No animals were hurt in the writing of this post

Right now Garrett and I are watching "Red, Hot, & Green", an HGTV show about redesigning your home in eco-friendly ways - you know, making it "green" and stuff.

Well, they were just re-doing the shower in a bathroom, where they tore out some tiles and and replaced them with completely recycled, eco-friendly glass. Oooh, recycled glass, that's great (seriously). But... what does that even mean, eco-friendly? It's not going to emit toxic gas like the old tiles did (not)? I understand why "going green" can be cool, and I understand the importance of using recycled products etc., but it just seems kind of pointless to spend a lot of money (that most people probably don't have) to do these things, PLUS they are tearing out all their old fixtures and where does that stuff go?? Right now they are talking about how cool it is that they are using recycled materials for the new countertop, but where's the old countertop? Right, it went to the landfull. That seems a little backwards to me... am I missing something?

Anyway... we have a giveaway going on at my food storage blog... check it out! And thanks to everyone who has commented so far... we're very excited that so many people like our blog!

What ARE you?

Last week three young men (early 20s) came to my door trying to sell me magazine subscriptions.

I really dislike door-to-door salespeople, especially obnoxious ones like these. The one guy who did all the talking just kept joking around and I didn't even know what he was selling until about 4 minutes into the visit.

"What kinds of magazines do you like reading?" he finally asked.

"Umm... well, I like reading whatever I can get for free from the library."

"Well, what do you like? Redbook? Cooking magazines? Reader's Digest?"

"Well, I DO like Reader's Digest." I have no idea why I said this, because I had absolutely no intention of buying a magazine subscription from him. They were selling them to go on a trip to Mexico, for heaven's sake. It wasn't even a charity.

"Oh, well I can get you a subscription to RD for $30 a year."

"No thanks," I said, "A couple years ago I got a subscription for $10, so I don't think I'll ever get one again unless it's that low. Or, I'll just keep looking for it at the library."

He continued to try to sell it to me, but I really had no interest in buying. I told him that my husband is in medical school, so we're on a tight budget, yada yada yada.

"Medical school? Oh, come on, you guys will be rolling in the dough someday, you don't have to be worrying about money right now!"

I think I was too insulted to say anything to that, so I just smiled and said, "Not today, thanks." He kept trying to convince me that I didn't have to pay him any money that day at all - I just had to sign up for the subscription and the magazine would come. He wasn't fooling me.

"Well," I said, "I don't have to pay you NOW, but eventually I will get a bill in the mail, right?"

"Well... yeah I guess." He said. Then he continued, "Well, do you support the troops?"

"Sure."

"Well, you can order a magazine subscription for them, and the magazine can be delivered to them overseas."

"But... I'd still have to pay for it, right?"

".........yeah..... but you don't pay anything now!"

"Right," I felt like I was talking to a kindergartner and I probably sounded like it, too, "But eventually I will have to pay something, correct?" No wonder so many people are up to their ears in debt - they listen to people like this guy!

He just would not let up, so finally I just used my excuse that I give everyone when I want to get out of buying something. It works every time and there's really nothing they can say to refute me:

"Well, you know what, even if I wanted to buy a subscription from you, I'd need to talk to my husband about it first, since we are on a budget."

The guy looked at me for a second, then said, "What are you, MORMON??"

My jaw fell open. "Excuse me?" I laughed a little too, because I was so shocked. My thoughts started running a thousand miles a minute. I tried to think of all the Mormon stereotypes I knew about, and I just couldn't think of any that I had just portrayed.

I think the guy noticed that I was a little taken aback, and maybe a little offended, and he quickly said, "Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Mormons" (what does that even mean???) "and I sold subscriptions in Utah for a while, and that's what all the wives said to me."

Anyway, I told him that yes, I was a Mormon, and I would have to talk to my husband about it. He just would not quit.

"Well... you can sign up now for the subscription, and then tonight you can talk it over with your husband, and that way you will have talked about it before the bill comes."

Wow, this guy was not letting up. Finally it must have gotten through his thick head that I was NOT going to buy anything, and they left. Whew, I always knew that salespeople were determined, but that was incredible.

A decision?

Garrett is finishing up his 4-week radiology rotation, and he loved it. He is 90% sure he wants to pursue radiology as a career.

I'm very excited about it, but obviously nothing is certain, so we'll see if something comes along that he likes better. But, I love this choice because radiology is extremely family-friendly, both as a residency and as a career (unlike other things, such as surgery... I once heard of a surgery residency program that prided itself on a 100% divorce rate among its residents, it was so rough).

Anyway, Garrett really likes radiology. The technology is really neat, and there are many things he could do within the specialty. This is a great relief to Garrett that he's found something he likes so much. He used to be worried that he wouldn't fall in love with anything, but now we know there is at least ONE specialty he would love to do. Now we'll just have to wait and see if anything else can top it!

