hello, haven't seen you around here lately...

ok, no good excuses for me, I am a big blog slacker. Sorry. We were gone for about ten days visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Oregon and helping with a wedding. I don't think I worked that hard on my own wedding! There was a lot of little things that I didn't have to think about because our venue took care of those little things like moving the chairs, set-up etc that make you scramble about and not enjoy the wedding as much. But all the stress was worth it, the wedding turned out very nice. Paul and I were in charge of the music and photography.

This last week was a busy one for us also. We celebrated Paul's birthday and our 11th anniversary. On our anniversary we went car shopping and finally found a nice car, low mileage and not a huge payment. But as soon as we brought the car home and thought we could celebrate our anniversary the right way, Paul got very ill. He got the worse cluster migraine he ever had and could not stop vomiting. I had to call an ambulance because he couldn't walk downstairs and he was really ill, I was afraid it was an aneurysm or something horrible. After some anti-nausea meds and pain meds, Paul had his sense of humor left and we were able to go home. Needless to say, Sunday was spent chilling. So here is a picture of the car that sent Paul to the hospital, I hope we have better luck with this car than it started out! :)


( that is caden in the driver's seat! )

ok, well I have the computer now and I know how to load pics, so I WILL, yes, I think definitely I will be posting more often. I will just get myself out of my blues! somehow, some way!

bumming

That's me right now, bumming. Paul has been working really long hours. He hasn't been home for dinner on a weeknight for about three weeks. They have been working on a big project, so that is the way it is. I always seem to call his office at the wrong time. I just haven't gotten my grove back yet since our move back to California. Everyone is busy, busy doing what I do not know, but busy. I just don't have any close friendships here yet. I have been thinking about trying to take an art class or something, to meet people that have similar interests and to learn a little something, but it doesn't fit into Caden's school schedule and I never know when to count on Paul being home, so that will have to wait too. It seems like all I have been doing is waiting. I have been waiting for my new laptop to load our pictures from Caden's 7th birthday party at Disneyland.

To top it all off, we just found out that our car that we purchased would have to be titled as a salvage, so now I am carless and we have to begin another search for a car. We seem to have no luck whatsoever with keeping a second car. It was a volvo wagon with only 70,ooo miles on it only a couple of surface dents, and it rode and drove really nice. Oh well, at least we had it to get us to Disneyland and back! So wish us luck on finding a car and actually keeping it :).....

OK, so that is my lame explanation on why I do not blog so much anymore, it seems the same story, different day. I still am having extreme problems with my back. I am trying a new treatment where they burn the small nerves that are impinged in my facet joints. The first of three procedures is next Wednesday. They will numb the nerves to see if it helps, if it does help, it will only be for a few hours. The second procedure will be the same to make sure the first wasn't a "placebo" effect. The fthird and final procedure is where they actually burn the nerves, it has helped some people for 6-12 months, and ever so often has taken almost all of the back pain away. My regual nerve blocks help my leg nerve pain from the scar tissue and permanent nerve damage on the sciatic nerve, but do not help at all with the back pain. We are hoping and praying this helps. I want so badly to get to work on my ceramic art again, I have been drawing so many ideas, but cannot stand at the table long enough to complete anything.

Ok, I am sick of complaining. If you got this far, sorry for whining. Just gotta let it out....


So to get my mind off of all of these things I cannot take cafe of right now, I played a little flickr game....

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

my answers:

out of the digital loop

Sorry about the lack of communication here lately. We sold my laptop and we still have not received the replacement one, so I took an involuntary which turned into a voluntary blog/internet break. It was kinda nice. I find myself distracted by the computer, not getting much accomplished. We had out desktop computer, but I cannot sit at a chair too long with my back problems.

So lets update everyone on what we have been up to. We went to San Francisco three weekends ago. It was beautiful. We brought the convertible, it was so fun driving through the city with the top down, we got to see a lot more of the architecture. We visited the seals at pier 39 and took a little boat cruise to under the golden gate bridge and around alcatraz island. It was a beautiful, warm weekend. We ended the day with a drive down scenic highway 1 and put our feet in the cold cold pacific ocean.

Two weekends ago we drove up to Oregon to visit with Paul's family and deliver the Wii we got for his mom. We had multiple family Wii bowling tournaments. We also got to watch our neice, Mandi, perform in the school play.

