Our Cars & Kitchen

I have forgotten to inform those who read my blog who I do not keep in frequent contact with that... Our cars are repaired!!

We took my alternator to Autozone TWICE to see if it was working. Both times we were informed that the alternator was fine and that something else was wrong with my car. Well, after Carlos spoke again with our mechanic friend he decided to go ahead and just try replacing the alternator. The issues with the car have now disappeared! It's nice to be able to drive my own car again.

The turning signals on the other car have also been repaired. It turns out that the issue there was also something that Carlos had previously checked, and it was an easy fix!

The electricity in our kitchen has no longer been giving us issues (knock on wood), and our refrigerator is working like a dream again (knock on wood).

So... Yea! :)

Thanksgiving 2010

Carlos and I joined my parents at my sister's house for Thanksgiving this year. We all did our part in preparing the meal.





Most of what we had to eat were traditional items (turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, etc). We had some delicious kabobs for an appetizer that consisted of various veggies, cheese tortellinis, olives, and summer sausage. We also enjoyed some pistachio wine with our meal.

We had a little mishap... My mom got a pretty deep cut on her finger. Luckily we had plenty of gauze, medical tape, and bandages.

Between feedings we kept busy with movies, a football game, shopping, and playing wii. It was a nice break from the everyday grind.

Halloween 2010

My sister and I co-hosted a Halloween party this year. Carlos and I dressed up as "that couple" which also involved a lot of improv acting.



My sister and her boyfriend dressed up as characters from a video game. She was a zombie and he was the zombie killer.



We had a really good time decorating and preparing food & drinks.

A Realization

So I am realizing that I really need more time to myself. I very rarely have any alone time. I don't feel like my time is my own. When I am at work it is my employer's time. When I am home, it's time to be with the husband.

The other day Carlos and I were sitting on the couch together trying to decide what we wanted to do in that moment. I decided that I wanted to play a game on my computer. He stated, "Well, since we're here together I was really hoping that we could do something together." What was my response? "Umm... we're always here together."

I'm rarely home when he's not home. He spends all day in the house while I am at work, and likes spending time with me when I get home. I appreciate that, but at the same time...It would be nice if I felt more free to do whatever I want to do. I feel pressured to either cook dinner, clean, go grocery shopping, etc., or to be spending time with Carlos.

My alone time is my recovery time, my time to process and de-stress. So... what am I going to do about it? Well I am not going to do nothing about it. I think I'll start out by discussing with Carlos some sort of plan to allow me to have more self time.

I know a lot of people never have time to themselves, particularly parents, but this is something I need right now. It's not that I need to be alone in the house, it's that I need to feel free take part in activities that involve only me (other than housework, etc).

What's new? Not much.

So what's new...?

Well relating to my previous blog, our cars are still pretty much in the same condition. However, Carlos did fix the locks on his car. Our kitchen electricity is still working most of the time, and our refrigerator has also been working well.

So far no luck at all on the job hunt for Carlos. I do think that I am becoming more patient in that area though.

Last month Carlos' dad got married! Carlos and I provided the music for the ceremony. It was a very nice, small, and simple ceremony. Perfect for them!



The above photo shows Carlos' Dad and new stepmom (Ricardo & Christy), they are the ones holding hands in the front row. The other people are their children (and children-in-law) and parents.

This coming weekend my sister and I are throwing a Halloween party at my house. I am hoping to take plenty of photos to share!

Developments

So... Here's where we're at with the car & refrigerator situation. No luck on my car, but we will work some more on that on Friday. No luck on Carlos' car, but now it has decided that whenever you turn the car off three of the doors unlock (and have to be relocked manually). The refrigerator is working again, but we have to have it plugged into an extension cord because the electricity on half of our kitchen is not working (maybe the refrigerator malfunction & electricity shortage are tied together...). Our garbage disposal is not working due to the electricity problem, and anything that we'd like to use that is on that side of the kitchen either needs to be plugged into an extension cord, or transported to the other side of the kitchen.

So... on a lighter note.. please watch the following video:

Broken Items

So this past week has been a week of misfortune.

My car has been having troubles and hasn't been running for at least a couple of weeks now. Carlos and I are in the process of trying to figure out what's wrong with it. So... We have been carpooling in his car. Now the steering wheel in his car decided to fall off yesterday. After he re-afixed the steering wheel the turning signals decided that they didn't want to work anymore. So that's our car situation.

