Eeny Meeny Miny Mo...

I saw this quiz on another blog and thought, "hmmmm, I wonder what it will say for me...?" I'm not a huge fan of politics, but I am rather curious about how this whole presidential election hoo haw is gonna turn out.
So here are the results...

81% John Edwards
81% Barack Obama
77% Hillary Clinton
75% Chris Dodd
71% Joe Biden
70% Bill Richardson
68% Dennis Kucinich
67% Mike Gravel
44% Rudy Giuliani
44% John McCain
41% Tom Tancredo
40% Mitt Romney
36% Mike Huckabee
28% Fred Thompson
23% Ron Paul

2008Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Well I guess...

I should probably introduce you all to Steven since many of you have never seen a picture of him let alone met him in person, and we've been going out for nearly 10 months now...

Because he proposed to me last Friday night and I said yes! Well, actually I said, "Well, of course I'll marry you!" lol



Here's a picture of my ring. I love it!! It's a smidge hard to see all the details in the picture. So here they are: the band is white gold, it has 3 channel set diamonds on each side, one baguette on each side and the center stone is a sapphire.

We haven't set a date yet, just so you know. Let's just get used to one thing at a time, shall we?

I'll keep ya posted!

Look! Look, What We Found!!

Steven and I went on a recon mission to a local pond that freezes over thick enough to sneaker skate on to check the status of it a couple weeks ago. Sure enough, frozen solid, well not all the way through, but enough anyway. (I think I must have been in mid-slide or coming to a halt and trying to keep my balance. I was not playing "Airplane"!) As we were checking it out I was examining what I might find in the water below the ice as the ice was like glass! Completely clear! It was so amazing!

One year several years back I got to see some sort of goldfish or Koi swimming about beneath the ice, last year nothing... This year a salamander!! Or at least what I thought was one, anyways... They're not too common around here, and look nothing like the ones I grew up with in the NW. In fact what I learned when I started google searching salamanders in AZ is that there is in fact only one in the whole state with a few sub-species (cousins) AND one of them is endangered! Wow!

It's called a Tiger Salamander and the one we saw was in it's aquatic gilled adult stage.

Rather prehistoric looking, don't you think?
Thanks to this link for the info and photo!
http://www.reptilesofaz.com/Turtle-Amphibs-Subpages/h-a-tigrinum.html

Functional Rooms

After a short stint at Mountain Oak School I decided being a "Juvenile Detention Officer" wasn't quite what I had in mind when I signed on to be the Director of After-School programs. I think I was envisioning something more along the lines of Cruise Director... And that surely is not what it felt like a lot of the time. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of really great, super sweet kids, and the kids that were hard, were REALLY hard.

I realized during my time there that I'd been taking interim jobs for oh about the past 2 years thinking that I'd be able to start my own business on the side. Have steady income coming in while what I really want to do gets on it's feet... I realized, finally that that wasn't happening, and I had a 2 week break coming up for which I knew I wasn't going to get paid (Christmas & New Years) so I figured it was as good a time as any to make the break!

And I also realized that I'd been incorporting organizing into all the jobs I was taking, but not getting paid for it! Thus "Functional Rooms-Personal Organizing for Home and Office" was born!

Over the break I helped the Office Manager at the school re-do the whole office and she was so thrilled with how it turned out that she offered me free advertising for the rest of the school year! My business card size ad will be in the weekly school newsletter, my half page ad will be in the school Directory and I can leave brochures out in the office for people to take as well! Besides the fact too that she tells everyone that walks through her door that wows at the new space that I was the one that helped make it happen!

There's also a gal I know who's a real estate agent and when I told her about FR she was thrilled and wants to refer all her clients to me so that their houses are all neat and ready to be sold and easier for them to pack and move. She also mentioned the possibility of purchasing gift certificates for some people and so I've created a blog people can go to to pay by credit card online as well as purchase gift certificates. http://functionalrooms.blogspot.com/

I'm so excited! There has been so much positive support from everyone I've talked to so far that I'm sure Functional Rooms is well on it's way to being an amazing success!

Send your good vibes my way and if you know anyone that needs help organizing something, anything at all, tell them to drop me a line. I'm open to doing consults via phone and e-mail.

Happy Organizing!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Christmas was super fun, again this year! Whoo Hoo!

I spent the morning with Steven and his family while we watched the little kids open presents, Jacob is 6, Amber is almost 3 and Alyssa is 2. Then we had a yummy breakfast prepared by yours truly! I made country brunch which is what my mom would often make for Christmas Day and there's so much of it you need a big crowd to finish it off, which is exactly what happened!

Here's Jacob focused intently on his tower. He does not like getting his picture taken so getting one where he's actually looking in my general direction without a scowl on his face is a challenge I have yet to conquer!

Here's Amber opening the book I gave her, Jamberry, one of my favorites. She was so excited that she wanted to open Alyssa's too and add it to her own stack! "Another one, please." She said

Here's Alyssa in front of the tree with her new baby doll care kit on her arm.

After presents, breakfast and a quick jaunt outside, and I mean really quick, as it was about 16 degrees with wind chill, so Jacob could try out his new scooter, Steven and I then came back to my house to open presents to each other and the ones I received in the mail from my family-which I don't have any pictures of... drat.

And off to Kristi's house I went to spend the rest of the day there with her, Richard, and the kiddos.

Left to right is Zack 12, Tashi 14, Audree 18, Bree 16

Here's Zack snuggling with the new super soft throw he got from Kristi, wearing the Jester hat that I made him!

Here's me with my super soft throw from Kristi! I call it my Cookie Monster blankie. ;-) The fuzz is longer on one side than the other. The short side kinda reminds me of Grover lol

New Years isn't something I usually put a lot of effort into and it just so happens that a friend of mine called a bit out of the blue and reminded me that the Dances of Universal Peace were happening New Years eve, which is true every year, and I'd been wanting to start attending again, so I did! And Steven came too, though just to watch. I had a great time reconnecting with folks I hadn't seen in a couple years and being involved with the dances again. My New Years resolution is to attend every month again, like I used to. Steven and I ducked out a few minutes early and caught the fireworks display launched from the Prescott Resort. Got just close enough to hear them and feel them whilst being snuggly ensconced within the warmth of the Jeep!

Hurray! Happy New Year!