thunder!), I don't recall Junes in Utah usually being like this. We get this a lot in California, the June Gloom, but maybe my memory is just really bad! It's nice, although I should turn my sprinkler system off for a week or so! Yay for saving money on the water bill! I can't complain, it's not as expensive for water here as it is in Washington, where Leo's older sister lives.

I am mostly writing this entry to keep my memory fresh...allowing me to unload some memories here so I can open up space in my brain for the more important stuff like, remembering the stuff I need to buy at the grocery store.

I am on Day 10 of the Master Cleanse, it has not been difficult, and I actually had given up yesterday and had a bowl of soup with some crackers, and some tomatoes with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. But I'm back on track today. My focus throughout this cleanse has been amazing, my energy has almost never been higher, and I feel lighter and cleaner. My taste preferences are moving away from junk food and towards more gourmet ingredients, which is totally fine by me.

I wasn't originally planning on doing this cleanse, but DH has a coworker at the office who had just completed the 10 day cleanse and raved about the effects, so he decided to try it. This is the second time I have completed the 10 days, and Leo knew I'd done it before so we decided to do it together (makes it MUCH easier when you don't have to prepare dinner for somebody else while you are not eating!)

However, I do miss eating, and I used this cleanse to clean out the toxins in my body and to jump start my healthier lifestyle which I have been following for a short while, but I wanted to give it a kick in the pants, so to say. Next time, perhaps I'll try a cleanse such as the ones from the Isagenix line. I've been drooling over my back issues of Martha Stewart Living magazines for the last several days now, and I'm excited to try a bunch of the recipes in the upcoming weeks. Healthier, of course...with finer ingredients! Although, I'm craving some really fine cheese right now....Harmon's grocery store imports a lot of really yummy cheeses from all over, I love poring over the cheese counter and reading all the labels!

Although the main purpose of the cleanse is to clean, NOT to lose weight...losing weight is still a natural side effect of this. So far I've lost about 6 pounds, but I expect to gain half of it back because it is mostly water weight that comes off, at least in the beginning. But now I am finally solidly below the weight I was at when I got pregnant with Tiago (even if it's by 1 pound, but still!) But THAT weight was still 15 pounds off the weight I was at when Leo and I got married, so I've still got a ways to go, although I've gotta admit, I'm looking smoking hot! :)

DH has finally finished his major project at work, and the company launched it at the 4Life Convention in May. He just moved back to the marketing department with the same title, so now he's implementing the system he created for the company worldwide, along with taking on additional marketing responsibilities. I'm happy for him that he's back in Marketing, that's where his true passion lies and that's where he's happiest.

He'll be leaving this weekend for Chicago. There is an event on Sunday, but he's flying in on Saturday morning so that he can spend a day with my sister and her husband who are an hour and a half away from Chicago, in Indiana. She's pregnant with her first baby, a boy who will be nicknamed JD! She's due in September, and I'm excited for her...although it stinks for me since my birthday is at the END of September, so JD's birthday will be first in the month for the family, then DS (my son), in the middle, then mine 9 days after that. Oh well...I don't need presents, so if everybody runs out of money to buy gifts, so be it!

Other news in my universe, I got called to 4 callings in the Spanish branch. Oh yeah, DH and I are attending the Spanish branch now, by assignment. We had previously been invited by the branch president, but he came back to our house and said that he was authorized by the stake president to assign us to that branch, so we didn't have much of a choice...hehe. But we love it, I've always liked attending the Spanish branches more than the English ward, for the friendships, camaraderie, and the activities and food. Plus, it's more "real" than the Utah English wards, if anybody can understand what I mean by that.

I am now the Primary Pianist, Choir Pianist, Sacrament Organist, and Ward Music Coordinator. So I get to organize all the music training that goes on in the ward, so I am excited to promote musical literacy. My biggest challenge at this point is the organ. Now, those who play the piano will understand that being a pianist does not naturally translate into being an organist. Techniques are different, plus there are all those stops and pedals! How to register the organ for each song so that it sounds good??? Plus you have those volume pedals...then the split keyboards!! It's overwhelming at first, but I've figured out how to get by.

But I want to be an organist, so I ordered some organn books in the mail and signed up for Music 71 through BYU Independent Study, which is beginning organ (especially for pianists). The best part about the course is that it is free, except for the materials! I'd like to play the Tabernacle Choir organ someday for a Spanish choir...so I'd better get cracking and learn!

DS is now 20 months old, almost 21 months. He's still the apple of my eye, of course. The terrible twos are coming early, he likes to say NO whenever I ask him a yes or no question, regardless of what he actually wants to do. It's fine, I read that they are just asserting their own identity and independence. He was hitting for a while, but we worked that out of him for the most part. A new obsession with Cars and Toy Stories I and II have taken hold, he could watch those movies all day, every day. I limit it to one movie per day, and I'm quite tired of watching those three (although it's like going to Disneyland repeatedly...you start to notice new things that were there all along that you hadn't noticed before), so I am trying to introduce Tiago to the other Pixar movies we have...he seemed to really enjoy the Incredibles.

We just had Leo's older sister Lili and her son Christian here last month for two weeks. My brother-in-law was in Germany for a month, completing a foot and ankle surgery fellowship. So instead of being by herself for a month, she came out here for two weeks. Christian and DS had tons of fun together, they are only 5 months apart so they naturally are in about the same stages of development, although it's interesting to note how much difference 5 months can make!

DH and I also purchased a pass a week ago to Thanksgiving Point and to all the amenities it offers. So we went to the gardens last Saturday and spent about 2 hours walking around the gardens, enjoying the sunshine and the beauty. Then we drove up American Fork canyon to Timpanogos Cave to get some more information, and then took the back way home through Traverse Canyon through Draper and back home. BEAUTIFUL and absolutely the perfect Saturday!

I am excited for next month, because we decided to take a cruise to Mexico for our summer vacation. They are super cheap because of the H1N1 scare...we found a 7 day cruise leaving LA, visiting Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Vallarta and Mazatlan for only $450 per person. We had received a small inheritance from my grandma that we were instructed to use on something memorable, so we applied our normal budget for vacation with that and are good to go!

Lili, Mike and Christian are also planning on going with us, so that should be lots of fun. But we refuse to bring DS with us! Since my mom has the entire month of July off, she volunteered to watch DS for a week while we go and party as if we were young and childless again! :)

So I'm enjoying things right now. Life is good.