it's nothing special....it's just kriss

9/22/2009 DAY TWO: I thought I was immune to the crafting world. I thought I was strong enough to not be sucked into that vortex. Not that there's anything wrong with crafting - I have just never been crafty. I swore to my boss when I started at CX that I would never purchase supplies from our store and I would never become addicted to being crafty. Well, needless to say, here I sit a year later with over $500 of crafting materials on the table behind me. Yeah, we're not even going to go there. My most recent (well, almost most recent...)purchase was the Cricut Expression machine. I finally broke down and bought one of my very own - even though I have one on my desk at work and play with it for hours every day and I do spend more time at work than I do at home so you would think I don't need my own...but I do. Last night I showed the kids how to work the Cricut and just let them go at it. I was thinking they would keep it simple and just play around with it for an hour or ...

This week I have inherited three children...I am not babysitting because there is no baby and there is DEFINITELY no sitting! I am watching the three oldest kids of my parents bishop while he and his wife are in Hawaii for 8 days - I am still trying to figure out why I didn't volunteer to be their luggage carrier instead. So this week, since I get off at 12:30 every day and they don't get home until 2:30, I shall use that brief moment in time to narrate the sure to come adventures of the week. 09/21/2009 DAY ONE: I decided to be diplomatic and ask the kids what they wanted to do for family night. In all my years of overnight babysitting I have found a foolproof equation with Utah County children: Mom and Dad are gone + the babysitter can drive + Mom and Dad left lots of money = CHUCK E CHEESE! It never fails. So I didn't even bat an eye when they came up with that one all on their own. I did, however, start to panic a little on the car ride to Chuck E Cheese - I mean, the...

So my house now officially has no toilets. That is NOT super cool when you go to work there for long stretches at a time. And I was talking to a friend the other day, explaining this rather awkward situation and he told me to just go out back, behind the bushes. Well, there are only two GIGANTIC problems with that - first, it's not so easy for us girls to just squat where we stand....and that's if we're even talented enough to squat anywhere at all! And secondly, we cut down the trees and pulled out all the bushes in the whole yard...yeah, I'm thinking I'll walk to the gas station and save my neighbors the trouble of calling the cops to report our indecent exposure.

I got my check from the Government - I was a little nervous after the Cash for Clunkers thing went so well. But, it finally arrived. But have you ever noticed how much money and water have in common? Try to get a good grip on water - I dare you. Well, my money seems to have the same problem - it runs through my fingers and is gone before I realize I had it. But I did learn something new this week, and it's a good piece of financial wisdom: If you put $8,000 to the bank so it will earn interest, but you try to be responsible and pay off your credit card and then spend $1,700 per trip to Home Depot, there is seriously NO gain on that investment. I should have just got it all back in cash and stuffed it in my matress...just as long as it wasn't an air matress.

Yesterday (while I was at the temple)my brother finished painting over all the peanut butter walls in the kitchen. YAY! I am excited for two reasons: 1) I LOVE the color on the walls now - maybe just because it is NOT peanut butter and maybe the rest of the world will think it is awful - oh well. But seriously, I love the new color and I'm totally stoked to paint the rest of my house. 2) I got to have a wonderful, spiritual, relaxing evening at the temple with a good friend while my house was being painted :) And by the time I got home from the temple, all of the work was finished and there was even fresh, hot pizza for me! They always say 'No pain, no gain'....well, I guess I proved them wrong! The world would do well to remember my motto in life: "I ALWAYS get what I want" - with a submotto something along the lines of 'I'm not conceited, I'm just worth it.' :)

The other morning I was walking up the stairs to work and it felt like there was something wierd, wrong, amiss with my left pant leg. I reached down and felt a huge lump behind my knee. I rolled up my pant leg and removed the lump and sure enough - it was a sock stuffed in my pantleg. So here I come walking into my office swinging my dirty sock. I'm sure O.S.H.A. would have a hay day with that one! My co-workers sure did.

Okay, so this story is far more entertaining this morning than it was yesterday. And it's definitely more hilarious for people who were NOT involved in the situation. Yesterday I stopped by my house in Provo to grab the mail and be on my merry little way. Well, there was a strange vehicle parked in my driveway - okay, so it was my Dad's truck, but that's not very dramatic. Anyway, I went inside and found him getting ready to texture my walls. Feeling a sense of obligation to help him work on MY house, I started taping up windows and getting ready to help him. We successfully textured the non-peanut butter walls of the kitchen and he moved into the family room. After running out of sheetrock mud in his cool little sprayer thing, I helped him refill it. He seemed to be doing okay by himself so I told him I was leaving so I wouldn't get dirty because I was going straight to Family Home Evening. He said 'well, you shouldn't get too dirty since we're just texturi...