Lordy be I've almost done it again. I try not to go so long between posts but this week I have been a wee bit crazy.
Monday I got the call to come to work. I arranged the day care and I have worked Tuesday, Wednesday and sometime this afternoon.
I'm getting more comfortable in the job but I miss being home with Chelsea and our routine.
On top of everything else it's in the countdown mode for me to get ready for Rob's party tomorrow night. I went out this morning and picked up the cake and some decorations. I think tonight after home church I'll head to the grocery store to pick up last minute things. This way all I have to do tomorrow is clean.
Thankfully with me not being home the house is still somewhat fairly clean from this past weekend. I guess that's one of the benefits of working, well, besides that paycheck.
Gotta get busy, I'll have no photos to post after this weekend. Yippee!
*Carrie*

Has it been a week already?
I'm sorry.
Mentally I'm insanely busy, in reality I'm not that busy.
I've been waiting for a phone call for me to go back to work.
In September I was asked to help out in a family friend's accounting firm while his office manager is on maternity leave. I thought there were like 4 women working in the office and sure I can help out.
In December I go in for a formal/informal type interview and found out that it was just the office manager and the owner. YIKES!
I can do this. We talked about bringing me in for some training. I came in one day and only 4 hours. That was December.
I have waited ever since. The doctors have pushed back her due date, so I waited. The lady is due today and I got a call. The message said could I come in anytime this week.

Here is where I made my first mistake. I called to set up daycare for the rest of the week. I have a meeting with the daycare provider tonight after scouts.
Because my sister in law goes there I was thankfully able to bypass the interview process.
I called the office and talked to the manager. Toward the end of our conversation I double checked to make sure this is for the whole week.
NOPE! it's only for tomorrow, just to give me a refresher course. I'm going to talk to the owner.
That was mistake #2. I should have confirmed with the office before arranging day care. Now I have daycare paid from Tuesday to Thursday. Money I have to pay up front and money I don't necessarily have.
To say I'm freaking out is an understatement. While this might not be very big to anyone else this is hard for me.
#1 I'm putting my baby in daycare, where I know she will do great, but still
#2 The daycare provider tripped me up a bit when she brings up the fact that normally I have to interview for Chelsea to be there, there are papers that have to be notarized and rules and paper work with her in home daycare.
#3 I'm not sure how long I'll be working and I don't want to upset the daycare provider relationship in case I need her again.
#4 I feel I'm being kind of jerked around with this temporary job situation. I said I was flexible but to keep me informed. We had talked about bringing me in for a week to get comfortable and that's what I going to ask tomorrow.
#5 Rob's birthday party is Friday night and I'm trying to get all the details together.
#6 It's cookie time in GS and I have to sign up for booths and all that stuff
#7 the daycare provider is talking about potty training in a couple of weeks. I was going to wait until it is a bit warmer but hey if she wants to do it. fine by me, I guess.
#8 I'm helping a friend with some soccer books and a Disney autograph book, so I'm trying to squeeze that in.
Lots of balls in the air. Seriously not used to being this busy and scared to death that I'm going to fail.
Yep that sums it up.
I guess what it comes down to is time management, and since that isn't such a necessity for me anymore I suck at it.

Pictures- I went out last Friday morning to shoot this saguaro. The previous morning the moon was huge in the sky so I thought it would be like that the next morning. Nope it wasn't. I froze my butt off. It was eerie to hear the coyotes howling once the sun started to come up. Then as I was sitting on the ground shooting the cactus up 3 coyotes crossed in front of me and scared me when they started to walk toward me.
The other photo is of a glass water sprayer at the local nursery with the sun reflecting off it.
*Carrie*

Wednesday of last week the morning dawned like this, liquid gold across our eastern sky.
It amazes me the beauty that is our world, and that no matter how hard I try to capture it I cannot do it justice.
Sometimes I skip the camera and just sit back say, thank you to the heavens and enjoy.
Actually we have had quite a few mornings with beautiful sunrises this week and yet I choose to sit in my warm home and watch out my living room window.

