Sheesh

Well, too much has happened to catch up on all of it, so I guess I'll just pick up from here and hopefully get back into the habit of posting. Not that anyone reads this, but at least I can say I've accomplished something.

One of my coworkers is having a baby in May, and I decided this would be a good opportunity to learn how to sew/quilt. I never really learned how to do either. So I went to the fabric store, went nuts, and lemme tell you this quilt is gonna be bea-utiful! I'm really excited. It's purple and gold and I'm trying to give it a very regal feeling. Instead of making this girl into a princess I'm gonna make her into a queen! Plus it helps relieve the anxiety of not having one of my own yet. I'm so really do be pregnant.

I applied for a new job recently. I've decided I've grown and learned as much as I can in my current position, so when an Assistant Supervisor position opened up in our central office, I completely jumped on it. It would NOT be a pay cut (like moving over there normally would be); I wouldn't have to wear a uniform; I would have my own people. I'm really excited and I just feel really sure that this is my next step and this is where I'm supposed to go. I hope I don't have too much competition for the job because I WANT it! And I'll do whatever I have to do to get it! So keep your fingers crossed and pray for me; I should know within the next week or two (hopefully) if I get an interview!

R.I.P.

Matthew Jewkes "Bud" Cherished dad, son, brother, grandson, and friend, Matthew Garth Jewkes passed away Friday, November 5, 2010. Born February 20, 1969 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Married Mindy Long Jewkes who preceded him in death. Graduate of Cottonwood High, 1987 and Utah Police Academy. Police Officer South Salt Lake 17 years. Survived by Larry and Jeanne Jewkes (parents), Morgan and Sterling, (brothers), son Mason, Grandmother Hardy and his beloved canine partner, Tyger, and many other family members and close friends. Matt loved his son, family, dirt biking, snowboarding, and Lake Powell.


We'll miss you Matt. I hope you find in the next life the peace you couldn't find here.

Puppies!

Ok, so in all my experience with dogs (which is fairly extensive considering my age) I have never had a female who came into heat more than twice a year, and that was generally on the rare side. My Laborador defies the odds by coming into heat 3-4 times a year and it always catches us off guard. This last time for example. We didn't notice that she was in heat because we were distracted by taking care of a family member in hospice and since it was warm she spent a lot of time outside (cause we weren't home too much). One night we hear this bloodcurdling scream and we go outside and lo and behold she's gotten a tie with the German Shepherd. And 65 days later we had puppies! They're so flipping precious. There are six of them and they are 17 days old today. Their eyes are open, their ears are starting to unseal, they have little bumps along their gums where their teeth are starting to come in, and they are beginning to walk on their paws instead of crawling on their bellies. It's wonderful. The largest of the group is a female we've dubbed Big Mama and she's about 3 pounds. Usually when puppies are born you have to tear the amniotic sac away, clean their face and nose and convince them to breathe. Well Big Mama wasn't about to wait for me to remove the sac; she was squirming the second she came out and hasn't stopped moving since. She walked and opened her eyes before all the other puppies and she has the biggest attitude. She's a huge Diva! The other puppies are about 2.5 pounds with the exception of our little runt. He got his head stepped on about 4 days in (Koda is such a bad mother!) and his head swelled up pretty badly. We didn't think he would make it but he pulled through. He hasn't nursed properly since then so he's not growing like the others. We feed him from a bottle every 3 hours but he's still pretty thin and small; he's about 1.5 pounds. He such a sweet, mellow little guy. We handle him so much that he's really comfortable with us and relaxes very well. He sleeps a lot cause he's so weak. :) Since he's sustained a head injury and is smaller than the others we've named him Kimahri Ronso (Final Fantasy X fans will get the reference). Here are some photos of our babies! Haha I love them so much but Kimahri is definitely my favorite. I just adore him! Here are some pictures; the pics that all have just one puppy in them are pictures of Kimahri. :)

2nd Anniversary (plus updates)

So it's been awhile huh! Lots to report I guess. Spencer and I are STILL getting settled in our house, even though it's been a year. Bowser is a BIG BOY now! He got up to 63 pounds but the vet said he was a little too heavy so we cut back his food and he's down to 59 now. He's such a good dog and he has such a quirky personality! He LOVES sleeping on the couch. He'll climb up on the back of the couch and make a nice little bed to prop himself up on. And he's the same color of the couch so he blends in! So I'll walk into the room and I'll be able to hear him (Cause he's such a loud breather) but I won't be able to see him. It's absolutely hilarious.

So we have 3 dogs at our house: the bulldog, a german shepherd named Daivi, and a chocolate lab named Koda. Well, Koda went into heat a couple months ago and we tried our darndest to keep the shepherd away from her but we must not have done a very good job because last week we had puppies! And yes, we knew she was pregnant before the puppies were born. We're not that clueless! And after a few failed attempts at counting (and a couple stillborns ): ) we ended up with 6 live, healthy puppies. They are all black (not surprising) and they have BIG noses like their father! Haha Daivi is such a good dad. It's SO cute cause dogs are not generally paternal in nature, but he's SO interested in them. He'll sit next to the puppy pen for hours and watch them with his ears up, and every now and then they'll make noise and he'll cock his head cause he's curious. And when we actually let him at the puppies, he'll lick them and nose them a little bit. It makes me so happy. I miss having puppies so much so I'm just LOVING this! I'll post pictures soon, as soon as I take some that aren't on my phone and aren't fuzzy.

