It's a wrap! (Summer 2012 in a nutshell)

This summer, we:

• moved across the country
• apartment hopped three times in one week
• got fleas in apartment 1
• found globs and globs of cat hair and smoke in apartment 2
• got bedbugs in apartment 3
• had to make apartment 3 our new home
• threw away all of our newly purchased craigslist furniture
• threw away our bedspread we got for our wedding and all of our luggage
• spent over $150 at the laundromat in just two days 
• tried and failed the Body For Life diet
• got rid of our craiglist washer and dryer that both stopped working after two weeks
• hung out in camping chairs for two months while the bedbugs slowly died
• kept our clothes in garbage bags and the rest of our stuff in the back of our truck for two months
• experienced more emotional breakdowns than I ever experienced while pregnant or postpartum
• cussed more than I ever have in my entire life
• hung out all day, almost everyday in our two bedroom, furniture-less bed bug recovering apartment with Jack. (Spencer had to take our car to school and work every day)
• realized that life costs a lot of money! We were poor in Logan, but hardly had any expenses. In Logan, we were both on scholarship, we hardly used gas since we were so close to campus, we both had part time jobs, our rent was cheap... real life in Alabama with a husband in grad school is expensive! 
• ran away to Oceanside and Arizona for a week and a half with my family
• realized after we came home that life was going to get better!
• officially moved our stuff in from the truck and unpacked our things!
• bought a couch and a washer and dryer!
• started being social and hanging out with friends!
• bought a second car! (As a result, Jack and I are way more sane, because the walls in our apartment start closing in on us when we are stuck in there all day long)
• had our first visitors! My friend Chelsie and her girls came to visit!
• never have been so clean in my entire life! (A big thank you to bed bugs, cockroaches, and fruit flies for contributing to my OCD)
• got hooked on Downton Abbey, Raising Hope, and crazy couponing!
• took care of a tired, sad, sick baby with a bad, bad case of the hand, mouth, foot virus :( 
• ate our weight in watermelon and these no-bake cookies!!!
• enjoyed the thunderstorms!
• sent Spencer back to school again. 
• FINALLY got Jack in a predictable routine! (Does four days count as a routine?) He eats lots of food, takes good naps, and sleeps through the night for the first time since we have moved!!!... (Knock on wood)
• realized that we don't have to "endure" Alabama after all! It's gonna be good!!!

Spencer and I were talking the other day about what we would tell our naive little selves in May who thought that they were doing such a good job driving across the country with a baby and who also thought that that surprisingly easy drive was going to be the worst and most expensive part of the move. Spencer said that he would tell the Spencer in May to ask more questions before jumping to decisions. I said that I would tell the Annie in May to TURN AROUND!!! DOOON'T DO IT!!!! JUST MOVE IN THE FALL!!! SERIOUSLY TURN AROUND!!! GO BACK TO ZION!!! (hahaha juuust kidding)

What's done is done, and I hope I'm a little more tough and a little more grateful because of it, since it is clear that I am incredibly dramatic and have lived quite a sheltered life. This hardly hard summer was the pretty dang hard for me! If anything, it was a summer we'll never forget and a story that I'm sure our kids will get sick of hearing about about over the years.

Now bring it on, Fall! I am soooo ready for you!

Things I'm loving

• Ann Romney's Republican National Convention Speech 
• The two bottles of Dimetapp, Advil, half gallon of Blue Bell Ice Cream, box of sugar babies, box of swedish fish, box of milk duds, and code for a free redbox rental that I purchased at Walgreens for a grand total of $2.30!!!! That kind of shopping is addicting! 
• Jack attempting to clap his hands while playing peek-a-boo. Apparently, that takes some serious coordination. (Disclaimer: this video will probably only entertain you if you are Jack's grandmother or if you thoroughly enjoy watching someone else's baby master the art of continuously hitting their hands together.)

nine months

Jack is a whole pregnancy old! I love this little cockroach.

On strike

Jack turned on baby food and put himself on a strict diet of watermelon, wheat bread and breast milk, which is kind of complicated for a baby with still no teeth, who can only get finger food into his mouth 25 percent of the time, and who gets bored of eating after just three bites. We have been the most successful this week giving him watermelon straight out of of the bowl in the bathtub. Pretty demanding if you ask me.

I also think he turned on his toys because this is what he spends the majority of his time doing :

And fyi, if you ever get the option of choosing fleas, bedbugs, cockroaches, or fruit flies to multiply in your apartment*, I highly recommend the fruit flies, because they are just annoying and gross but they are the least disgusting and the least stressful PLUS you can have fruit fly trap making competitions. So far, we are both losing (zero fruit flies to zero) which was totally not the point of the game.