Last weekend we vegged!

My back has been horrible. I am waiting for the authorization to come through to take an MRI to see if the fusion has changed. I have had bruising and extreme tenderness around one of the bolt areas. I have another nerve block scheduled for May 7th, hopefully it helps as much as it did before. After that injection, we will begin the radio-frequency rounds where the small inpinged nerves can be burned away.

Caden lost his other front tooth and is on his way to losing another bottom tooth. He is growing like a weed! We will be going to Disneyland with some friends for a long weekend on his birthday. That is what we will be doing next week! I have not been to Disneyland since I was 8 years old! I am sure it has drastically changed. Caden is beyond excited!

Ok, so I thought that I would update you all since I have received a couple of worried emails.

'Oh yeah...guess what...we sold the Michigan house! It hasn't quite been finalized, but soon!
Once my laptop comes I will be able to upload pictures a lot more easily. So hopefully I can share some pics soon!

thanks for stopping by!

March

Caden lost his third tooth on February 20, 2008! It is his first tooth he has lost on the top. Now he has a gaping hole, so so cute! He was working on getting it out for quite a while.



see it?


We have been very busy around here. We are about all settled in, although my studio isn't set up yet. We are waiting to go to ikea to pick up some storage cabinets, and Paul is putting legs or having a couple of custom cabinets made for a butcher table top that we have sitting around to make a high work center for my studio. (that will be so nice for my back) We have it all planned out, it is just a matter of gathering up the supplies. Next week I am going over to a friend's house to pick out some more ceramic supplies, the people who owned their house must have been ceramic artists and left tons of supplies there. So rather than through them out, I get to have dibs!

Last week I had another round of epidural nerve block injections. This time they did L4, L5 and S1 on the right. It has helped, so that is a relief! I have also been having physical therapy in a warm salt water therapy pool. I found out that with my insurance that I will be enrolling into, I will get a free gym membership to the gym that has this pool, so I will be able to continue to keep up on working out. I really enjoy the pool, it allows me to get a lot more longer of a workout than I would be able to on land.


This is the picture of our new house (and my new little orange convertible VW!). We love it so much. We have discovered that is is really close to a part of the Western States trail that goes down to the American River and through the canyon. We took about a three mile hike yesterday. It is so beautiful, spring has sprung, and little wildflowers are starting to come out. Next time we will bring the camera! The only problem with the hiking is that the way down is great, but coming back up is all up hill, so we have to pay more attention to how far we go, Caden wasn't too thrilled about the long walk up to home. He survived....just as we knew he would, but you sure wouldn't think he would according to his drama :) Oh to be six again!

I also wanted to post his school picture for this year, I know that I have had a few requests for copies, we didn't get a big package this year because the pictures were taken like the second week after we moved cross country. So we bought the image CD so we could share.
here it is-all of his teeth and all!



Thanks for sticking with reading the blog. It looks like things here are settling down, and once the studio is finished I will be in production mode. I have tried blogging like three times this last month but this laptop has been a pill. It caught a horrible bug again, locked down the motherboard and all. After that was fixed it started acting weird again, so Paul just redid the whole computer again. Looks like we are in business now (we hope!) I cannot wait until we can switch to a mac! One thing at a time, though!

Take care! Thanks for stopping by!

We get to keep Suki!

We were able to agree to the lease option, so we get to keep our beloved cat, Suki. I am so glad we get to keep her. It was breaking our hearts just to think of finding her a new home. She has traveled with us for two cross country moves. She is such a trooper. Her allergies seem to be a little better here in the new house too!

We still have a few boxes to move over to the new house and the final cleaning. We need to have everything done by Sunday. This moving stuff is exhausting. We are looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday!

That is it for now! Hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day. We sure did. I have the sweetest husband, and I must say, Caden is learning to be quite the little charmer too!

take care! thanks for stopping by!

busy-ness

Life has gotten a bit busy around here. We are packing up the house and getting ready to move out of the mold this weekend. We are looking forward to moving into a bigger, brighter house! A house! Not a condo with no yard. I am so looking forward to see Caden ride his scooter again and get back to learning to ride his bike (once we can repair it from the last move-the movers crushed it a bit) Caden will be able to play outside again without me by his side every moment making sure he doesn't "disturb" the neighbors (mostly the manager...ugh!). It will be like regaining a bit of freedom back, like we had at our house in Michigan. Speaking of which, we got an offer, less than what we owe, but maybe viable with a counter offer and some generosity from the bank we will get out of the house without going under any further. Pray pray pray, please please please :) !!!

