the sun on your cheek,
the wind in your hair,
the speed beneath your feet.
summer in your lungs,
a sparkle in your eye,
a dare in your heart.

-unknown

• We just got back from Las Vegas (a recap on that later) where DeafNation World Expo was. It was indeed great seeing old friends & meeting new people!
• Seriously where has the time gone? I can’t believe it’s going to be August next week. I feel like I’m constantly changing my monthly calendar at work every week or so.
• It’s been a sickly month for me. The doctor told me I had chest congestion but I’m still not sure since I’m still coughing my lungs out and it’s week 3. Last week the joints in my hands & wrists started hurting so bad! It’s actually painful in the mornings and took me forever to get ready. I don’t know if I have carpal tunnel or if it’s something else. It doesn’t hurt as much today and I’m hoping it doesn’t continue in the mornings. I need my hands to sign with my deaf friends!
• I need to get back into going to the gym…seriously! I have no excuses. Our grocery budget is out of control and because of this I’m determined to change that and cut our budget into half. It’s hard though since we buy our household items & personal care stuff with groceries too. I need to work on my habit of saving receipts and not losing them or throwing them away. This is a goal for August!
• Another mini goal is to tackle Google Reader. I’m definitely behind and need to catch up on commenting! Amazing how one day can really get you behind….I guess depending on how many blogs you’re subscribed to. <3

First came Lolla then Zella and now let me introduce you to Carmella!

I never thought we would come to the point of owning a new car until we were in our 30s. We didn’t have much of a choice anyways when Zella (2002 Hyundai Elantra) gave up on me last week. Tyler had to borrow my mom’s car and come to my rescue!

Apparently the transmission was messed up and would not let me go faster than 40 mph while it’s at 4 rpm. Tyler managed to get it to go faster while in 3rd gear and so I followed him to drop it off at the car place where we usually get it fixed. The next day we found out it was going to cost a lot of money to fix it. I was financially exhausted of putting more money into Zella so I decided it was time to get rid of her.

Saturday we decided to go car shopping. Unfortunately Tyler had to work so he couldn’t come with me. My parents took me to a few places starting with Ford which we didn’t even stay long enough to test drive since I don’t really care for Ford. Next stop was Dodge/Jeep. I saw the Jeep Patroit and I didn’t really like how the windows were small and it wasn’t worth the price it was at. Looking around again, I saw a Dodge Journey and we took it out for a test drive. Really smooth ride!! We were hesitant though since our family doesn’t have good experience with Dodge & the reviews online were not good at all. We got an offer on it then left and went over to Kia.

The Kia Soul is so cute but too small and not what I want for a long time. Of course I wanted the Kia Sportage so we got an offer on it and it was ridiculously high and not what I had hoped for. The number I was hoping for was way too low that they would have been offended. Luckily for us we had an awesome salesman, Paul, helping us. He was funny & talked with us while waiting for them to do the credit check, get an offer, etc. After going back and forth…we showed them the offer we had from Dodge and at that point all eyes were on me when they had made another offer. I told them I needed more time and went outside to talk with mom for a while. After mom talked some sense into me & gave me some advice… we came back in. Paul asked me what my magic number was so I told him and he came back with an offer of $11 over my magic number. I couldn’t believe it and took the offer!

I texted Tyler and said, “We just bought a car!!” I wanted to see what his reaction was. I think he knew what kind of car we got since he knew I wanted a Kia Sportage anyways.

His replied, “Sunroof? Color?” Supposedly he was too busy at work and only cared about if it had a sunroof & the color of it.

“No sunroof and it’s volcanic red”, I replied being short with him as I was distracted at the dealership.

“Does your dad like it? He hates red. & tinted windows?”… now he was asking more questions and obviously cares about what my dad likes?! I read my text out loud to my parents & we all had a good laugh. Seriously who cares if my dad hates red? He’s not married to him & it’s not his car. It’s ours!

They only had 3 cars left before bringing in the 2011 models. Two of them were blue and the other one was red and the interior is beige. I’ve always loved dark interior but the beige color is starting to grow on me now. It just makes me want to drive barefoot so I don’t get the inside dirty at all. It’s like getting new shoes and not wanting them to get dirty at all.

The offer included the trade of my old car. It’s a huge relief getting rid of Zella since I don’t need any more financial emergencies with her.