We bought a brand new refrigerator a year ago because the freezer in our old refrigerator stopped working. Well, after a few months with our brand new refrigerator, it stopped freezing things as well. Instead of providing us with a replacement, the company insisted on having it repaired, but they needed to take it to their "shop" to repair it. After a couple of weeks or so we finally got our refrigerator back in working order. Now, as of this week, the freezer stopped working once more! Ugh! It is especially frustrating because our 1-year warranty has run out, and we are thinking that they will no longer repair it for free (even though this problem first began only after a couple of months or so after the purchase).
Each time our freezer has quit working we had been storing food in our friend's freezer (who is also our neighbor). However, he is now preparing to move to the UAE. So... hopefully this freezer issue can be resolved quickly and without too much loss of food.

For now... we'll just be cruising around in a car with a loose steering wheel and no turning signals.

1st Anniversary

Yesterday was our first anniversary!



One year down... many more to come! :)

July Trips

Carlos and I went on a couple of trips this month. The first weekend in July we went to Salt Lake City, Utah for a family reunion. It was the Gallegos family reunion. Carlos' maternal grandma is a Gallegos.

This photo shows Carlos' Grandma and her children & some of her grandchildren, and her one great-grandchild.

This past weekend we went to Estes Park, CO for a friend's wedding. It was very beautiful there.

BP Spills Coffee

June Vacations

This month we took a couple of trips. Our first trip was to Dallas to visit my Aunt and cousins. Carlos and I got there the day before my parents and my sister and her boyfriend arrived. So while my other family members were traveling Carlos and I spent the day at Six Flags Over Texas. It was a lot of fun. We took our time while we were there, road most of the rides (at least all the big ones), and enjoyed some ice cream... a couple of times. That evening we met up with everyone at my Aunt's house.

The next day we all went to the Dallas World Aquarium. It's definitely the neatest aquarium I have been to (although I haven't been to many). You had the feel of actually being in the wild. Monkeys, sloths, birds, etc were in the trees around you. Ducks, various fish, and marine mammals swam together in the "lake". The shark tank had a tunnel through it so that the sharks were swimming all around you. After the aquarium we ate at a local Tex-Mex restaurant and headed back to my Aunt's house. Our final day there was spent walking around the aboretum where we also had a little picnic, and we ended the day with a cookout.
Last week Carlos, some friends, and I all went to Phoenix to see Iron Maiden and Dream Theater in concert! The drive wasn't bad at all; we had a nice hotel room; and I finally got to eat at an In-N-Out Burger!!

Another Great Weekend

This weekend was a very friend filled weekend. Friday we went to dinner and a movie with some friends to celebrate a friend's birthday. Saturday we attended a goodbye party for a friend who got a new job and a retirement party. The retirement party was a surprise party for the campus ministry director of the Wesley Foundation that Carlos and I were involved in during college. She was completely surprised. There were a couple of hundred people there, many of whom flew into town for her party. It couldn't have gone any better. It was great to see a lot of our old friends.

Yesterday, after church, we met up with all of the Wesley Foundation people again. We hiked up A-Mountain and had some singing and communion at the top. After hiking back down we met up at the campus director's house and had a cookout. It was very enjoyable, and once again, so great to see so many of our old friends!

Disturbing :(

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/36776405#36776405

Easter

Easter weekend was great. My parents drove to my place for a performance Friday night, and then Saturday morning we all went to my sister's home. We spent Sat-Mon there. My Dad and sister spent a lot of time doing house/yard maintenance. Carlos spent a lot of time playing with my sister's ipod touch. Mom and I spent a lot of our time cooking and cleaning.

My mom prepared an egg hunt/scavenger hunt. It was tons of fun, and of course before that we had to decorate the eggs. She bought so many things to decorate the eggs with; it was tough deciding what all we wanted to use to decorate. We created some awesome eggs; I'd say.

We had great food and a delicious punch!

Habitforge

After reading a friends blog about habitforge, I have decided to try it out myself. It may be a bit overambitious of me, but I added three habits. Habitforge is basically an online program that will help you to form habits. Check it out if you'd like, and maybe it will be able to help you out. I will let you know how it goes for me.

