Isn’t this an amazing backyard. It’s so big I couldn’t even get it in one shot or even two, but I need to take three pictures. The last (fourth) shot was a closeup of the flowerbed he put in awhile ago. My father has just under an acre of land and pretty much all of it is unused land. The yard is split in half with a line of trees and he even has a huge garden out in one corner. There is so much room here, we could easily build Ian a huge play structure of his own and we would never have to go to the park. Talk about the parties we could have…the playdates…just the enjoyment of such a yard. Yeah, I’m envious. Because this is what I have:

Don’t get me wrong, I love my yard. We did really good considering the area we live in. But when you grow up with the yard up above and spend a long weekend enjoying it. Coming back to mine is kind of…dull.  In theory, we could put up a swing set for Ian, but it would take up a lot of space and we really don’t have that much to begin with.  At just under .25 acres, our lot is kind of small.  It works for us though.  Especially since we don’t have the time or energy to put into our yard that my father does for his.  However, it’s still a shock going from one to the other.  I’m allowed my yard envy…after all, I’ll get his someday.

I’m really excited that I’ll be able to do this.  I’ve never had the chance to go to one before, although I have been invited, just time and circumstances wouldn’t allow it.  However, I’ve decided to make it so I can’t miss one and have one myself.  I have some of their stuff already and I love using it.

Traditional and conservative, most people find you comforting.
You’re friendly and easy to get to know. This makes you very popular - without even trying!

I wouldn’t say that I’m popular, I really don’t make friends all that easy. But of all the cookies to be, I like chocolate chip.

The Great Archives determine you to have gone by the identity:
Empress of Scandinavia
Known in some parts of the world as:
Mother of The Steely Moon
The Great Archives Record:
A child of the Moon Goddess - Cold, determined, but of the light in the night.

Kind of interesting, but it’s not really a name to me but I could be called an empress. So what is everyone else’s name?

And just because I’m curious, let’s see who I’m married to…

The Great Archives determine you to have gone by the identity:
Emperor of Scandinavia
Known in some parts of the world as:
Father of The Steely Moon
The Great Archives Record:
A child of the Moon Goddess - Cold, determined, but of the light in the night.

Place an X by all the things you’ve done and remove the X from the ones you have not. Answer the 29 questions below. This covers your entire life! Send back to me and forward onto other friends!

Gone on a blind date
Skipped school
Watched someone die
Been to Canada (I’m in MI, who hasn’t been?)
Been to Mexico (and wanting to go back…)
Been to Florida
Been on a plane
Been lost (getting lost in Mexico in the poor section on a city bus isn’t always fun)
Been on the opposite side of the country
Swam in the ocean (Pacific and Atlantic)
Cried yourself to sleep
Played cops and robbers
Recently colored with crayons (I have a kid, hello?)
Sang Karaoke (unfortunately)
Paid for a meal with coins only (I spent 6 months in Mexico, all their currency are coins)
Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t (I’m not going to buy that book…no…bad hands)
Made prank phone calls
Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose (not that I recall)
Caught a snowflake on your tongue (back when I actually liked being out in the snow)
Danced in the rain (I love rainy weather!)
Written a letter to Santa Claus (long long long time ago, although I may be doing it again sometime soon)
Been kissed under the mistletoe (no comment)
Watched the sunrise with someone you care about (more than once. also the sunset)
Blown bubbles (Ian loves bubbles…and we just ran out)
Gone ice-skating (it’s fun…i should find someplace up here and take Ian once he gets older)
Been skinny dipping outdoors
Gone to the movies by yourself (it was the last night in Arlington and I was sleeping in the airport and I didn’t want to spend all my time there)

1. Have a nickname? jaxon, myjaxon, jac
2. Mother’s name? Er…not over the internet I’m not saying.
3. Favorite alcoholic drink? Can you find the pattern?
   • Sex on the Peach
   • Vodka Uva
   • Vodka Pina
   • Malibu and Pineapple
4. Tattoo? Nope, I’ll leave that to my sister and mother
5. Body Piercing? Hell no, they use needles!
6. Ever hung out with celebrities/famous? Got to meet Joshua Jackson in the airport in Costa Rica; the drummer from the Spanish band Mana way back when
7. Birthplace? Battle Creek, Mi
8. Favorite vacation spot? Guadalajara, Mexico. The city has it all
9. Ever been to Africa? Not yet
10. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? Oh yeah…mmmm…Oreos
11. Ever been on TV? the local newspaper several times and if I have been, then no one told me
12. Ever steal any traffic signs? Yes, from my father. Don’t know where he got it from, but it’s in my house now.
13. Ever been in a car accident? Yes…and none of them were my fault.
14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? I’ve driven both, but currently have a 4 door
15. Favorite salad dressing? French or Catalina
16. Favorite pie? Chocolate
17. Favorite number? I don’t think I have one
18. Favorite movie? Pirates of the Caribbean, Down Periscope, and Super Troopers
19. Favorite holiday? honestly, I don’t have one, but I think Halloween tends to be the most fun
20. Favorite dessert? Ice cream, preferably cookie minster from Coldstone Creamery
21. Favorite food? Dessert
22. Favorite day of the week? I’m a stay at home mom, any day is good as long as Jesse comes home
23. Favorite brand of body wash? Whatever is cheapest at meijers or within my reach
24. Favorite toothpaste? Arm & Hammer
25. Favorite smell? citrus
26. What do you do to relax? Umm….have you seen Literary Escapism? Reading, duh!
27. How do you see yourself in 10 Years? I’m not even thinking that far down yet.
28. Farthest Place you will send this message? Austria
29. Who will respond to this the fastest? I have no clue

Okay, so now I get to tag a few people….and here they are:

• Carrie H.
• Amber
• Nicola
• Josh R.
• Rachel
• And a few people over at Facebook

Whether you’re pro-life or pro-choice, I don’t care, but I do use birth control and if that right was to be taken away from me, I don’t know what I would do. We can’t afford to have another child right now and emotionally, neither of us are ready for another one. However, if birth control were to become illegal, that choice would be taken away from me. Condoms are fine and dandy, but they’re not reliable. I want to be sure that when/if I have another child, that’s its our choice. That it wasn’t an “OOPS” and then we have to deal with it.