Last year we purchased a house last year in July and now it’s July and we just purchased a car. What’s next year? Another car, pool, or babies? Or all of the above! Now having experienced purchasing a house and car… I definitely have to say buying a car was more fun only because I got it the same day I purchased it! That’s huge for me since I always want things the minute I lay my eyes on them. I’m guilty of that! Don’t tell me I’m the only one…

Now isn’t Carmella pretty?!

We went & had lunch then came back to the house. We ended up doing her hair & make up. This was not something I did often when she was a little girl. She hated people brushing her hair so it was impossible to play with her hair and have her be my doll… and now I had a chance to do this!

Shampooed her hair in the kitchen sink….and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her allow a picture be taken when she does not have make up on!

Blow-dried her hair then teased her hair on top.

Then it was time to give her the beach curly look that she wanted.  We had a few close calls with burning each other!

Ta-da!!

I helped her do her make up then we also did our nails and I swear I only had 1 Diet Pepsi that day.
Got to love $2 nail polish from ULTA!

As soon as Tyler and I dropped her off at home… it was time to go back being 25 years old.
Not sure if I know how 25 year olds are supposed to act anyways.

The rest of the weekend was spent sleeping, coughing,
being nursed by my darling husband, doing laundry & watching movies.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.

I hate those days when I wake up feeling like the dream was real and then I can’t seem to shake it off for the rest of the day!

Last night I had a dream where a bunch of friends and I were in a house hanging out. A friend and I were in another room checking out pictures on the computer. After a while, we both saw the door open slowly and we couldn’t see who it was since it was pitch dark. We started laughing because we thought a friend was playing around and was getting ready to scare us. Two guys we didn’t know busted in and started shooting at us then left the room. I started bawling and didn’t know what to do and when I looked over at my friend, he was dead. I ran out of the room and saw that all 10+ friends were shot and laying all over the place. None of them were moving. I saw Tyler, my husband, faced down on the floor. I was hysterically crying while trying to call 911. It was horrible!

I hate it when I have bad dreams like this because it feels so real like I went through that horrible ordeal but I’m really grateful that it was just a dream.

This is normal anyways…. supposedly I have a history of waking up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder and almost giving Tyler a heart attack. One time I thought the house was on fire for real and I was this close to jumping out the window until Tyler confirmed me the house was not on fire.  Also there has been countless of times where I’ve woken up thinking there was a boogeyman in the room ready to murder us and poor Tyler would have to get up and check the entire house just for me so I would feel safe and go back to bed.

Maybe I need to buy a dreamcatcher but I’m not a kid anymore so it might not work. By the way, remember those things?!

I’m jealous of those people who can easily dream of puppies, kittens, cupcakes & rainbows!

Anyone else going through the same thing with bad dreams?

I decided to make a mean mud pie on Saturday while cleaning up. This is the perfect summer dessert for sure! It was also perfect to make since it doesn’t require a lot of prep time but does require a lot of time freezing in between. To add to the celebration, I added a dose of blue food coloring in the cool whip!

You know you want to try it especially after a long hot day, so I thought I’d share the recipe with you all! Enjoy! :)

If you could do anything without getting hurt, what would you do?

One of my mom’s friends said he would love to be in the eye of a tornado. That would be an interesting experience for sure and I would love to do that too! 

{ photo credit}

The house next door went into foreclosure and is up for sale so I’m loving the privacy we have since the owners moved out, but the same ugly wall exists. Anyone want to move in next door? I promise we would be the best neighbors you could ask for!

One day while doing the dishes and staring at the cement block wall outside my kitchen window I thought about how nice it would be to have a hanging planter box full of beautiful flowers to look at.

Tyler told me how he thought he could build one to hang on the wall, but I was reluctant to to go with his plan since he can be like Tim Allen from Home Improvement sometimes! I asked my Dad what he thought and he said he would help us when we got around to it.

On Saturday while I was working on a website, I heard the doorbell and went to answer the door. There I saw my dad standing with a planting box from Home Depot. Aww, what a nice dad! He didn’t have to do that but of course that’s him. He’s always thinking of me and other people. Can we say Happy Daughter’s Day? Just kidding.

So as Dad & Tyler were busy working on securing it to the concrete wall, Mom and I made a quick trip to Home Depot to buy some flowers. There were not a lot of options because Home Depot sucks when it comes to flowers & it’s summer in Arizona.

Isn’t the view so much better now? It’s amazing how a good kitchen view really puts you in a good mood especially in the mornings!

