One man's trash.....

    I have a confession. I have a secret passion that involves greed, scheming, metal bins and waste. It's called dumpster diving. Generally, I personally try to avoid the "diving" part, that's what my husband is for:) Anyway, my love of dumpster diving began innocently enough. When we lived in Des Moines, I noticed that whenever I saw a moving truck in the parking lot, the apartment dumpster would usually be overflowing with goods. I noticed a broom handle sticking out here, a picture frame peeking through there, but it took me a while to muster up the guts to take action. Well, on one said 'moving day' I noticed a perfectly good book shelf sitting next to the dumpster. Immediately, I began scheming (because heaven forbid anyone should see me taking the trash in instead of out). Finally, when it got dark outside, I grabbed my accomplice (Jamie) and pretended to take out the trash. After a few nervous glances to make sure no one was around, we grabbed that puppy and scurried inside as quickly as two people awkwardly carrying a book shelf while trying to appear nonchalant could.
    The bookshelf was just the beginning. Since that day (well over 2 years ago), I have rescued a swiffer sweeper, a vacuum, a ficus tree, an office chair, a body-length mirror, and an exersaucer from the trash (just to name a few). Now, every time I drive past the dumpsters at our complex, like magnets, my eyes are drawn to the metal treasure chests on wheels and I perform a quick scan to see if there are any precious gems beckoning me. My confidence has increased as well. I used to only go out at night and take Jamie with me, but slowly I began solo daytime diving. I guess you could say I've become a regular ol' dumper:)

*Although, I feel I should clarify that I've never actually crawled into a dumpster, I just grab the stuff placed outside it or within an arms reach (I don't care to catch a disease)*

    Anyway, I just want to bear testimony that one man's trash will probably end up becoming my treasure. Oh and here's a picture of something I didn't find in the trash....love that girl!

October Recaps

Yet another month has come and gone. Did you live it well? October was a fairly busy month in the house of Olsen. Here's a recap of the month's happenings:

Jamie finished his ER rotation and is now onto Internal Medicine. His poor little heart was torn in 2 when it was announced that NBA negotiations failed and there wouldn't most likely be a full season this year. Seriously, I think he was depressed after hearing the news. Said he, with tears welling up in his eyes and a quivering bottom lip, "The one year we actually have cable and I have some time to watch the games, the season gets delayed..." His sorrow was tangible. On the bright side, with all the extra time he'll have he can help me sort through old papers, organize closets, and re-arrange furniture. Oh joy!

October 12th I turned the big 2-5! Jamie made me breakfast and cooked me the most delicious sweet and sour chicken EVER for dinner! I'm salivating just thinking about it.

Nom nom nom

He also got me TWO birthday desserts! He sure knows that the way to this girl's heart is through her stomach!

The weekend after my birthday, Jamie and I headed to Des Moines to visit our friends we missed dearly. While in DSM we went to a pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins, did a little shopping, visited our old ward, ate some delicious food, and stayed up too late visiting.  A good time was had by all.

Jamie's ghost pumpkin on the left and my "Halloween Bug" (aka-botched spider) to the right

The weekend after our Des Moines trip we headed to Sioux City, IA for stake conference. After the Saturday evening session they had an adult dance (and by adult dance I mean the Church's definition of an adult dance, not the world's....) Now, I remember going to stake dances as a youth, but this wasn't just your typical awkward Mormon dance. The awkwardness factor was taken up by about 10 notches because instead of a bunch of floundering teens moving about there were a bunch of skittish adults getting down to classics such as the "YMCA". Truly entertaining indeed.

The person on the right was certainly the "Belle of the Ball"... I was just his arm candy

Jamie and I also started playing racquetball at the YMCA on our date nights last month. I'm just learning, so I'm pretty much horrible at it, but it's a lot of fun and it's free so it fits right in with our budget. Plus, I love that my opponent lets me wink at him and give him an occasional pat on the tush:) And since no post is complete without mention of Marlee, I had to snap a picture of her on Halloween.

Yet, Even More Marlee......

I know I wrote a blubbery post before on how Marlee's growing so quickly, but my goodness, every time I blink this girl changes. Two Mondays ago she "turned" 7 months old. 7 months really isn't old at all, in fact, I probably have leftovers in the fridge at least that old (jk...I hope). But my oh my, it goes quickly. In celebration of reaching 7 months, Marlee decided to start crawling. Here's footage of one of her first crawls. Tear.