Abortion at Saddleback Forum: If Life Begins at Conception, What About Contraception? by RHRealityCheck

The Bush Administration is now on record planning to equate contraception with abortion, for the purpose of allowing health care workers to deny patients access to contraception. It is clear the Bush Administration believes that contraception is abortion.

The plight of the lame duck by the Los Angels Times

The White House recently proposed a radical change to the Endangered Species Act that would allow government agencies to bypass a heretofore mandatory scientific review process that evaluates the impact of their actions. The Department of Health and Human Services drafted a new rule that could redefine abortion to include some forms of contraception and allow doctors and pharmacists to deny them to women as they see fit.

Don’t Let Bush Administration Redefine Pregnancy by the Connecticut Courant

But a recent proposal at the federal Department of Health and Human Services threatens to muddy all that. Ostensibly, the proposal seeks to protect health care workers who, for religious or moral reasons, don’t want to participate in abortions. The proposal suggests that for the purposes of health care workers, pregnancy begins when the sperm and the egg are joined, at the act of sex — something with which august bodies such as the American Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the British Medical Association disagree. Those groups and others say pregnancy begins when the fertilized egg implants itself into the uterine wall — a few days later that the Bush administration would have it.

New proposal could affect access to birth control WELLNESS by the Fredricksburg Free-Lance Star

The controversy arises because of the draft’s definition of abortion. To quote the proposal, abortion would be redefined as “any of the various procedures–including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action–that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.

Clinton swears to fight the “insulting” plan of abortion by Cayanmama

Sen. Hillary Clinton commented on the Bush administration’s plan for defining some of the very widely used methods of contraception as “gratuitous, unnecessary insult” to the women.

The former Democratic presidential candidate teamed up with family planning groups in condemning the proposals that define abortion and actually include contraception methods like intrauterine devices and birth control pills. It would cut off federal funds to hospitals and states where medical providers are compelled to offer contraception and legal abortion to women.

It seems unbelievable, but the Bush Administration is quietly trying to redefine “abortion” to include birth control. The Houston Chronicle says this could wipe out dozens of state laws that protect women’s reproductive freedom and protect rape victims. And this proposed “rule change” doesn’t need congressional approval.

I just signed a message to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, whose department is considering this rule change, telling him: “Contraception is NOT abortion.” Can you add your voice to this cause? Click here to sign the message.

Thanks!

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery - when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.
The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

My office did get painted a while ago and it’s this pretty green color and all of my wood and nature shots work wonderfully in there.  As well as my orange decors, so they won’t be completely wasted.  It’s kind of a mess right now, so I need to get there in a clean it up, but once I do, it’s going to be fabulous.

Ian’s bedroom was also painted and I actually put a little more work into his room than I did all the others.  His room has three different colors going on and they all work well together (so far).  The bottom half of his room was painted this pretty cartoonish green with the top half a cartoonish blue.  I think the two colors look cartoonish but others may not.  As a border between the two colors, I have a asphalt looking road circling the room that seems to be working well.  I haven’t gotten the yellow lines up yet since I just added the border yesterday, but give me a few days and those will be up too.

I’m hoping to have all the rooms clean and set to right by the end of this weekend, so I should be able to post new photos of the house soon.  The kitchen is coming along nicely.  I finely have a spice rack and I haven’t had to paint, so this room was the easiest to do.

The yard is a goner.  I made a mistake that Jesse still hasn’t let me live down.  He sent me to the store to return the weed killer since the sprayer wasn’t working and I came back with RoundUp.  You may not see a problem with that, but Jesse was also using the weed killer on spots in the yard and neither of us realized that RoundUp is also a grass killer.  So now we have brown spots littered throughout our yard.  My Bad!  We were trying to get the yard to look a little better than when we moved in, but that’s not happening this year now.  We’re planning on doing some preliminary work this fall so we can get a jump start on the yard for next year and planting grass seed in those areas is going to be one of those projects.  In all honestly, the yard isn’t that bad.  The majority of the work we’re going to have to put into landscaping is mainly cosmetic and anything we want to change.  There are a couple of bushes that we’re going to pull since they don’t seem to be doing to well, but other than that, everything is good as it is.

I love our basement.  It’s going to be sad once we start chopping it up and putting up the walls and whatnot, and it’ll be nice when we do that since there will be another bathroom downstairs, but until then, I’ll enjoy it while I have it.  I’m still hoping we’ll get to put up some walls this winter, but I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to or not.  I really want to get Jesse’s office up and running so he has his own place to disappear to.  He really needs it, and aside from the wall separating the storage area, that’s one of the first projects we’re going to be doing.

I think that’s it for now on the house.  I’ll try and post some pictures later next week.