March Madness

I know why they call it "March Madness." It makes the wives go mad because their husbands are OBSESSED with NCAA basketball. WHO CARES? I really only care about professional basketball. I love watching the Jazz play (especially when they win - which they haven't been doing to much of lately). I like college football, but only when it's the University of Utah playing (and winning) against Brigham Young University. I, unfortunately, married into a VERY big BYU family. I was raised in a VERY big Ute family. So many people do not think that a Ute fan and a BYU fan can be married to each other. What they don't realize is that it can work, as long as the Ute fan converts the BYU fan to the good side. ;)

It's fun the friendly rivalry that goes on during the week leading up to the Utah/BYU game. I enjoy teasing my husband and father-in-law - especially when the Utes win!

Three years ago today.....

It's really weird for me to think that Steve and I would have had a 2 1/2 year old right now. If I had woken up three years ago today and just gone in to work I may have not lost our baby. It's weird to think about it. I can remember parts of it so vividly it is like it just happened yesterday, and other things I've forgotten about - which part of me is grateful for.

Steve and I commemorated today by having dinner at Olive Garden and just spending time together talking. Other than Steve and I, the only other person that mentioned anything about remembering the meaning of today - to Steve and I, was Steve's mom. Steve also bought me a bouquet of flowers - roses mostly.

I recently found out about a friend of mine who has had four miscarriages in the past 3 1/2 years! I went through one, I don't think I could handle that.

On a lighter note, Steve and I got our Utah State tax return yesterday, direct deposited to our account on Tuesday! It only took about 5 - 6 weeks! Then on Wednesday morning Steve noticed we had more money in our account than we should have. Utah State Tax Commission gave us another tax refund for the same amount! Two days in a row! Steve transferred the money to Savings and we gave it a day to see if they would deduct the overpayment from our account. I went to the bank this morning and they did! So, for one day we had double the tax refund from Utah! Too bad we couldn't keep it! ;)

Steve has been bugging me lately. He's bugging me about not posting on my blog for so long! I have meant to, but things just have gotten so busy lately!
Hunter just told Steve on Wednesday (March 2nd) that his mom (Brenda, Steve's ex-wife) is pregnant with a baby girl and due in June! I was a bit surprised that we are just finding out about it now. She is over halfway through her pregnancy before we find out! It's cool for Hunter though, to finally get a little sister. Steve and I haven't given him one of those yet, but hopefully we can soon.

Steve's computer has been dying a slow, painful death recently. When he would turn it on it would make a chugging sound that made me worried that someone had placed a bomb in it that was getting ready to go off. His computer is my old computer that I bought before Steve and I met. I think I got it around 2004 or 2005. It has Windows XP operating system. For the past few weeks, Steve would be on the computer when it would just shut off on him and restart. A few times it wouldn't restart but just shut down completely. I was getting tired of hearing him complain about his bad computer......so I bought him a new one! He now has a Sony VAIO laptop with over 500GB of memory! At the same time as getting his laptop (a surprise to Steve), I got myself a MacBook Pro. This is my first Mac, and so far I don't notice a difference, except in how to find programs on the computer. Hopefully I'll learn to like it more than a PC, so far...I;m not too impressed - except I didn't have to waste more money on an anti-virus system.

I also bought us a 37 inch LCD TV and BluRay player. We only have the old TVs that you could buy before the new flat screens came out. We took the OLD Magnavox TV out of our bedroom and switched it with the newer TV from Hunter's bedroom. The TV from the living room went into Hunter's room and the new TV went in the living room. It's so nice having such a nice tv! Steve even had the company that handles the Satellite Systems in our apartment complex come and install an HD DR receiver so we can now see TV shows in HD! In addition to all that, I also got us a Wii! Now we actually have a gaming system! Until this past Christmas when Santa Claus brought Hunter a Nintendo DSLite, the only "gaming" system we had (not counting computers) was Hunter's VSmile. Now I feel more advanced - technology wise.

Hopefully I can keep up more on writing on my blog. It's just hard to find time to between work, home and my Cityville and Fronteirville families ;)

Christmas is coming!

Part of me is dreading Christmas. With Steve's hospitalizations in the past 2 years we owe money to the hospitals and doctors. We have to register our car in December also. I was hoping that I would get overtime since half my department is out on maternity leave (both left in October), but so far no overtime. If I don't get any overtime then we will most likely have a small Christmas for Hunter. If it wasn't for Hunter I wouldn't care, but I am afraid that he'll be upset that Santa came to his mom's house but not his dad's house.
I hate being broke!!!

Are you for ReAL?

Steve, Hunter and I went to a ReAL game tonight. It was the playoffs and unfortunately the game ended in a tie so ReAL is not moving on. :( It was a really good game, or at least I think it was. We couldn't see very well. We were on the third row near the goal on the North East side of the stadium. The people in the first and second rows only sat down during halftime! For most of the game I had to watch the Video Screen. It was so annoying. Poor Hunter couldn't hardly see anything. The people in front of us also continually swore. They would boo the other team at certain points of the game and then when the team would kick the ball they crowd near us would end the booing with @$$hole. They would also chant "Bull$&!*" I also heard F-Bombs, the Lord's name in vain, the P word and many others. I would have enjoyed the game much more if we had sat by more civilized people. Oh Yeah! They also continually flipped off the other team and the refs. It was annoying!!! Steve was getting upset since Hunter couldn't see for most of the game.