I have been going to physical therapy in a salt water pool two times a week. It is nice to be able to exercise a little, although I much prefer working up a sweat and seeing results like I did when I was able to run oh so long ago, but I am thankful that I am able to do something at least. The pool is nice and warm. My last injection was a complete failure, unfortunately. It ended up flaring up the nerves even more. Apparently this happens about once out of 200 patients. I have had so many nerve blocks that have been successful, I was so disappointed when my legs went freezing cold and burning, like when you have really cold hands and stick them under hot water-that sort of feeling. It remained like that for over a week, but now seems to just be lessening now, thankfully. I also got disappointing news yesterday that it looks like the surgery I had in December for endometriosis was also not successful. Such a bummer. My body and I are not getting along. I wish I could trade it in!

Caden is doing great in school. We made crayon hearts for valentine's day. You collect all of the broken up crayons, break them up some more, combine them in various colors and put them in a heart shaped silicon mold and heat them up in an oven at about 250 degrees for 15 minutes or so or until all melted together. It makes a multi-colored heart shaped crayon that we will attach to the valentines Caden will be giving his friends next week.


(pictures from familyfun.go.com arts and crafts site where you can find complete directions)

Ok, I better get back to packing so we can get outta here! We are convinced that the mold in this house have been causing Paul's headaches and just a general fatigue feeling. If anything, I know it isn't a healthy thing to be living in a house with mold and if they are not going to do anything more than spray some bleach water on the wall, it isn't going to get any better and we are not going to argue about it with the owner anymore.

it is always something...

Well, this week is zooming by. I had my caudal epidural injections yesterday at the surgery center. The doctor had to do it twice because my anatomy was different (his explanation) and he had to move the needles lower. It should start to help within 3-5 days, fingers crossed.

Our garage has had a mold problem for quite some time and we have become concerned that it may cause us to be ill. We have given notice here and found a house with an option to buy after things with our house in Michigan clear up. The house is great, I will have an indoor studio, Caden will have a back yard to play in, and we will even have a reason to buy furniture eventually, as it has a living room and a family room. The neighborhood also has a small park. The only problem is that we cannot bring Suki with us. We are hoping that a friend will be able to care for her until we can purchase the place (if that happens). The owner had a really bad experience with cats and she absolutely will not allow us to have a cat. We are concerned for Suki because she has a chronic upper respiratory infection that our vet says will always be a problem, so finding her a new home will be difficult. She is a big part of our family, but it is so difficult to find places that allow a cat, and we have to put our family's health and Caden first. The condo where we live currently is run by a really difficult person who does not allow kids to play outside. We knew this would be a temporary move when we moved in, but the mold situation has caused us to step up the house search. Ugh, it is always something. The move is set for February 15th.

Next weekend we will be traveling to Oregon for Paul's Dad's birthday. The big boys get to go deep sea fishing, while the girls and Caden get to hang out. So that will be fun!

I don't think that I have told you all that Caden was able to get his turtle! His name is Sheldon and he is a asian aquatic turtle. He is quite cute! I will try to post some pictures of his soon! The turtle can make the move to the new house.

We have also found a church home. We are so happy to start getting back involved in a community. It is a new, small church call Elevation. Paul's good friend from high school goes there and invited us to check it out. It is very different, in a good way, from what we are used to. Being so small is an advantage though, we have already had a few volunteers to help us move. It is a very young church, mostly young families, we have more kids than adults! Oh, I almost forgot! One of the teachers in Caden's room moved into a house where the owner must have been a potter and left a lot of supplies. She invited me to come over one of these days and take whatever I want of the supplies that the former occupant left! I am so excited to see everything!

Well, thanks for stopping by! I will try to post some pictures of Sheldon the turtle soon! Take care!

Januray Storm

As most of you know, we had a pretty big storm in Northern California last week. There are still a few houses without electricity! When the news tells you to stay home and out of the storm, what do we do? We go out and try to float the car....