Yes, I know what you're thinking, and it's true: I am a bad mother. Not only do I whistle for my child's attention, I also let her get harmed in the making of the video. Don't worry though, she only suffered minor injuries and came out a much more skilled crawler because of it. Win-win. I suppose it's time to baby-proof the house now. Some of Marlee's favorite toys are the electrical cords you can see in the background.

Addendum to my Addendum

Apparently the use of the word beef stick can be misconstrued by some... so I guess I should have said beef cake. My bad. It's late, I'm starting to feel goofy.

Addendum

Jamie thinks I post too much about Marlee, which is true. So I asked him what I should write about and he replied, "about how muscular I am." So here I am, writing about my beef stick husband. All 160 pounds of him....

Proof

That Marlee's growing much too quickly....

She just looks so big in this picture.

Anyway, not too much is happening lately. I've been training a lot at my new job which means we got to enjoy the "spoils" of daycare last week when Marlee acquired her first daycare illness. Seriously, when I picked her up there were snot-nosed, hacking babies slobbering on everything, talk about a cesspot (sp?) of germs! Jamie has been working a LONG couple weeks in the ER. He works from 11am-11pm so Marlee and I have definitely been missing him. With Jamie gone in the evenings, I've pretty much stopped cooking, which is BAD. When left unsupervised I tend to eat like a 4 year-old. It may be possible that I've eaten cereal for dinner multiple nights, and maybe I ate flaming-hot Cheetos and mint bon-bon ice-cream for lunch one day. Who knows, my memory is a little fuzzy (probably from all the Diet Pepsi I've been drinking).
Yes, I drink DP. Go ahead and judge.

And to end this random post here's a picture that I took from our deck the other day. Our apartment building was basically built in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere. It's weird. But pretty.

Just a few ramblings

Why, oh why, must babies grow so fast? I can't believe my sweet pea is already 6 months old! Ok, I may be slightly emotional right now because I just finished looking at Marlee's newborn pictures, so please forgive me. This is what happens when I'm home alone while my husband is off working in the ER and my baby is asleep in the other room. I look at pictures, and then I get happy/sad/emotional as I think about life and wonder where time has gone. Sometimes, when I'm holding my sweet little girl I just wish time would stop, or at least pause for a moment. My favorite thing of like, forever, is when she lies her head on my shoulder and breathes her hot breath on my neck. My heart melts each time it happens, although it usually never lasts for more than 2 seconds because she's a wiggly little baby. I know it's totally cliche to say, but I never knew how much I could love until I became a mother. After having Marlee I literally felt like the Grinch, and that my heart suddenly grew 3x larger. Being a mother has also deepened my love for my husband, my family, and my Savior. I just feel so completely blessed and humbled to be given such an awesome and sacred responsibility. I truly wish that every woman could experience the deep joy and reverence that having a child can bring, and my heart aches for those who so very badly want a child but for one reason or another are not able to have one. I feel that being a parent has given me a glimpse, as slight as it may be, as to how much we are loved by our Father in Heaven and His son, Jesus Christ. Speaking of love, I absolutely LOVED the talk given by President Uchtdorf at Women's Conference this weekend. (To see it go here: http://lds.org/general-conference/watch/2011/10&vid=1180453706001&cid=7?lang=eng )There's no way you could have listened to his message and not felt more encouraged, more loved, and more important. Here's one of my favorite quotes:

“No matter how dark your days may seem, no matter how insignificant you may feel, no matter how overshadowed you think you may be, your Heavenly Father has not forgotten you. In fact, He loves you, with an infinite love…..Just think of it: You are known and remembered by the most majestic, powerful, and glorious being in the universe! You are loved by the King of infinite space and everlasting time.”

Such powerful and true words!

Ok, I'll stop blubbering now. Today was a big day for Miss Marlee. She had her 6-month checkup (with vaccinations) and went to daycare for the first time. Both events went quite smoothly, and I managed to get through work with only calling the sitter once to check in. Here are Marlee's "stats" as it seems to be the popular thing to post them, and of course I want to be popular....
Weight: 17.1 lbs (72%)
Height: 27.5 inches (96%)
Head: 17 inches (72%)
So apparently Marlee's head is a little more proportional to the rest of her now and probably won't make the Guinness Book of World Records anytime soon. And of course, a post wouldn't be complete without a picture.

My sweet baby