Life By Lindsey Rae

I went on a mission today, hoping to find some cheap beads for some wedding pages I am scrapbooking. After a trip yesterday to one of my favorite stores, I discovered that I was not able to use my 50% off coupon there like I had hoped. (Long story, but basically I'm mad at them for sending of 50% coupons but then discounting everything in the store 30 or 40% and then not letting me use the higher discount...It's a trick to get you into the store and so I decided not to buy my beads there if I could get them cheaper elsewhere).
Anyway, I tried looking at the flea market, because they always have lots of jewelry there and I thought maybe I could find some premade things and then take them apart for the beads and that would be cheaper. I am always looking for the best deal, no matter how or where it comes...even if I do have to drive accross town to go to the flea market to find it. Well, I didn't end up finding anything worth purchasing there, but one fun thing did happen.
I overheard this girl talking to an antique dealer about how she was an actress and did some TV work and such.I don't know why I started listening at first, but I was interested. And she also looked somewhat familiar to me; I thought she looked like a girl I knew from church. Well, I kind of continued to ease drop and then the antique dealer asked her what she had done in the television realm and she said, "Have you heard of Grey's Anatomy? I am on that show sometimes." Right away my ears perked up because that is one of my favorite shows (that I never miss!) and looked at her knew why I recognized her then and said, "Hey! Yeah, you are!" And she said, "Yep, there you go."
Anyway, she is the girl who plays Dr. Sydney Heron, that really perky, happy and annoying Doctor. She doesn't have a main role, but she is on there. I've added a picture: Do you know who I'm talking about?
I wished I had brought my camera so I could have taken a picture with her to show Jerrod, 'cause we just watched her on the show the night before. Jerrod just said, "What was she doing at the flea market?" He always makes fun of me when I go there because he said it's redneck. So, I don't know why she was at the Nashville Flea Market, but she is apparently from Memphis, so maybe this is sort of her neck of the woods. And why the flea market, I don't know. But, even actors from the most popular show on TV still might like good deals.

On Saturday we went to Providence to see our house. And to our surprise there was progress- substantial progress, to see. About a week before I was so discouraged because I had driven by seen that there was once again WAY more done on all the neighbors houses rather than ours. (Even though we were supposed to be one of the first 5 finished). I was doing the math in my head and with the amount of time left until December 19th, when they said was the latest date we would close and then calculating what was actually done and how long they said it would take to complete the next steps, it was not physically possibly that it would be done. In fact, I could not figure that it would be done anytime before mid to the end of January. So, I sent and email to the builder and asked about this.
He replied back and said that it had taken longer to get the building permit for our house because we are beside an empty wooded lot, but that he still thought it would be possible to close by the 19th of December. I don't know how...the math still doesn't add up. Maybe they plan to work faster then usual.
When we went by this Saturday, the house was standing! A week before it had been only a foundation. Now it is a completely framed and even had a roof. Next time we go by, there might even be siding.
I took some pictures, and here they are.

(We are a little dressed up because we were going to a wedding after. I try not to dress like this while walking around new construction. It is surprisingly hard to climb up to the house in shoes like I wear.)


Jerrod upstairs in the (his) bonus room. I say "his" because that's one of his rooms he gets to "decorate." Decorate will include putting the TV, speakers, cables and stereo stuff...basic boy things. I think the Meerkat painting will also go there too. :) He also gets his office and the garage and I think the kitchen. haha. But I think I will put some nice things in the kitchen (when he's not looking.)



Standing in the hallway. The kitchen and dining room are to the right and a closet and bedroom are to the left...you can pretty much see everything when you don't have walls.


Me in my room: My place where I will put all my scrapbooking, art and music stuff...and attempt to keep clean....more so than I do now...that's what I'm saying.


Looking out the back door. So I guess that's what the backyard will look like...sort of...except hopefully a little better with some grass and without construction materials in it.


Living room windows. It looks so nice out them with the trees for neighbors. Very excited about that as always.


More potential walls. I know, it's just a bunch of boards and only exciting to me and Jerrod, but I'm showing it anyway, because it is exciting for me after many months of wishing to see a bunch of boards.


Hard to believe that we will be able to live here in two months. I am happy. My neighbor upstairs is not nice and I want to move! It's not so great to be stuck waiting in your apartment and having to pay an outrageous amount of money for month to month rent, especially when you have walk on egg shells around your mean neighbors.

I saw this today, which lays out the whole left/right brain thing nicely. Although many days I feel like a "no brain" with my ADD and terrible memory problems, from this list, I see that, for the most part, I am definitely a right brain person. My husband is definitely a left brain. But that's good. This way we get a full brain between us. hehe.

The Right Brain vs Left Brain Test If you see dancer rotating clockwise, you are right-brained (creative), counter-clockwise, left-brained (logical).