Caden had fun, he thought that we were trying to become photo-journalists! Here are a few pics!




The park where Paul asked me to marry him (Auburn Recreation Park-ARD) lost quite a few old oaks.




Caden's school even had two trees fall down.






an inpromtu waterfall, not meant for drainage, but water goes the path of least resistence.

ornament exchange 2007

Just thought I would share a quick picture of all of the ornaments I received from around the world in this last ornament swap. They are all so wonderful!

goodbye 2007...hello 2008!

Happy New Year everyone!

The surgery went fine, I am healing up well. I am still waiting for the date for my back procedures. It should be before January 14th, which is the next appointment with the specialist. I am really happy with my new doctor, he is quite familiar with managing the results of a failed back fusion. Apparently, my entire fusion has slipped and is crooked which has caused more nerve impingement among other issues. I guess it is good to know it isn't "in my head" but sucks to know there really isn't anything I, or anyone else for that matter, can do to fix it. A total disc replacement is on the horizon, but being 32, I am quite young for something like that. Ok, so onward and upward!

We had a beautiful Christmas. The weekend before we were able to spend with Paul's family in Oregon, Mom and I had a quick, but successful shopping adventure. I needed some better shoes and fell in love with her clogs. So we went to the place she had bought them in Ashland, Oregon. They were out of hers, but they had a big sale and I was able to buy two pairs of shoes for the price of a little more than one pair normally costs. I got a cute pair of clogs and some ballet flats. Paul and I were able to go to a party with his family also....Caden spent time with his cousin, and we went out alone! Our first party without kid since I was pregnant with him! We all had fun. Christmas day was spent at our house. Caden made out like usual! Everyone sent such great gifts this year. My mom got Caden a cute Gap sweatshirt and great toys. He also got two huge lego sets. He got so many toys that we decided to go to ikea the following day to get a storage unit for all the new books and toys. (We need to go and get one more for his room, the first one filled up so quickly that there is no room left for 'sheldon' the turtle who will be arriving later on this month). Paul and I decided to save money this year for a vacation and to not exchange gifts. But strangely enough, our cat Suki must have gotten out to go shopping because I got some perfume from her and a beautiful necklace from Caden. One of the many reasons why I married Paul, very creative guy I have! After the Christmas toys and joys were unwrapped, we enjoyed a quiet day and prime rib dinner with my Dad. New Year's Eve was also quiet, we looked for trouble, but all we found was the back of our eyelids well before midnight. Caden and I woke Paul up for the countdown for a New Year's hug and kiss!

We have two possible deals in the works for our house in Michigan. Please pray for us on this matter if you can. We so miss our house, our neighbors, our yard...it would make a beautiful home for someone, just a shame to sit there vacant. We have been advised not to rent out because we are so far away and it is more difficult to sell. If something doesn't take place soon, we will be in a really bad place. We need the house to sell so badly. The new year is looking up!

That is it for now, I am trying to update once a week and add more pictures too! I will upload Caden's school pic this week so everyone who didn't get one in the mail can have one--we only paid for four prints this year and the CD, school pics are so pricey and we thought that this way was a smart option.

Happy New Year! Stop bye often and soon! Take care for now!

holiday check-in

Wow, things have been crazy around here. My surgery was cancelled and now is resceduled for December 27th. Good thing though, because we spent all of the day Saturday in the ER with Paul. We were getting ready to go see a movie and as his was walking upstairs he pulled something in his back and couldn't move his arms or left leg and it hurt to breathe. Panic set in....we were thinking, ok he pulled a muscle or a rib popped out, no problem, it will pop back in in a couple of minutes. Nope...so I had to put his shoes on him and help him hobble down two flight of stairs to the car and off the the ER, no Chipmunk movie for us. Because of Paul's cancer history, they took tons of tests. Thankfully, no cancer spots on his lungs or any problem with his bloodwork. Just excrutiating pain. Caden was an angel throughout the whole ordeal. The doctors do think that it is a soft tissue issue, but we are going to be on the safe side and Paul is seeing the family doctor today to schedule an MRI to rule out any herniation. It is a very high place to be herniated, so I have been hoping and praying it is a rib out and will heal and that will be that. Rib injuries are really painful. I have had a laminotomy at the T10 area and I know kinda what it feels like to have a disc problem up there...I hope he heals fast and doesn't turn chronic.