So Spencer and I passed our 2-year mark last month. September 20th marked our 2nd anniversary. And I have been trying so hard to avoid making "best 2 years jokes" but I haven't been succeeding. We've been together 6 years now, though it doesn't feel like that long. And yet, it feels like forever. It's very weird. But we actually celebrated our anniversary this last weekend. We couldn't get any time off in September, and because of the way our pay periods work out we get an extra paycheck in October, so we decided to go out of town. We went to Park City and stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, one of only three 5-star resorts in the area. It was WONDERFUL! We drove up Sunday after church and checked in about 4 o'clock. It was so nice to be treated like someone special!
the view from our room
Champagne!

When we pulled up the valets opened the car doors, they knew our names already, they opened the door to the hotel and carried our bags for us. When we got to our room there was a bottle of real champagne waiting for us, with a personalized note welcoming us! We changed into our suits and went down to the heated pool and spent some time swimming and soaking in the whirlpool. Because we went in the off-season the hotel was almost empty so we had most of the place to ourselves (plus we got a great deal on the room)! After we soaked up some chlorine we went back to the room and we just had to order room service. We both ate shortrib chili (served with sour cream, promontory cheddar, green onions, avocado and lime) and cornbread popovers. Then for dessert we ordered beignets; little doughnut-hole-like pastries that were served with vanilla creme anglaise and raspberry preserves.

The room had a gas fireplace and cable-HD tv so we enjoyed the fire and some Discovery Channel while we ate. :) The next morning we woke up early and went a couple miles down the street to a local stable to go horseback riding! It was my anniversary gift to Spencer because he had never ridden a horse before. We went on a 2-hour tour and got LOTS of pictures! Because we actually get a Fall this year and the leaves were turning WHILE we were up there, the views were absolutely stunning. And Spencer loved riding the horse (so did I, for that matter!). I knew that we would both be super sore afterward (I'm STILL sore!) so I booked a special treat for us that afternoon.

After the ride we went back to the hotel and had lunch and then we went to the on-site spa. It's called the Golden Door spa and it's one of only 9 in the country. We got a 50-minute couples massage in their special couples futari suite. I also took serious advantage of their onsen. They had a steam room which felt incredible, and showers that had those funky square heads in the ceiling so it was like getting rained on. After the spa we went back to the room to get all "spruced" up and went to dinner at the Spruce restaurant, which is also on-site. It was expensive but it was SO worth it. Spencer had a bavette steak with greens and duck fat potatoes, and a French Rhone Valley red wine. I had the - get this - honey-lacquered duck breast with caramelized black mission figs and cinnamon foie gras, with a New World Pinot Noir. It was incredible! Then after dinner we took the hotel's complimentary "shuttle," which was actually a Mercedes SUV, up to main street so have ice cream and Java Cow. I LOVE the ice cream place. I have an affinity for holstein cows and they sell a bunch of cute cow stuff, so I make it a point to go there every time we're in Park City. We each got sundaes with hot fudge of course! Then we went back to the hotel and had a nice soak in the extra-large jetted tub in our room. Mmmmmm. Yesterday morning we woke up and ordered breakfast from room service. We their full-moon cake (a GIANT pancake big enough for three hungry people) served with sweetened nut butter and vermont maple syrup, and local honey yogurt which I could have gorged myself on. Seriously. Then we checked out (sadly I might add) and came home. Turns out Bowser missed us so much he refused to eat the whole time we were gone. It was so cute to see him absolutely flip out when we got home! And it was so nice to be treated so well by everyone at the hotel. They all knew who we were. When I would call room service they'd pick up the phone and say "What can I get for you Mrs. Miller?" I definitely want to go back!

Jewelry!

Ok, so for the last couple weeks I've been making my own jewelry. I feel so much better when I'm creating something. All of these pieces I've sold, but as soon as I have some pieces to spare they're going to be going up on Etsy! I've been pretty successful so far, and it's really fun to come up with my own designs. Here's what I've been up to lately!

Here are some gold chain maille earrings. Pretty simple


These are some filagree lilies. They were the first thing I made. I liked the contrast between the copper and the green



Here's a gold chain maille ring I made. I was pretty proud of it. There's a closeup too. :)



These are my peacock bead stud earrings


These are shooting star earrings, made with swarovski crystals. I was particularly proud of these. :)



This is my current masterpiece. Took me between 3-4 hours to make but it was worth it. I'm so proud of it. It's a bracelet and for those of you who are skeptics: Yes, I made the chain by hand.



Anyway, soon I'll be able to put some stuff on Etsy. For now though, I'm just selling to friends and coworkers, mainly because they all keep claiming stuff before I have a chance to list it! It's a great feeling though. :)

The Next Step

I've decided to start designing and making my own jewelry to sell. I had a booth at Taylorsville Dayzz and I didn't have a sign (my bad) and every time someone came into the booth they would ask "did you make this?" and each time I was just filled with this sense of shame that I hadn't. So I'm going to. I've made a pair of earrings that have been sold to someone else but I'm making another couple pair, if anyone is interested. I'm thinking I'll sell my stuff on etsy to start out with!


The house is still coming along. We just have to put the finishing touches on the office and it will be finished!

Well Hum

So Spencer and I had a pregnance, well, I guess I'll say "scare" for lack of a better term. My body has just been acting SO weird the last few weeks that I decided to get a pregnancy test. After like a week of wondering it ended up coming back negative. Now I repeat, for those of you who just scan things instead of actually reading them, I AM NOT PREGNANT. So don't go gettin' all excited. But it was an interesting few days as we tried to emotionally prepare ourselves for the possibility that I was. If you had asked us a week or a month ago what we wanted, we would have both absolutely said that we weren't ready yet and we wanted to wait, even a few more years. But when the test came back negative, we were both actually a little disappointed. I know that God has a plan for our family and that when His time is right, I will get pregnant. But now neither of us are quite sure how we want the next year or so of our lives to play out. Hmmmm....