Surviving Cabin Fever

These last couple months have been just trying to survive until spring. The winters here are not bad, they're almost enjoyable actually, but we are ready to get out of the house into some nice weather. There are a few things to report on.

1) My computer's hard drive died the end of January. The files are not retrievable unless I pay a fortune to send it to some clean lab to try it.  Luckily I backed up Ashlyn's pictures at the beginning of December, but that also means that I still lost all of our christmas pictures and videos. SAD! At least with this blog and facebook I am able to get copies of some of the pictures. But I'm definately going to be looking into an external disk to keep a running backup.

2) Winters here are nice compared to Rexburg. We only got the tail-end of the big snowstorm that hit Chicago, so we lucked out. However, we did not get a nice layer of snow to play in. It was a nice layer of ice. It was at least a foot deep, and it was frozen solid by the next day. I felt like Legolas from LOTRs whenever I went outside, just walking right over the top of the snow drifts. I wish I would've gotten a picture.

3) I got a new job. I'm working at St. Elizabeth-Central as a Medical Technologist. I'm only going to be PRN (which is an every-now-and-then, as-needed position), but I trained full-time for all of January and February. While this experience has reaffirmed that I really do LOVE what I do...I am still glad I do not have to work full time.

This lab is a lot different. A lot smaller and older. But the science is the same and the job is essentially the same. Love it. Although, I have named it "the dungeon." Not because they wouldn't let me out, because they would. Sometimes. But because it was in the lower level of a pretty old hospital. No windows, No real bright lighting, narrow hallways with a lot of small rooms branching off, but no real large rooms.

Hallway leading to the lab

4) I received the new calling of Family History Consultant in my ward. So far I love it. I haven't done much other than go to the family history center during Sunday schools and try to help a few sisters that are about my age. But I think what has really been great is that it reminded me that I need to work on mine. And now I'm addicted. Call me a geek. I subscribed to a free trial at Ancestry.com and I think I stayed up late every night of those 14 days working on a family line out of the Ukraine. (Well, Ukraine/Poland/Austria/Galicia...the same little area has gone by MANY names.) BUT I have managed to find and track down 26 people that need temple work. My free trial expired (I'm trying not to cry) so I think for now I am going to concentrate and getting to the temple to actually do the work and maybe finding a place in Justin's family to look at. I am so grateful for the technology that enables us to do research from the home like that and I'm grateful for this calling that has re-infected me with the genealogy bug.



5) All three of us have been trying to keep busy indoors while all the ice around us melts.


Justin has rediscovered his Legos:

Anakin's Starfighter (no, I do not know the official name of it...)

I attempted a few projects:


I made a pillowcase for our bright-red pillow that didn't match anything. I was proud of myself considering I did not use a pattern OR look up on the internet how to make it. I made it up as I went, including buying too much fabric.

You can't really see it in the picture, but the pillowcase is an "envelope" style

I attempted some cute treats. In the cookbook these treats looked really cute. They're supposed to look like little ice cream cones.

They don't look bad, BUT they were NOT yummy and actually ended up in my trash.

And here comes all the pictures of what Ashlyn has been up to the last couple months. She's turned into a teenager already:

Texting

"Get out of my room (hallway) mom."

Okay, so I'm just kidding. She's not a teenager. But it is kind of a scary look into the future.

She has had a few fun get-togethers with her friend Jared:

Here they are eating lunch (Ashlyn is on a piano bench, she isn't really that much bigger than Jared)

And her hair is grown longer, wavy, and more crazy. But she has let me put it in pigtails every now and then.

Striking a pose

She has learned to make funny faces for the camera instead of smiling.

That's about it. We are looking forward to the chance to run around outside, but we have been having fun indoors.





.