Ok, in happier news, I finished the ornaments I was working on for the 2007 Ornament Swap.

I made ceramic snowflakes, with holiday sentiments like "joy", "sparkle", "ho, ho, ho" hand embossed and glitter snow imbedded in the glaze.



here is an example:





and wrapped them all up like this:



I sent them off to locations from Hong Kong, Australia, and all over the United States. I have received some beautiful ornaments in exchange. I really enjoy doing this exchange!



I made 25 more snowflakes and a red-nosed reindeer that are in the kiln right now for the bisque fire. I numbered them 1 through 25 and I plan on making them into an advent garland for Caden where he would move the red-nosed reindeer each day to countdown the Christmas. I know, I am pretty far behind for it to work for this year :) but he will enjoy it next year! Maybe he will be able to countdown from 24 to 25!



Caden had his first stage performance last Wednesday. He and his first grade class sang a rap song called "Ribbons and Bows" in the school Christmas program. He hammed it up!





the pre-requisite goofy pose pre-performance! Like any six year old would want to have a plain smile for the camera!



He really really wanted a tie, he was the only one with a tie, but he loves wearing ties like daddy does. I had to pry it off twice before school, he insisted he needed to wear it to school, with a turtleneck, quite a style. That is Caden though, our little style maker.



Because it was a rap song, they put sunglasses on during the performance. Caden insisted on wearing my sunglasses, so they kept slipping down his face! Here he is, isn't he cute!







I was also the lucky winner of some beautiful ceramic loot from Linda at little flower designs



so so very cute, she is very talented:



(this is her picture, but it is the stuff she sent me, it is too dark today to take a decent pic!)

The little scoop with the bird face on it is adorable! I have the wee vase by my sink with a flower in it, it is perfect for that! And the ornament, oh so cute! So well made, and packaged with such love and care! I love to see what methods other ceramic artists use. She is very prolific and creative! Thank you Linda!

updates...

I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving. We had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa-lini's house. We left Oregon feeling very full and satiated. It is nice being closer to family, we have spent so few holidays together.

Posting may be a bit more sporadic here...I have just found out that I need to have surgery on December 13th, which also means at least 4 doctors appointments in between now and then. On top of that I am participating in the ornament swap that I did last year. I signed up before I knew I had to have said surgery. I am finishing up 10 ceramic ornaments that need to be shipped by the 10th. I love this swap. It is the one and only swap I have ever participated in.


On the 19th, I finally get to see a local neuro here about my spinal disease issues. I haven't had a nerve block for over eight months, so I am moving slowly around here. I usually get injections at least every 6-8 weeks. Hopefully they can do the injections in office like my last physician could. It would be so nice to be out of my flare before Christmas.

Boy, this is a downer post, but I just thought I would let everyone know what is up. We have settled in quite nicely here in California, we just have to get the health issues in check and start being more productive! I wish my body would accomplish one tenth of the things I sketch out and aspire to make. I have made a new mold for a 6 inch bowl and also a smaller mold for a tea cup or small bowl. My next task is making a mold of a vintage child's bowling pin. I love the shape, I think it would make a cool vase. This mold will be my first attempt at a slip-mold (a two part mold, much more technically difficult).

We are taking our kitty Suki to the vet tomorrow to see if they can do anything about her allergies, she has been sneezing up a storm. Poor thing....

That is it for now, Paul is on his way home and Caden is starving (as usual), time to make dinner!

I will try to post soon, but don't worry if I don't! Take care!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Wishing you a very happy birthday, Mom! We miss you so much! Hope the weather is nice in Michigan so you can go to Saugatauk! Talk to you soon!

thank's mom!

this is one of the reason's why I miss Michigan...









my mom sent me pictures of a big storm blowing in off from Lake Michigan. Thanks mom, I miss you!



California is treating us well, though. The weather has been beautiful (as usual).



Caden is making new friends...





and joined the Boyscouts....





and we have been enjoying the nice weather, these pics are from a trip to a pumpkin patch with Caden's first grade class...



the corn maze, Caden towers over all of his class mates, he is not the oldest by far, but he is just so very tall....





sunflowers surrounding the pumpkin patch and corn fields.





a rooster that escaped his coop and followed us around for a while.





and a last shot of some more sunflowers...