The night started out better though. We met Steve's brothers and their wives (Brad and Camille and the newlyweds Eric and Brittney) at a Chinese Restaurant in Salt Lake City, called "Little World" It's just off of State Street and 13th South. It really looks like a hole in the wall but the food is AWESOME!!!! Eric was able to speak some Chinese (and even a little Cantonese) with our waitress.We got six entrees to share between the seven of us and we had plenty to take home. It only cost a total of $65 before tip! Brad said that he and Camille had recently gone to "The Mandarin" Chinese restaurant in Bountiful and it had been over $90 for the 4 of them!

We actually walked to the ReAL game from our place. Eric and Brittney carpooled with Brad and Millie and they parked at our apartment complex so we could save money and time on parking near the stadium. I am SOOOO out of shape that the walk there was difficult. I have asthma that isn't too bad but is aggravated when I exercise. I haven't seen my Asthma and Allergy doctor recently and don't have a rescue inhaler (I've never needed it before). I needed it tonight and luckily my husband has the same type of inhaler my Doctor had prescribed for me so I used it and it helped my lungs feel MUCH better. The walk home was much easier than the walk there though.

It was a good night and now I'm exhausted. Good night and don't forget to set your clock back an hour.

Stressed doesn't even begin to cover how I'm feeling right now.....

I am getting so stressed at work. My department has four Analysts (which I am one) and one Supervisor. Two of my co-workers are pregnant and due a week apart. That day is fast approaching. Patti has scheduled her appointment to be induced on October 19th. Cas is due on October 17th, but I have no idea if she has scheduled her appointment yet. When they both go out on Maternity leave it will be just Barbara and I and unless we get overtime I will go bonkers!

Steve and I just celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary! We went to Castle Creek Bed and Breakfast in Sandy Utah. It was awesome. We stayed in the Canterbury suite and even though it was one of the smaller rooms it was wonderful. We went to Cheesecake Factory for dinner and then went back to Castle Creek. We wanted to be able to stay in each of the 10 rooms by our 5th anniversary, but we still have 2 rooms to go and I doubt we will be able to go as often as we have in the past. We may not be able to go back to Castle Creek for awhile. Not because we don't love the place. We do! I love giving it free publicity and I tell everyone I know about it. We may not be able to go since it costs so much for one night and we need to pay off some bills.

It only took us about 18 months to get the bill with Lakeview Hospital worked out. When Steve was admitted to Lakeview at the end of 2008 he was there for over 2 weeks. The insurance denied the last few days, but as per their contract with the hospital, we were only responsible for our copay/deductible/coinsurance for those denied days. Lakeview sent us a bill shortly after he got home for over $8,000! Then we tried to show the hospital that we only owed about $1,000. They eventually said we owed over $12,000! I worked with the insurance company (luckily I work for the medical insurance and have contacts at the Mental Health insurance) and we finally got a bill showing we only owe $880! Steve called them and asked if we can pay it in installments. We now pay less than $80 a month and in one year we will have that paid off. It will make us so happy to have that over and done with. 

Hair, tv, polygamy....and life

I am a head sweater. That does not mean that my head is shaped like a sweater or my hair looks like a sweater. When I sleep at night, if it's too hot, I sweat and my hair gets and sweaty and gross. My mom tells me it's from her side of the family. Darn them! 

Now my head is sweating when I get hot and I'm not sleeping. I absolutely hate it when I take the time and energy to straighten my naturally curly hair and then I start sweating from my head and my hair starts going curly. I HATE IT!!!!

On the topic of hating my hair...I also sometimes have polygamous hair. At least my bangs. Sometimes if I let my hair air dry my bangs go into a style similar to what you see the "typical" sister wife and the daughters do with their hair. 

Does this secretly mean that I was meant to be a sister wife? Steve can handle me most of the time, but if he got another wife I doubt he could handle both of us! I can barely handle myself sometimes. I don't think I would be well suited to be the first (or second, third, etc.) wife of a polygamous. I have a little too much jealousy in me and I would be green with envy with thoughts of the other wives spending time with my husband.

We just switched from Comcast to Direct Tv. We used to have Direct Tv when we lived in Bountiful and Ogden but when we moved to Sandy we decided to change since we had to go through a different company (middle man) to set up Direct Tv here and they wanted to charge us a $200 installation fee. We changed to Comcast and got an awesome deal. Well, the Comcast 1 year deal expired this month and our price doubled. DOUBLED? Yes! We went from $85 a month to $170 a month. Steve called and asked what the best deal was and they said with a lower internet speed (we had tv and internet through them) and only basic cable channels it would still be $145 a month. Direct Tv gave us a free install, $75 a month for 6 months for satellite and Qwest DSL and in 6 months the price rises only about $25. 

The guy is here right now installing our Direct Tv. Now I have to program this DVR with all my shows that I want to record. At least most of my shows aren't showing new episodes yet.