This Saturday we had a pizza party with the kids from our church class that we teach. We had been telling them since the beginning of the year that we were going to do this; it was a motivation for them to do their scripture reading assignments. Every week I give out a reading assignment, which is really too easy...usually only a verse or two, and then the next week they are supposed to bring back their assignment and show that they did it. Well, let's just say the easy assignment has proven to be difficult for most, as we usually get less than 50% who do it. Each week they do it, they get a sticker on their chart and after 10 stickers they get a prize. And they are good prizes too. Then on top of the great prizes we said that once enough of them got 10 stickers we'd have a party.
Anyway, when we were asked to teach the class, our Bishop had encouraged us to maybe have some kind of activity with the kids outside of church. He actually suggested we have them over to our house for a party, but that wasn't going to happen...our place is definitely not childproof...and it most definitely would not be possible to have that many kids in here. Somebody would have got hurt...either from doing something like bumping their head on my stained glass table or by Jerrod wringing their necks.
So, we planned a pizza party at the church. We had 6 out of 8 kids who were able to come. All the parents told us that they were really excited beforehand.It went pretty well, all things considering. A little crazy, a lot of running around, but overall, not bad. Jerrod's work cell phone did get a glass of pop kicked on it, but fortunately he had it in a case and so it didn't get anything on it...although at first he thought it got wet and was a little upset. (That would have been the second work cell phone to be destroyed by pop that he's had.)
I also made up a treasure hunt and hid treat bags at the end. They liked that and we liked watching them have to walk from one far side of the building to the other far side many times. (I made sure to hide them as far apart as possible as to extend the length of the game, wear them out and it was entertaining for us to watch. haha.)
Then we also played Jenga, basketball and some of us (not me) ran around half the time.
So, that's one thing accomplished for this year. We have only a couple more months in the ward. Even though we are looking forward to moving, I want to stay in Primary though. I like it because primary is a good place to be if you have ADD. It really helps to stay focused because there is so much going on that you have to take care of all the time: I teach, go to singing time and spend the rest of the time telling kids to be quiet and stop poking each other. So I keep busy.
And also, I really like doing this with Jerrod. We get to stay together the entire 3 hours of church and that's really great. I'm so glad that they are doing the team-teacher thing in primary now. And, I also think that it's really fun that this is Jerrod's first time being in Primary EVER, since he didn't join the church until he was almost 19. It's kind of cool that he is going to primary now for the first time and we are going there together. :) Oh, and this picture of us is at our party...I can't believe I actually got a picture. As you can obviously tell Jerrod just loves to have his picture taken. Doesn't he look thrilled?

Two things actually.

First: The dollar! The Canadian dollar is actually worth something! Basically equal to the almighty American dollar. A few years back this would have been great news for me and SO helpful when I was getting my money for student loans and trying to convert my Canadian money to American. I could have actually not lost money on it. However, now that I am paying them back, with the American dollars that we make, it would benefit me a lot more if the US dollar were stronger, because I could get more out of every dollar I pay back.
Why does that happen like that? It's like totally opposite of what I needed. Funny how things can work out totally backward. And unfortunately, it's one of those things that nobody can do anything about.
But it's just crazy that a few years back we only got like $0.60 on the dollar and now they are practically equal!

Another thing that I finally did was paint! I have been thinking and scheming about these paintings I want to do for months now. I have changed my mind about 300 times about what I was going to do...what colors....what size...so much, that I was terrified to actually start something for fear that I would finish it and then think of something better after it was done. These are really important to me because I want these to be for a big wall in my living room and they are going to be a focal point of the room. So, I was so nervous about actually making a decision, since I had so many ideas; I couldn't figure out what it was that I really wanted.
But on Wednesday night Jerrod had to go to Florida for an overnight business trip, so I decided that this would be a good time to work on my paintings...in the house...in the living room. (What Jerrod doesn't see will not stress him out. haha) So, since I had the opportunity to make a mess, I was forced to finally made a decision. First,I got 3 canvases...on sale for $10 each, 30"x40". (When I am done my total size artwork size combined will be 90"x40" which will be really cool, 'cause that's huge.) I started, but then I got a better idea and changed my mind again! But I think I finally have it. And I am almost finished one of them! I think I could have got more done if I hadn't changed my mind about it in the middle. But, anyway, I was finally able to mix the one right color that I wanted and I am very excited about that. I tested it a bunch first and finally I got the perfect shades. Color mixing is very, very difficult. I got some good colors though and I am just so glad that I finally made up my mind about what I'm going to do so I can stop worrying about it. I really do drive myself crazy. I love being an artist, but sometimes I think it's a curse because it can make your head hurt. I really do understand why so many creative people had/have mental disorders.
I would post a picture of what I made, but I need to finish a little more first. I have to go buy a little more paint tomorrow, since I wasted more than expected while experimenting.

So, in our class in church this Sunday, we were talking about how Jesus loves everyone the same all over the world and how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is exactly the same every place in the world. We were asking the kids if they had been to church in any other places and if they saw how it was the same as in Nashville. Of course, they all said yes and we went around the room with each telling us where they had been to church in other places: The answers were, "Utah...Arizona....Georgia..." etc. When it was Jerrod's turn he mentioned that he had been to church in Canada. "What?! Really?" they said.
Now, I'm not so sure why this was so shocking as I have said many times that I am from Canada and my mom just sent stuff for them from home a few weeks ago. But I reminded them, "Yes, I'm from Canada. And we got married in the Temple there, too."
And the next comment was...
"Really? Was it made of ice?"
I just have to shake my head. Only in America.