I have been working in the studio, I made a few ornaments and a bowl. They are still drying, but I will take some pictures soon! Thanks for stopping by!

happy halloween!

pictures as promised...

caden in his bat costume, wings made from a broken umbrella (armature taken out because I was too worried that someone would poke their eye out-I am just no fun!)


a close-up on his ears and the mask that I felted extra fur into the ears and on the sides of the mask.


boo! I tried to carve the word boo into one of our small pumpkins...it didn't really work out.


Paul always has to something different to his pumpkins, so he painted it black this year.


this is my pumpkin, Caden said it wasn't scary enough, so I gave it a skull and bones "tattoo"



Caden designed and cut his pumpkin all by himself. He even crafted a hole to light it with a flashlight. Apparently they are teaching him in school that it isn't safe to use a tealight to light your pumpkin (perhaps they are not safe only if you leave them unattended).

flashlight hole.

Well we are off for the first trick or treating adventure right now-downtown Auburn is hosting trick or treating iin the afternoon. We will venture out later tonight too!

Well, I have been waiting to post until I had some new pictures to share, but that isn't going to cut it. The hard drive is on order for my regular laptop which has a card reader for our camera. I cannot find out portable card reader right now so I thought I would just pop in to say "hi" and let you know that I have started Caden's Christmas list on the side of the blog.

Caden is going to be a bat for Halloween. I made his wings out of an old umbrella for his wings and made felt ears and a mask. To make it more realistic looking I needle felted "fur" in the ears and on the sides of his mask. I have pictures to share, but they will need to wait until I can upload them to the computer...sorry :(.
This picture was my jumping off point....
which is from the craft queen herself, I ended up taking all of the metal parts out of the umbrella because I just didn't trust Caden not to poke his eye or someone else's eye out. Better to be safe than sorry is my motto.

This weekend was full of jack-o-lantern creating. Our cat Suki really wanted to help us out, she kept stealing the tools and trying to take the smoochy innards out of the pumpkin and spread them throughout the house.

We are pretty much settled into our house. Paul even surprised me by setting up my crafting studio in the corner of our garage. I have been excited to get back to creating. We need to get some shelving for me to use to dry green ware and for display. We also need one more table for me to use to roll out clay. A trip to Ikea may be in order for this next weekend.

happy birthday to me

all I want for my birthday is our house to sell :) .....
I am one year older today!

update

Caden says the funniest things. This weekend we went to the Auburn Home Show and we got to pick up baby chickens. He just loved them. We went back twice. He was able to feed them and pick them up. He told me that "chicks love him".... It is funny because it is true for both baby fowl and girls. He is already quite a popular little guy at school too!
------------------------------------

We have settled into a rhythm here. Staying with my dad has gone a lot better than we expected. We have found a condo to lease, it will be ready this week, but we are waiting until mid-October to move, hoping that finances will smooth out. Paul is enjoying working with the American Red Cross again. We had found a new (to us) car to buy, did all of the financing etc and got in to drive it home and the "check engine" light went on. Isn't that just our luck? After waiting a week for the dealer to fix it or even call and let us know what was happening, we got our deposit back and are on the lookout for a reliable car again.

I have been working on my design ideas for "buggabu studio". Paul surprised me and updated the website a little and set up an etsy account for me. For those of you who don't know what etsy is, it is an online community for handmade goods sorta like ebay, but so so much better! There are so many talented artists who sell their work on the etsy website. I am excited to get back to the production phase, but we need to complete our move first. Once we are settled in our new place, I can get the studio set up and get to work!

The update on the moving truck (penske) situation is not good. They have not been communicating with us unless we call and call them. The truck cost was not refunded as promised, nor was our extra hotel and gas costs. That was supposed to be handled right away. The damaged furniture, etc (about 80-90% of all of our stuff was damaged or destroyed in the move) is being handled by Penke's insurance company. We have jumped through so many hoops we feel like we have joined the circus. We had to unload the storage unit for their agent to re-take pictures of all of the damage. This took them a week to decide, it has been such a waste of time and energy. Now they say it will take another two weeks for them to "research" the products damaged. It has been a very trying experience.

