One Year Since My Last Post: A Quick Update!

I know I have mentioned it before, but I am a bad blogger.  I come to realize I have the same syndrome with blogging as I do with laundry. I get busy, projects/ laundry pile up, I get overwhelmed by that, I neglect them more,  pile gets bigger, and before I know it I have mountains of laundry and Todd is yelling at me about having no underwear.  Well, similar minus the underwear part. 

Basically, I have not blogged in just over a year! Yikes! Told you I was bad.  So much has gone on and changed.  We are in a completely different place in life.  It would be too overwhelming to post it all so I have made a list of highlights.  Hopefully with it all out in the open I will take this as a fresh start and blog about one thing at a time now.  Probably not.

In the past year…

I graduated nursing school, passed my NCLEX, and landed my dream job as an Oncology ICU/ Stem Cell Transplant nurse at Banner Gateway! I never dreamed that I would even have a job in a hospital as a new grad let alone one that has afforded me so many additional learning opportunities.

Todd went back to school full time as a dietetics student and is getting straight A’s. The plan is for him to go to PA school but we will see how that works out.  Right now he’s just focusing on getting his Registered Dietician license.

I have worked on a few pieces of furniture for myself, friends, and family. Made bunting, garland, wreaths, lamp shades, cut off shorts, painted our room and redecorated the guestroom.

We went on a spectacular trip to Las Vegas with my parents for our birthdays last year and to celebrate my graduation.  We made several trips to California to see Todd’s family; visiting Catalina, Huntington, some alfalfa festival to see third eye blind, birthdays, an annual Christmas party and a shower.

We searched and searched and finally found a new couch.  Leather was a requirement with our pups. 

We celebrated family birthdays, our birthdays, our four year anniversary, and plenty other holidays.

Dusty, our goofy golden doodle, joined the family.

My parents treated us to the most amazing trip to Hawaii. Which included and ocean front room, a luau, paddle boarding, a sunset dinner cruise, ziplining, and plenty of tanning, swimming and eating. The best parts, other than our whole family being there together, were definitely when whales came only a few feet from out paddle boards and the trip up to Haleakala to watch the sunset then biking the 30 some odd miles back down!

I am currently in the process of growing my annual giant sunflowers.

I have been working four and even five days some of the past few weeks as we have been preparing for and received out first stem cell transplant patient.

Almost every day the past year has been a reminder how blessed we are.  We have definitely had our struggles and stressful moments, but even then, working too much, having too much homework, and not knowing what flooring to decide on are all good problems to have.

So there ya go! The last year in 480 words ;)

It is amazing what 12 months can do.  I feel like we are finally out of the woods. Since we got engaged the plan was get married, get into school, finish school, get a real job. Once that finally happened Todd was working and going to school full time and I was in class and working so much we barely even had time to do anything else.  

Since we were 17 and 19 we have both had tunnel vision to make it to that goal, normal adult life (if there is such a thing?).  But, it finally feels like we have made it.  Like we are through the tunnel and I can actually see what's behind the light we have been running towards. It's an awesome feeling.  So now what!?

There are lots of other exciting adventures in store for the Pages in the next coming months so stay tuned! I will do my best to stay on top of this thing to keep everyone in the loop.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Gosh! Where to even begin? Since my last post so much has happened.  Little things I guess, but it feels like a lot.  It seems like the last SIX months went by in the blink of an eye.  The holidays and time spent with our families was amazing. Todd and I were able to take a much needed break and have some fun adventures.

First, I was so excited that my amazing friend Chelsea allowed me to take maternity pictures of her and her husband Justin.  We took the pictures in October and it was absolutely scorching the day we decided upon.  They were total troopers, although Chelsea did get a little grumpy towards the end. Baby Mason decided to grace the world with his wonderful presence shortly after.  I will be dedicating an entire post to his nursery.  Chelsea also allowed me to assist in the design J She is so creative, has impeccable taste and is also amazing at finding great deals.

Next, Todd and I celebrated our anniversary with an RV trip to Sedona.  We stayed in a really cute RV park on the Verde River.  We got to take the pups, which was a nice change.  Todd and I decided that once we make our fortune we will be investing in an RV.  We hiked in Sedona and then spent another day in Jerome.  It was a nice little family get away and one of the only perks of Todd working for Cruise America.

We celebrated one of our best friend, Bens, birthdays.  We are so lucky to have Ben in our lives.  He house sits, provides the muscles for my lofty projects, brings treats to Bachelor Monday, and actually listens to my stories about school and work.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family and had an amazing meal. My mom’s dishwasher ironically broke the night before so it required quite a bit of hand washing. The next day we left for a quick trip to the Grand Canyon with Todd’s family.

I finished my 5^th of 6 semesters and was able to enjoy two weeks off of school.  I also was able to start a new job.  All of our praying for the right opportunity paid off.  I actually landed a job in the ICU at Banner Gateway as a patient care assistant.  My position combines the scope of a nurse’s aide and a unit secretary.  I have perfect hours working evenings so I am able to go to school and skill keep my other job.  Although I have cut back my hours I am not fully ready to move on.  I’ll save that for another post.  I am thoroughly enjoying myself and am excited for the opportunities that will hopefully follow.  Shortly after, more of our prayers were answered when Todd was offered a job at Liberty Market in Gilbert almost four months after he applied.  He is absolutely loving his job and we both are appreciative of the hours.  I have not slept alone in over three month!!