Busy Bees

We have been so busy lately, which is why I haven't updated our blog as often lately. I'll try to be better about it, though, because I really want to have a good record of our family happenings.

What's keeping me so busy? WELL.....

• I'm making ALL our Christmas gifts this year, so that's already consumed a LOT of time. I know, it seems way too early to be thinking about Christmas but making gifts takes a long time! I actually started working on them in July and it's been a lot of fun for me so far. And as much as I would LOVE to share my projects here, that's just going to have to wait, since they are for the family!
• Book club! We are reading The Secret Life of Bees, and I'm only about 65 pages in but I'm enjoying it.
• Friendship Quilt. I got together with some friends and we're making friendship quilts. All of us bought our own fabrics for a quilt, then we found 2 quilt squares that we wanted to make. Then, we gave pieces of our fabrics to each other, and we made the quilt squares we chose. It's been a lot of fun so far and I'm excited to see the final products.
• My food storage blog. This blog takes an incredible amount of time, but it's well worth it. Food storage is something I should be working on anyway, so Abbie and I figured we might as well help other people out while we were at it. It's made it much more enjoyable for us, and I really love doing the blog. We get about 250-300 hits a day, which is ok. We also have tons of new ideas all the time, which makes it exciting and interesting.
• Abby! Abby is learning her ABC's, and it's so cute to hear her sing them. I'll try to get a video posted. She also recognizes many letters (A, B, E, J, M, O, T, U, Y) and it's fun when she points them out on everything (books, signs, etc)
• Garrett and I repainted our bedroom yesterday. It's a gray/blue color and we love it - so soothing. I'll take pictures when our room is completely done, though... I have a few more projects in mind for the room.
• ASL. I signed for all of sacrament meeting yesterday, which was very intimidating but good experience for me. Still learning, though.
• I'm the Personal Progress Coordinator in our ward. Basically, I'm in charge of keeping track of the girls' personal progress, and I also plan one activity a month for all the girls, and we work on one of the values. This month we are focusing on Divine Nature, so we worked on DN experience #2 - I had a panel of mothers come in and talk about motherhood, and I also gave a short lesson and we reviewed Proverbs 30, and gave out some conference talks for them to review. In 2 weeks I'll follow up with them and see if they completed the requirements, and we'll sign them off!!

That's all I can think of for now! It's looking like a busy week ahead, but we're going to Savannah this weekend so we have something to look forward to!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Birthday, Dad Siebach. We love you!

I thought price gouging was illegal...

Fortunately, Garrett and I filled our cars with gas on Wednesday night (for a cool $3.50 a gallon, which was pretty good for our area). Thanks to Hurricane Ike, by Thursday night gas prices had shot up to $4.50 a gallon. Now, it's $4.99 a gallon, but that's only if gas is available. Half the gas stations in our area are closed because they ran out! Today Garrett was looking at a "temperature map" online, but instead of temperatures it was showing gas prices around the country. Most states were still green (cheapest) and yellow (just above green), and there were a few red counties around the country, but our state was COMPLETELY maroon, which is the most expensive. California (which always seems to have the priciest gas) didn't even have any maroon counties! So frustrating! Thankfully, I don't have many obligations away home, so I can cut down my driving, and Garrett's car gets the best gas mileage of the two, so we'll get by ok.

It couldn't have come at a worse time for many people in our area, though, because Stake Conference was this weekend, and lots of people have to travel pretty far. In the Saturday evening session our Stake President told everyone to do whatever we could to come to our Sunday session, even if it meant having to buy gas on a Sunday (if gas stations were to reopen). Thankfully, we didn't have to do that, but we did probably use almost half a tank with all the traveling we did (Priesthood session, adult session, babysitters, Sunday morning session, etc).

But of course, Stake Conference was worth it - I loved both sessions, and I got more experience with ASL, so that was great. I interpreted for 3 or 4 talks, which I don't normally do, but it went well. Except for the time I signed "thief" instead of "Shepherd". That was embarassing...

Flashback Friday - Dad's "Fini" Flight (1990?)

August of 1990 was Dad's final flight with the Air Force. We celebrated by going down to Pease Air Force Base and splashing him with buckets of water after he climbed down from his jet.

One of my favorite memories of Dad being in the Air Force was when he'd come home from being gone for a few days. He'd walk into the house with his flight suit on and we'd search all the pockets for candy.

Another favorite memory is when he'd fly over the house. He used to call us when he was close, and we'd run out the door into the back yard. We'd start waving like crazy and Dad would fly really low and tip his wing to say hi. We loved it!