Other than that, Caden is doing great in school. I have been volunteering in his classroom every Thursday. Caden loves to have me in his class, it is so cute. In other news, he wants to be Harry Potter for Halloween. He is growing like a weed. None of his pants fit him. He is so tall. He towers over all of his classmates. Also, he is now a cub scout. His second meeting is next week. He is very excited!

Please continue to pray for our house to sell. We really need this additional stressors out of our life. We just want to be able to try to "start over". The economy is so bad in Michigan that we really just want out of our mortgage, we don't care if we lose our initial down payment. It is such a beautiful house in a great neighborhood. We miss it dearly. We miss our family and friends in Michigan too. But we feel blessed to be able to come "home" to where we grew up in California to raise Caden and be able to have more financial stability. It is also nice to be close to our west coast family and catch up with some old friends.

art sale

one of my absolute favorite artists, Amy Ruppel, is having a big sale of her newest works...
you can check it out here here.






oh I cannot wait until we find our own place and I can set my studio back up and start creating and carving into ceramic.

We have found a condo close to Caden's school with a couple of openings in mid October. We are hoping and praying that one of those will work out for us. It has a small one car garage that I can convert into my studio. Who knows what furniture we will have to move there, though, since every single piece of our furniture was damaged or destroyed when the movers transferred our property from the broken down moving truck. It has taken us weeks to finally get the correct information to the correct people (we hope) so that they can take care of this for us. It is so sad to tell Caden that he cannot play with his bike because the wheel has been bent or his favorite truck is "missing" because it really is shattered to pieces. It is just stuff, though. That is why Amy's work above ("portable home") really speaks to me. My home is wherever my family is. Our "stuff" makes us more comfortable, but I am thankful for our love.

9000 miles in 30 days or less

Well hello there! The title sums up the last month of our life. South Carolina to California, California to South Carolina and then back to California with our moving truck. Yep, we did it. We are crazy and we know it. Visiting California and our family made us miss being near to family. Going back to South Carolina in the hottest summer in over 100 years made us miss it even more. We love our house, friends and family in Michigan, but have found that in the past 5 years the economy makes it quite difficult to survive. Within two days of our decision to move back "home" (where we grew up) in Northern California, Paul was offered a job with the American Red Cross (going back to his roots in disaster services) and we were able to get out of our lease. The house we were leasing was nice, but would not cool below 93 degrees when it was hot and humid outside and the pool had broken once again. We had fixed it once already on our own just waiting for them to have a pool service come, which they never did. But the icing on the cake was Caden's first day of school. The school actually lost our kid for over an hour and would not let us go back to try to find him. Paul had to go to the police officer in the parking lot to get anyone to listen to him. Caden was so traumatized. I had never seen him like that. They discouraged parental involvement because of security concerns. That was the final straw. Caden only missed two days of school when we made the big move, which included three broken moving trucks. But that is another story in itself, lets just wait to see if Penske actually lives up to their promises.

Ok, I cannot resist. The first truck made it halfway to our house before the engine light began to blink and screech something awful. The second truck, which Paul meticulously packed made it about 15 miles until the lights started to flash along with loud, strange sounds. Sixty miles later we were directed to a shop that found the front tires to be unsafe and stripped, but they had no idea why we were having the other problems. So we were sent on our way with a hope and a prayer. The truck made it to a rest stop in Tennessee. We waited three hours in the middle of the night for a mechanic to come, he couldn't help. Two hours later a tow truck showed up, but was unprepared for a 26 foot truck, apparently he was told it was a 16 foot truck. We arrived at a cheap dive in Morristown, Tennessee at three thirty in the morning. Paul was told to meet the "movers" at eight the next morning to transfer our worldly possessions from one truck to another. The next truck lasted until Nevada...but 95% of our possessions are scratched, cracked, damaged, ruined etc. Now, we are basically storing our broken stuff in a storage unit and staying with my dad until we find a place to lease in South Auburn. At least we arrived safe and sound, stuff is just stuff. A lot of it is not replaceable, but at least we have the memories. I can only imagine what people feel when they lose their homes to fire or flood.

My laptop was one of the things destroyed in the move...so I will try my best to post pictures and update the blog. Thanks for stopping by and for all of your prayers and help in this last bump in our path. We hope we are "home" and Caden will go to the same schools we did, we feel safe here and that is what matters.