*We are clean people. In fact, I've never had such an immaculate living space in my entire life, but bugs just seem to love us here.

When Staples pays me 2 bucks to take their stuff I get really excited

For the last few months, I've slowly been reading more about extreme couponing and it's extremely confusing. But because we are ridiculously poor and the cost of living in Alabama is way higher than Logan ever was, I do a lot of homework before I go shopping, I go to multiple grocery stores a week, I get super stressed out once I get to cash registers with my coupons and cash and screaming baby, and I'm still too scared to do multiple transactions in one trip. (If only I had one of those crazy TLC Extreme Couponing ladies there to shop with...) I'm saving money on our groceries by doing this, but I am no extreme couponer.

EXCEPT YESTERDAY WHEN I WENT TO STAPLES AND WALKED OUT WITH 2 PACKS OF COPY PAPER, 6 NOTEBOOKS, GLUE, AND TWO BUCKS!!! Yep, they paid me two bucks to take their stuff and it felt pretty awesome. (Just don't ask how much time it took me on the internet, on the phone, and at the store to make that happen.)

And last week I got two pairs of pants for Jack at Toys R Us for $1.01. That felt pretty good, too.

If you're interested spending a ridiculous amount of time learning about saving a ridiculous amount of money, I recommend subscribing to Krazy Coupon Lady and Surviving the Stores. To me, it's kind of fun and addicting. But be warned that's coming from someone who hates pinterest.

Things I'm loving today

• A 90 percent un-sick baby!
• Freeze dried pineapple chunks that my mom sent me. I am not at all ashamed to admit that I consumed all 38 servings in less than a week, and I'm hoping that will cancel out the 38 servings of dessert I ate? We had friends over and they brought Krispy Kreme donuts and Bluebell icecream, and then left the leftovers with us! And because it's a sin to resist those kind of treats... 38 servings.
• Country music?!! I don't know how this happened but I think driving our truck down windy Alabama roads with the windows rolled down has something to do with it. 
• Raising Hope on Netflix. How come nobody told me about this show? I don't even know if I recommend it. We're only two episodes in but it seems like a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Juno and I laugh more out of shock than anythings else! So with that, go watch it and tell me what you think. I think I love it.

Sick

I'm pretty sure we have the hand mouth foot virus over here and it's not very fun. Jack's been taking long sleepy sick naps but waking up 4 times in the night. He's fussing a lot and eating a little and snuggling a lot and reading a lot and he thinks Blue's Clues is pretty great. Poor little guy.

Girls week!!! (Plus Jack)

Spencer was out of town the beginning of this week so my friend, Chelsie, and her girls braved it and drove down from Kentucky to come entertain us! We had fun catching up and playing at home, at the zoo, at the pool, at the park, at the library, and at Chic-fil-A. Jack was in heaven observing and playing with Sky and Truly and we're so happy they came!

Preferences

Jack prefers fruits over veggies, rice cereal over fruit, standing up while eating over sitting down while eating, no bib over bib and more specifically, no clothing over clothing. It's really hot and sticky here, okay?





And Spencer prefers any movie over High School Musical but that is just too bad because that's exactly what we watched last night!

Fried Green Tomatoes and other fun stuff

It's a good week...

• when my stress level has been low enough not to feel the need for blog therapy until Friday.
• when Spencer finished his first semester of graduate school!
• when cheesecake is half-off at The Cheesecake Factory! (Vanilla Bean Cheesecake with raspberry sauce on the side is and always will be the way to go.)

• when we played "guess the ridiculous price" at Anthropology.
• when we got 4 t-shirts, a pair of jeans, and two pairs of shorts for Spencer at JC Penney for $54.
• when we checked off a million things off of our "to do" list. 
• when the weather was kind of cool enough to go running/walking outside and when there were thunderstorms similar to Arizona's.

• When we tried the fried green tomatoes at the restaurant based off of the book and movie Fried Green Tomatoes. We kind of splurged and also tried the fried catfish, the fried shrimp, the dressing and gravy, the rolls, the coconut cream pie, and the banana pudding as well. Oops. 

(I promise it tasted a lot better than it looked)

Our great week almost distracted us from the fact that we are totally missing the Olympics right now because we don't get basic cable. :( We may just have to pretend shop at Best Buy this weekend to catch a few events.