I have purposely stayed away from my blog the last few days because I didn't want to finish what I started about the Tucson shootings.
Wednesday night was the public memorial service, while it wasn't what a lot of people expected, and that's Tucson for you, it brought tears, cheers and comfort for myself and so many others.
All the deceased have been laid to rest privately with their loved ones surrounding them and the congresswoman continues to improve.
And yet the news media is still camped out on our doorstep. There have been TV programs thrown together telling about the congresswoman's marriage and their "love story". There have been reports about how Tucsonan's can heal and move on.
How about you just leave us alone?
I cringe almost every time I hear a national news channel mention the name Tucson.
I will be honest and say I have not watched any of these programs and I might be in the minority when I say I want the media to go away.
I hate having our way of life critiqued and criticized. Are there things that can be learned from these horrible events? Yes, most definitely.
I'm going to move on from this topic. I need to focus on the beauty that is my town.

Which leads me to one of my resolutions this year, I want to photograph things that are synonymous with Tucson. I want to compile all of these photos into a photobook for my family that live here and away.
I started to make my list and now I need to make the time to go out a photograph it.
*Carrie*

As I was typing yesterday's post I was informed by blogger that I was at my capacity of 1G of photos... really?
How could I ever continue to blog without pictures?
Google generously offered me 20G a year at the price of $5 a year. Why not?.
So back for your pleasure are my amazing photos *not*, lol
Saturday evening Rob and I went to a local nursery looking for pots for our orchids. I, of course, wanted to take pictures of whatever flowers were in bloom. The sun was getting lower in the sky which made for some beautiful glow on the flower petals.
It seems blogger is still miffed at me. I just tried to upload a few more photos and it's not even opening up to look on my computer. Bad blogger.

Tonight is the memorial service for Saturday's victims, President Obama is on his way to Tucson to speak at McKale Center at the University of Arizona. People have been lining up since 1am last night because only 14,000 people can fit into McKale and it's first come first served. The rest of us will watch it on the local news tonight.
I sincerely hope that after tonight everything starts to die down, the national media will pack up and go home.
I know the debate will rage on and I hope it can bring some productive talk, not finger pointing and blame.
Congresswoman Giffords is doing very well, she is off the ventilator and is responding to commands. For this I am grateful.
If Giffords recovery is as amazing as its starting out to be and she has the power of thought, organization and speech, as I'm still praying for, I wonder what she will have to say. Will she become an advocate for stronger gun control, will she fight more for people with disabilities? Will she fight for survivor's rights?
I wish I could know her thoughts. I guess I envision a female Jim Brady (from President Reagan's assassination attempt) who with his wife became more of an activist.
I'll update as I learn

*Carrie*

1/11/11

 This has not been a good start to today.

First thing this morning we realized that one of the lenses was missing from Chelsea's glasses. I've searched my purse, the floor and the truck and still cannot find the lens. Now I need to call and find out the cost to replace the lens.

Then I was letting Chelsea draw at the kitchen table and I heard a ripping paper sound. Thinking she was ripping up the paper that she was drawing on, which she sometimes will do, I told her to draw on her paper not rip it up because she wasn't getting more. I heard more ripping and I look up and she is ripping the pages from my bible!!

                     Yep, Genesis chapters 34-46 are pretty much toast.

I'm thinking I might try to tape it back together, it is my favorite bible and one that the language is easy to understand when I read it.

Also yesterday the truck started making that terrible knocking noise again. It subsides when the engine is warm but is VERY loud until then.

This is starting out to be a rough year.

To be honest I'm completely frazzled. I have been somewhat in a funk since Saturday and the tragedy in Tucson.

It's hard to see your town in the national news for something so horrendous and the media coverage of all the grieving people just depresses me. I feel like crawling in a hole

till I feel "safe" again.

Since one day I or my kids will re read this post I guess I shouldn't be so vague about it.

On Saturday while my kids were playing on the computer and I was reading a magazine I received a text from my friend Julie. The text asked if I had heard about Gabrielle Gifford's. I replied that I read it from the link she posted on Facebook and I had just flipped the TV over to the local channel where the ticker read that there had been a shooting.
Of course as the minutes pass by more information comes through. First we hear that the congresswoman was shot in the head, but alive, then briefly we hear that she has passed from her wounds, then word comes in that she is alive but that there are 13 people shot and 6 dead. Most of the day is spent listening to the news and praying for the families. I struggled not to cry.
I heard that they had apprehended the suspect at the scene and all I could think about was how this is going to turn into a media circus.
I'm grieving and thinking about each person who was there. The husband that died sheltering his wife whom was still shot in the leg three times. I thought of the beautiful girl that was Kelly's age and it really upsets me. The federal judge whom my mom knew from her being a paralegal.
I won't even discuss the person who did this. The history books will say enough about him.
Regardless of your political position you don't deserve to be shot for it.