I’m counting this as a new milestone in my life – planting flowers! Later on, I want to try & plant some herbs but that won’t happen until the weather cools down.

I recognize that planting flowers comes with the responsibility of watering them (especially if you don’t want them to die!) but the thought of having to go outside in the backyard and turn the hose on then walk all the way to the side of the house to water the flowers twice a day was not pleasant. I was determined to make it work without having to do that and I found the perfect solution…

…water the flowers from the window! Call me lazy but I love this. It’s actually fun!! I came home from work today and immediately watered the flowers then made some yummy banana bread.

Check out Pilot Handwriting. Thanks to Ev’Yan for sharing this via Google Reader. Do share how yours look as I’m curious!

My 86 year old grandma who is smoking hot went to a garage sale with my aunt the other day. While browsing around at the garage sale, she noticed the owner’s motorcycle (it wasn’t for sale). She’s known to be the one that always strike up a conversation with everyone she sees and everyone just loves talking to her.

She told the owner that he had a really nice bike and she proceeded to tell him that she has always wanted to ride one before. He insisted on taking her out for a ride. She hesitated only because she was not sure if she trusted him or not… it wasn’t because she was afraid. The owner and his wife told her that they would be home the next day if she changed her mind.

After a night of thinking about it…she was determined to go for a ride so the next day my aunt & grandma went back. The owner’s wife had a leather jacket and helmet for her to wear.

According to Grandma’s email…she said, “The helmet smashed my hair down but I fixed it after. I enjoyed  the ride so much. He was so nice, we talked all the way! We drove all over Edmonds, went up Sunset Ave to see the water then down my street and he showed me the church they go to. Half hour later it was all over. I thanked him and hugged him goodbye”

I’m so proud of her for doing something fun and wild for herself!

This has been kind of a wake up call for me. The other day Tyler jokingly asked me how old I was… probably because I was being silly at the moment. I told him I was 24. He looked at me like I lost my mind. I almost had a heart attack because seriously I forgot that I’m 25…. and it doesn’t help at all that I’m losing my mind too. Even worse I’m going to be 26. Don’t get me wrong… there is nothing wrong with being older. It’s just the fact that I’m getting older and I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough thus far to cross off a lot of things on my bucket list.

I need to stop being too comfortable and step out of my comfort zone sometimes. Like the quote says,

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” by Neale Donald Walsch

Really… I need to get over myself and my mini-life crisis and start living every day to the fullest. I can thank my Grandma for inspiring me to be like her when I’m 86 years old. I need great stories to tell my grandchildren some day and feed them old cookies!

My dad is a wonderful man! I’m so lucky to have him as a father. I have my grandfather & grandmother to thank for raising him and shaping him into an incredible man! There is truly nothing bad I can say about him. Of course we’ve butted heads before only because in those situations we both were stubborn but it never lasted more than an hour or so. Other than that we pick on each other and always bet on who’s right. I can proudly say I’m almost always right! Haha…I’m sure he’s going to disagree on this.

The day I left for college was truly the first time I’ve ever seen him cry other than at his father’s funeral. I remember not wanting to leave… at that moment I was willing to work at the grocery store just so I could stay home and be with my parents and be daddy’s girl. I’m glad we now live so close by that we see them every other day or so.

My paternal grandfather was such a caring man and was liked by so many people. Now my dad reminds me a lot like him. My dad is liked by everyone. At his 2nd job, he’s a school bus driver. All the kids who ride his bus think he’s the best driver ever. I’ve heard stories where some kids cried and were upset when he wasn’t their bus driver anymore. He receives so many thanks and gift cards from parents. Even the other day when I was driving in the neighborhood with him, he honked at a woman he knew riding her bike. He told me she rides her bike everyday to work and he sees her on his way to work every morning.

My paternal grandmother was telling me how she is very proud of her son. When my dad went to visit her in Seattle a few months ago, he fixed everything for her and went to church with her. At church, my grandmother was showing her son off to all her friends and was glowing when everyone told her how handsome he was. I feel the same way, I’m always proud to introduce my dad to my friends too!

Dad, thank you for everything you have taught me so far. I cannot wait to create many more memories with you! My kids will be very lucky to have a wonderful grandpa someday. Thank you for being there for me every time I needed you to be…even those times when I didn’t ask. As you always say, I love you from here to the moon!!!