Next came Christmas.  I worked really hard on a dresser for my mom and a chest for my sister.  I was really happy with the way they turned out.  I also made my sister-in-law a clothes line frame.  My Grandma and Poppy we here for Christmas again which made it even better.  I love them so much and being around them makes me want to work harder in life and in my marriage. I made myself the popular Pinterest ruffle tree skirt.  It took a long time and required lots of glue but I love how it turned out.  I also finished a wooden Christmas tree made out of left over pallet pieces.

After the New Year rolled around it was right back to school.  After ten weeks of class, one week of finals, and seven shifts in the hospital I am officially eligible for my licensing exam!  I will be back at school next week to hear about continuing education opportunities, graduation ceremony details, NCLEX study, and another practice test and I will be done, done on April 20^th. I AM ALMOST A NURSE!!

Also, this past sunday was Easter.  We had an amazing time at Rawhide with my family.  We over ate at the buffet, watched pig races, took old western pictures, and I actually rode a mechanical bull.  It was wonderful and I now have a giant bruise on my inner thigh.  No one mentioned it would hurt so bad. 

Hopefully you will forgive me for my lack of posting.  I have many projects planned for the coming weeks.  Stay tuned for more updates as I redo a bathroom, transform a kitchen island, and work on some extrafantabulous pallet art.

PS. It is my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious husband’s birthday today!!  He manages to remind me everyday how blessed I am to have him in my life, I am a lucky girl. Oh and if you want to follow, but don't have your own blog you can still follow by email, hint hint grandma ;)

Being Poor Makes You Crafty!

I was showing my dad some pictures of projects I had been working on the other day.  After he told me how great they looked he added, "You are much better at that than your mom, being poor makes you crafty." The King of backhanded compliments was right! We all did alot of laughing.

Another blog post!! Wow! I must have a huge test tomorrow… YUP! Pharm! But more importantly, Todd's Uncle Rod, Aunt Kristy, Cousin Lindsay and her husband Aaron and sweet new baby Evie came into town from California this weekend.  We were so so so excited to see them.  We invited them over for doughnuts and coffee, espresso, and tea (or milk in Kristy’s case).  Because we were having people over I needed to make sure the house, downstairs at least, was in good shape.  With the house looking nice it was the perfect time to actually take pictures of all my recent projects.  My sister, Kate, told me my blog had too much writing and not enough pictures so here you go…

The downstairs view from the front door.  You can see we finally have flooring and baseboards!!

We recently added to the collage on the TV wall and started a new one on the opposite wall. 

With help **Thanks BEN** I pulled apart two pallets, put them back together as one and added a big “P”.  I had seen a similar, smaller, pallet project with the word “love” written on it but Todd hates anything with words on it, particularly words like “Love”, “Hope”, “Wish”, or “Family” so we agreed a P would be perfect !

Also, Todd recently bought me an adorable frame from Ross.  The only problem was that it was bright pink.  So I ran right out to wal-mart, checked the clearance section, and found a perfect green spray paint.  I sprayed it, added some fabric and voila!

In my last post I mentioned turning a dresser I had found at Good Will.  I removed the top three drawers, added a shelf, painted, and distressed the dresser.  The best 10 bucks I have ever spent.

Before:

After:



After making the dresser I was left with three extra drawers.  We had been keeping the mail on the kitchen counter in a napkin holder and the dogs had gotten to them several times.  They love to shred paper so it wasn’t working out so well.  I decided to make a mail box out of one of the extra drawers.  I really like how it turned out.

Other projects include a sign that says “sola fide” which means “faith alone”.  I made it out of another piece of pallet. 

I made my first chalk board.  It doesn’t work so well on cardboard so next time I will purchase some thin MDF from Home Depot, but it definitely looks cute.

To celebrate the Fall/ Halloween Season I attempted to decorate.  I made some leaf garland out of dried leaves Todd’s Grandma Carol had brought down for us when we got married.  I also found some wood scraps, painted them white, and glued leaves on them.  I used the centerpiece from our sweetheart table on the kitchen table.  Nan bought us a pumpkin and we bought some mums too!

Also, I made a Halloween tree out of the branch of a dead plant.  I sprayed it black, added some webbing, and glued on some colorful spiders.  It makes me happy J Oh and you may also notice some creepy pictures on the TV wall.  Those are just for Halloween and will be coming down.

The kitchen is always a work in progress...



I have been planning on painting the door since we moved in.  It was originally supposed to be a burgundy color but the builders left it a cream color.  I have been noticing black doors on blog, in movies, and on TV so I have had the itch.  I finally convinced Todd it would look ok and promised I would repaint it if he didnt like it.  He LOVED it.  Good for me :) I also made my first wreath.  I used a pool noodle, wrapped it in denim, added some felt flowers and some more made out of Todds old Starbucks aprons.  I love it.  It's a happy fall wreath.

Aren't my babies so sweet?

Oh, and more pallets for future projects.