I sincerely need to go to the grocery store but I keep putting it off.
I know that the likelihood of this happening again is extremely rare and me not going isn't about the shooting, it's about the fact that I haven't made a grocery list and I just don't trust myself let loose in a grocery store without a list. :)
Is there anything else I want my family to know???
Right now the political climate is pretty volatile. We live fairly close to the border and the violence has increased along with every ones opinions on how to deal with it. The last election here in Tucson was pretty brutal with both of our incumbents Gabby Gifford's and Raul Grijalva narrowly winning re-election.
Arizona in itself has battled the country with SB1070 and the boycotting of our state, which surely hasn't helped in the recession.
I wonder if people will finally realize what a powder keg southern AZ is.
Not that it releases any idiot from shooting everybody, there is no excuse for that.
*Carrie*

On Monday night I was looking at Kelly, really looking at her when it hit me how much she has grown and changed so far this year.
Yesterday I began, again, working on the kids' school albums when I it hit me yet again how much she has grown and changed the last few years.
One of the items Kelly got for Christmas was a little make-up kit. Oh my. The lip gloss went on a bit crazy and the blusher was on her jawbone instead of her cheekbone but she was happy and we

weren't leaving the house that day anyway.
If I approach her just right she is more receptive to my help then when I just state this is how you do it, whether that is color coordinating clothes, how to apply makeup, trying different ways to do her hair, etc.
Smart, bossy, emotional, that's my girl.
*Carrie*


Top photo- Kelly age 2 1/2, bottom photo Kelly age 8

One, One, One One

How could I pass up this opportunity to remark on today's date, 1/1/11. A new year, new start, new goals.
In order for me to move forward I want to briefly look back at last year.
Briefly meaning that I looked back at last years, new years day blog post and I didn't accomplish any of my goals.
Wow. I thought they were reasonable goals too. Okay I can check off being more creative and trying new things because I did learn a couple of new techniques but I didn't take any classes, never did the photo scavenger hunt, never lost any weight, and didn't even make any cards monthly.
I found it interesting that as I sat here today and thought about what my hopes and dreams for this year are that I had some of the same goals as last year. 

My goals for this are to complete the 2 Peas 12 week photography course, have at least one craft night a month.
I want to listen more, move more and eat less.
I want to continue my creative journey. I would like to create a photo book of some of the quintessential spots that Tucson is known for.
I would also like to make a cute scrappy recipe book.
I just re read last years blog and I could almost re write it word for word. Kind of depressing if you think about it.
This year it's about finishing what I start and not sabotaging myself. I want to have a happy year. I pray that all my family and friends have a great year.
*Carrie*

Happy New Year and come on in 2011!

As of right now I'm afraid of what this year is going to offer.
We awoke this morning to the house being 60 degrees, outside the temps were in the 20's so it could be colder in here.
Anyway something is or might be wrong with our furnace. The thermostat reads 60 degrees in the house and the thermostat is set for 72 but the furnace isn't coming on.
We've replaced the batteries in the thermostat. Now we've replaced the thermostat after learning that the average

age of a thermostat is about 10 years and we've had ours about 13 years.
Still no heat. The furnace cycles but kicks back off before it starts to force air out.
Rob has poked and prodded but nothing has worked so far.
I know he is stressed and cold but there are some things he just cannot fix and this frustrates him.
Rob has been doing some googling and researching causes, fixes and the price for a new furnace.
Now I'm not the type of person who jumps on the "just buy a new one" bandwagon but in this case I would rather just buy a new one.
One of my reasoning's for a new furnace is that we could get one that is more energy efficient. This house used to be a rental and when they replaced the furnace when trying to sell the house they bought the cheapest model.
My other reasoning is that for the past several years I'm always afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning. Yes, we have detectors, which could fail, but it's always a small worry that I have.
Our furnace is around 14-15 years old. To be totally truthful I know nothing about furnaces and this could be still considered a young furnace, I just don't know.
Rob and his googling came up with one little trick to try. Unhook a wire and clean it with a piece of tinfoil and hook it back up.
When I took these pictures he had just hooked back up the wire and the furnace fired back up and has been working since!!
Could it have been something so simple? Please Lord, Yes?!

*Carrie*