How We Procrastinated Writing Essays

Yesterday was Pioneer Day here in Utah, which meant Matt got the day off.

We had planned for it be a very productive day (writing essays all day long), but after playing bingo with the old people, the last thing we felt like doing was writing.

I decided my form of procrastinating my essays would be sewing receiving blankets for offspring. I got out my sewing machine and started sewing. But after an hour frustration, I looked at Matt in defeat. Sewing a quilt without a cutting mat is really hard!

We tried to think of a solution...but we couldn't find any. Matt glanced at the coffee table...and I did too, where the innocent looking Joann's coupons were sitting. 

This week there were some awesome coupons...and we didn't have to walk all the way up there, because we have Lance! 

Matt -- "We can just drive up to Joann's if you want. I mean you do have to practice driving."

Me -- "Yeah...but we aren't supposed to spend money."

5 minutes later we were in the car to buy a cutting board.

When we got home, Matt worked on finishing the receiving blanket and I worked on my new project.

He was better than me and actually worked on his essay for an hour. I spent the whole night sewing.

So here are a few pictures of our projects...

Back of Receiving Blanket 1

Front of Receiving Blanket 1

Back of Receiving Blanket 2

Sorry I can't get this darker! It's a dinosaur on the back of Receiving  Blanket 2.
(If you click it, you can see it a lot easier. This is also the one Matt did. I love it!)

I have so many scraps...it drives Matt crazy. But I saw this online! I was so excited to make them. 

Other sides

All the naked blocks that we still need to sew. It's our super effective front door alarm right now. 

It's a good thing Matt's mom dropped off some baby clothes, because so far all we had are lots blankets to wrap our naked, diaper-less baby in. She at least made sure regardless of the gender, our baby will have 2 outfits. That's enough, right? Right? (We don't like sewing clothes...)

I still have 4 more essays to write this week, and Matt still has several more drafts of his personal statement -- which translates we have a lot more papers to procrastinate. I'll probably post a few more times this week too...after all blogging is another great way to procrastinate. 

Lance

This is Lance, our Lancer. We bought him today!

Isn't he cute?

Buying him was one of the most stressful things we have done, while being married, but it was actually a really good experience all around.

Matt and I have almost no car knowledge between the two of us. When we first bounced around the idea of buying a car, we felt really overwhelmed. We could buy a used car online...but both of us knew that we would need a lot of luck for us to pick a good one out. 

So we went to Sergio. He has known me since I was like 5, and of all people, he knows cars. He conveniently just moved here from Florida and is now working at the Orem Mazda.  I told Matt the best place for us to start was probably with him.

He spent half of the time laughing at us. At one point he told Matt that would he was the saber tooth tiger, and Matt would be cute little prey, except Matt was married to me. :) So Sergio helped us pick a good car, and one of the ones he suggested was Lance.

After test driving around for a half hour, we really liked Lance, and decided to buy him. Matt turned white during most of the paper work, but he did great! And after a while, we finally got the keys!

So yeah, we are grown ups...with a car now! (That we own a fraction of -- Matt) (with our baby seat that I was excited to stick in it -- Michele) (-- and seriously, "Lance"? Where's the imagination in that? -- Matt) (At least we have better baby names -- Michele)

Other random pictures...

Matt gave me a having-a-baby-in-you-seems-to-suck-so-here-is-something-shiny-to-help-you-feel-better necklace.
(Wish I'd known we were getting a car the next week -- Matt)
(You stink! -- Michele)

Our "bloomin' bread"

This is our tomato.
Our cute little garden hasn't been doing so well,  so to our surprise, after not watering ours for a week, we walked out and we had a red tomato. I really feel like it's a miracle.

Dear Untitled Offspring

To our Untitled Offspring,

           There are 160 days until the day you are supposed to come to this world. That is slightly longer than the time your father and I were engaged (142 days). I planned a wedding in that amount of time, but looking at pinterest…I am not sure how mothers prepare for a baby’s arrive in a mere 280 days.

So to make sure you know what kind of family you are coming to, I figured I would dedicate this blog post to what you should expect when you are living in our family.

First, of all...you aren't coming home to your own room. 

Sorry. 

For at least the first 4 months of your life, you'll be within 2 feet from our bed.  I know some of your little buddies in heaven are coming to Earth with bedrooms like this...

or even this...

But you will have a good second-hand crib that we bought on craig's list, with mismatched bedding that I have made over the years. It's bright and happy, and according to my Infancy text book you will like that much better, since your eye sight will stink, but you'll still be able to pick out the contrasting blobs. (Cheap>Mental simulation>aesthetic appeal). 

Also, some of the blankets have pink, all of them have blue. I am totally into dressing babyies in "gender appropriate colors", but when it comes to your room, it will be all colors of the rainbow. 

As for your wall art...there is no way you'll have this in your room.

No offence, but I want more kids. I feel like I'm telling other baby spirits to skip over our family and go to another one, by putting this quote up.

But as soon the crib was up, I squealed at your father that I knew the exactly what we should put above your crib! Our Evil Lair sign!!!! So no matter what your gender is you will have this above your bed...

And when your eyesight gets a little better, you might even be able to see the glow in the dark stars that are on the ceiling, that your dad so carefully mapped out. (They aren't above your bed though, just ours. :D)

And this will probably be your stuffed animal, because I'm totally in love with it. And as your dad said, who would not like dinosaurs??

(If you are a girl, I'll sew a bow on it's head, okay?)

Also, growing up...you'll never be forced to sit on something like this...