Fun Times

Carlos and I had a great weekend this past weekend. Today is Carlos' birthday! He's now the same age as me, haha. So last Friday we, along with some friends and family, went out for sushi and then went back to our house for cake and games. Carlos got a new wii game for his birthday so he and his friends spent the whole evening playing Super Mario Bros. The first time I ever spent Carlos' birthday with him, as his girlfriend, my sister and I made him "the best-ever chocolate fudge layer cake" (that's actually the name of the cake). He requested that same cake for this year. It didn't turn out exactly as I'd remembered it, but still very delicious.

Sunday we drove down to El Paso to see Megadeth in concert. The opening bands were Exodus and Testament. It was pretty awesome!

Slightly Annoyed

It's slightly frustrating that people will get so upset over a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding is not one person's fault. Yet some people tend to think that if a misunderstanding occurs that it is always the other person's fault. Or they'll think that the other person is stupid for not understanding them, when they may or may not have worded something in a way that the other person would expect. Ugh!

Godspell and The Superbowl

So... I saw Godspell for the first time this weekend. One of our local theater groups performed it. It does allow for a lot of freedom for the actors. I would like to see this show again, but with a different group.

I watched the superbowl of course. I was rooting for the Saints, so I was happy with the outcome. Carlos and I and a few of our friends got together for the event. We had plenty of food (well too much food)! I experienced a new food at this event: Cheesecake Sopapillas! They're awesome!! I need to get the recipe from my friend who made them!

Tons of fun...

By the way, our refrigerator has been repaired.. finally! Yea!

Work and Refrigerators

Carlos and I purchased a new refrigerator back in August. It was so wonderful to finally have a freezer that would actually freeze things. It worked like a dream.... for a few months. Now, not only does our freezer not freeze, but our entire refrigerator has decided that it doesn't want to work at all. I guess it would work as a cooler if we packed bags of ice inside of it, hmm...

I'm wondering if the people who are supposed to be repairing (or replacing) our refrigerator realize that as they take their precious time doing whatever they're doing, our food is wasting away, and in the mean time, Carlos and I are going hungry.

I suppose what we really need to do is to go buy a lot of food that does not require refrigeration. We have also been storing some of our food items on our back patio (luckily it's been unusually cold here for NM).

In addition to this story I'd like to share the following:
I was pleased to remember this morning that my job was going to be providing us with breakfast burritos today to celebrate one of my coworkers birthdays. This made me very happy, since we are so low on food at the house. Well upon arriving to work (having not eaten, as I was instructed) I was told that they decided not to order burritos until tomorrow. So... needless to say, I am very hungry! I should learn from this and always, always eat breakfast before coming to work! (or at least take more than an apple with me when I go to work)

Finally a change!

Well after two and a half years of sitting at a desk Mon-Fri in a poorly lit room, I finally get some outdoor time!

This week I started observation on the drilling of a water well. This is also the first time that I've be on a project that also directly corresponds to something that I studied in college. I have been having to work more hours than usual, but it is still a welcome change.

Home Owner

Well Carlos and I are now officially homeowners! (well mostly)

We had the closing for our home on Friday evening. We were not informed until the closing that the owner before the previous owner still needs to sign a quitclaim deed. So... as soon as that gets done then we will be officially homeowners!

The rest of our weekend went well. We played games with some friends on Friday after the closing.

Oh yeah! So this is sort of embarrasing... we barely finished writing out and sending thank you cards on Saturday for our wedding gifts. I figure better late than never... right???

The rest of the weekend consisted of workouts (running, step aerobics, and Tai Chi), laundry, and relaxing with my sweety!

Oct-Jan updates

So... what all has happened since the we went camping back in September '09?

Plenty to keep me busy. One of my friends and I decided to have a Halloween party. It went really well. Carlos and I went as Indians. He was actually Native American, and I went as an actual Indian.

Now that Carlos and I are married, we are at that point where we will be juggling the families during the holidays. This year we spent Thanksgiving with Carlos' family in Albuquerque. Then we spent Christmas with my family in Carlsbad. The holidays were, of course, very wonderful!

This past weekend I worked a retreat (it is called a Chrysalis Journey). It was very tiring, but very wonderful as well. It is always rewarding to work these weekends, although I do return home more than exhausted. Luckily I was able to take an extra day off of work to recover!

Well, that covers most of the larger events. Once again... hopefully I will update this more often in order to provide more insight into the Life of Amber.