If you do ever end up sitting on one of those, I'll make you a deal. If you can read it, you don't have to sit in time out anymore.

Also, you'll starve before, I ever make a lunch like this. But don't worry, of all things in this home, we eat well, and I'm sure loving food is part of your DNA. You'll learn hopefully early on, that there are better things to eat for lunch than a sandwich everyday. 

We'll sing dorky songs such as this...

And read you tons of books like this...

and this..

oh and this...

Your dad is thrilled to buy lego sets, for him you to play with -- with him, of course.

We'll encourage you to play in mud, cook, and learn to clean up your messes. Know that shoes are always optional, but we'll find something is definitively not.

We have no clue what we are doing yet as future parents, but just know, pinterest is not our guide. We'll figure it as we go...probably with google, wanted-advice, books, and then finially trial-and-error.

With love,

your future mother

Applying to Graduate School

You know what is stressful?

Having a husband applying to graduate school.

It started in January.

I woke up one morning and turned to Matt, “Honey, my whole life depends on where you go to graduate school, and that’s only like a YEAR and HALF AWAY!!!”

Matt was still half asleep and told me that if I didn’t like having my life depend on where he goes, I could go instead.

I didn’t like that solution either, and reminded him that it was in our mentally written marriage contract that he HAD to go to graduate school if he married me.

After a few weeks of fretting, I asked him if he was okay with me researching information about chemistry graduate programs. He said, as long I didn’t expect him to do anything, until school ended in April, I could do whatever I wanted.

And I did.

I researched schools, the requirements to get it, what it is like to live there, grocery stores in the area, etc. I made a nice powerpoint for him, with a cliffnote version of everything I found. I even asked his professors which ones he would get into. The more I researched, the better I felt about him going.

Until he started taking the test.

That almost killed me.

The chem GRE was in April. He had been studying for it, and honestly he felt pretty good about it. The practice test had showed promising results, and according to the forums online, only Asians did better than a 70%. Since my grandmother died, I was in Arizona when he took it, but he reassured me a bazillion times it would be fine, and that he would call me as soon as he finished it.

He called me after and told me that he thought he did good, and now all we had to do is wait for the score to be sent.

6 long weeks went by, and one Saturday, Matt was happily fixing his bike, when I checked the mail. There all by its self was the innocent look envelope with his test scores. My heartbeat sky rocketed and my hands starting shaking. One of the two test scores that would decide my fate was contained in there!

I ran back to Matt, and told him that I would be in the house, when he opened it. Then he could come in and break to me the news about how he did.

He thought I was being ridiculous, but did what I asked. He came into the house a few minutes later and told me he got 97^th percentile. I was sooooooooo happy!!! I proudly put the paper on the fridge, where it sat, until last month.

That’s when he got the general GRE score.

I was here for that test. Matt was a bit more nervous for it, and I was a lot more. While he took the test, I called my mom 50 times, and cleaned and organized our whole apartment. I could not sit still or get my mind off of it. I felt like I sent my sweet husband off to be killed.

After the long 5 hours, he finally called.

After I finished freaking out and feeling better that he was actually still alive, I asked him how it was?

He said, “It was fine -- actually I couldn’t have done better. I got…”

“Ahhhh, don’t tell me!!!! I don’t want to know yet. Just come home and tell me.”

“Uh…are you sure..?”

“Yes.”

When he got home, I still couldn’t prepare myself to hear his score, so he ended up typing his score on the computer.

Verbal             170

Quantitative    170

“Wait, isn’t that a perfect score?”

“Yep!!!”

Excited again.

Okay so fast forward to this weekend. (Sorry this is so long.)

“Matt, you need to start working on your personal statement.”

The weirdest thing happened. He curled up in fetal position around my foot, and started whining! (No joke.)  Then he kept asking if I loved him. I was so confused.

He was totally fine with taking the completely terrifying test, and completely owned them. But an essay, which he can revise as many times he wants and has a deadline 5 months away, that makes him want to cry?????

Well apparently, Matt’s kryptonite is writing his personal statement. It took him downing 2 lbs of strawberry yogurt, a 3 hour nap, and phone calls to his mother and brother,  before he could even get himself to start.

I’m proud to say there are two paragraphs written now! J

So if you are wondering why there hasn’t been very many blog posts.

You can blame applying to graduate schools, and me being pregnant.

Because really, this is all we have been doing.

(Oh… and Matt works 40 hours a week.)

PS. If you are willing to read Matt's personal statement, let us know...it's only 1000 words long.

Hola!

Michele likes crepes

Michele's tummy at 12 weeks.

Baby likes being 12 weeks and 2 days, (it waved to us)

We arrived in Mexico. Our luggage was sure easy to find. 

Mexican can fold towels in really cool ways.

Us in front of the Mayan calender

At the beach (There is a tractor behind us that they were trying to load. They ended up breaking the truck.)

"Big tippers go to heaven." Well, we sure aren't going there then.

Michele would be an awful captain.

Shopping at Bath and Body Works' semi-annual sale

We watched Brave in 3-D.

Yesterday we set up the baby crib...and stuck all the baby stuff we have in it. We clearly have more shopping to do.

Fabric Michele picked out for receiving blankets. (No, we don't know the gender yet.)

Michele's current project

What Matt just finished reading

What Michele just finished reading

That is basically our last month in a nutshell. Michele has been eating fruit snacks and volunteering at the old folks home for her internship. Matt has been working and trying to break his chip habit. Untitled Nielsen is making Michele sick but is apparently growing.