Merry Puzzles – iPhone & iPad game

Did you know there's only like 9 days until Christmas? (We do both Hanukkah and Christmas in our house. Yes, there's probably a reason for tweets like this one: Heh. Truth be told, I haven't finished shopping - so a note from Santa is still a possibility. But I'm sure they'll be angels the day before just to make me feel guilty if I didn't get them anything... In any case, one present I got earlier this month was this Merry Puzzles app (available for both iPhone and the iPad). There's a bunch of adorable illustrations, cut into random little squares that you have to put back together again. The illustrations have built in animations you'll see once the puzzle is completed. There's a few different levels. Zach has stuck to the easy level. I tried one at the "expert" level... yeah, I'm no expert for sure. So there's definitely a huge range of challenges there! Merry Puzzles iPhone App: $0.99* Merry Puzzles iPad App: $1.99* *Price at time of this writing. I received a copy of this app for review purposes.

Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick Candles Giveaway

I am significantly behind on reviews/giveaways. This one has been sitting on my desk for awhile. Before we move to our house and all my materials get officially lost, I thought it would be a good idea to post the giveaway. I'll include their product information below, but I will say that I really do like these candles from Febreze. Right before we sold the house, I had the chance to try them out and I was really surprised to hear/see that the "wooden wicks" in the candle really do crackle. It's a very relaxing sound. 😀 And the candles smell really nice too. I'm looking forward to using them in our new house! Here are the product details from the manufacturer: No fireplace, no problem. Breathe a sigh of relief because the new Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick candle has you covered. Bring the calming crackle of a burning fire into your home anytime of year with 80 hours of “ahhhhhhhh.” Available in nine premium scents, these tranquil candles are specially designed with a wooden wick to recreate the ambiance and sound of a crackling fire indoors. Offering a brilliant range of everyday fragrances, Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick candles can help inspire a scent and design transformation in your home. Be sure to look for Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick candles at your local Walmart in fragrances like Green Tea Citrus, Pomegranate Mango, Cranberry Pear, Orange Honeycomb, Rosewood Plum and Willow Blossom; as well as seasonal scents that include Anjou Pear Spice, Gingersnap Vanilla, and Yumberry Sangria.

Giveaway:

I have one Walmart gift card to giveaway with $15 on it so you can try out these candles too! All that's required is that you leave a comment telling me which scent you're most likely to try. For an additional entry (up to one additional entry per day awarded) tweet the following - and leave a comment here for each tweet you make: Win a $15 Walmart gift card and try out a Febreze Home Collection Wooden Wick Candle! http://bit.ly/fLCGoV Contest ends December  27th, 2010 at 10pm PST. There is no purchase necessary to enter the contest. I will be using random.org to choose the winner. I’ll contact the winner via email, and he/she will have 48 hours to respond. After 48 hours, if I don’t receive a response, another winner will be chosen. Disclosure: Febreze provided me with the Febreze Wooden Wick Candle Kit, information, and the $15 Walmart gift card to giveaway through MyBlogSpark.

One month later

Holy cow. A whole month went by in a blink of an eye. Here's my update on life. Thanksgiving We went to Sam's mom's house. It was a nice reminder why I don't want to live where it gets cold. (It was really really cold!) Otherwise it was good. Rachel spent a ton of quality time with her aunt. Sam's mom got a good look into the insanity that is 5-year-old Zach. I had wanted to take a trip into the Boston, but it wasn't in the cards. Instead we visited the Yankee Candle factory in Deerfield. Haven't been there in years. House We closed on the house - but the sellers are renting it from us until next week. With Christmas around the corner, we're not sure when we'll be able to get our stuff in there though. So it will either be early next week or the week after. The kids sharing a room is really getting old for everyone involved - I'm anxious to give them their own rooms. We bought a new washer and dryer for the house, and I'm looking forward to using it. (We had old ones in the last house, so getting new ones really is exciting. Yes, I need to get out more.) Dog We finally came to the conclusion that there was a very specific list of things we wanted in our next dog. Size, look, fur length, weight, personality, etc. etc. so we've decided to get a labradoodle. We've put a deposit down on an upcoming litter - the same breeder my brother bought their dog from. It won't be until mid march until the puppies are ready to go home. ... and then the fun begins. It was just a little over a year ago ironically, that I posted about how I'm all too aware of all the training involved with a puppy. But, how can you resist a face like this: (That's not our puppy - but we're hoping there'll be a chocolate puppy in the litter like this one.) We even already have a name picked out. Sam's Job There's more news on this too, but I can't talk about it yet. 🙂 Weight With everything that has happened in the last few months, I have totally let my weight get out of hand. I know it's bad, but I refuse to look at the scale. But I don't get real control of my own life until we get moved into our own house. So I'm just going to deal with it then. Whatever I've gained... I lost it once before. I'll lose it again. :/ Besides. I'm going to have a dog in a few months that's going to need a lot of walks/runs. Need to get in shape!

Dog hunt

With the housing issue pretty much settled for now, we have begun our next hunt: the search for a dog. We can't get one until we get into the house (which is at least a month to two months away) but we're doing our preliminary research. Obviously key issues are the kids. As well, we want to make sure we get a dog that isn't too wild. Our home will be on the small side, but I'd like to get a dog that I can take for a run once in a while, so a medium sized dog would probably be best. Some breeds (and cross breeds) we've been looking at are: Golden Doodle Cockapoo Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier We've also considered seeing what the local humane shelters have available - although from what I can tell, the breeds they tend to have the most of are not ones that we're interested in. (Particularly boxers, pit bulls, and chihuahuas) Sometimes in the mix they might get one that seems interesting, so it will be a waiting game of sorts if we decide to go that route. We've taken a few online quizzes to see what breed would best suit our family and ironically, those also seem to miss the mark. (One actually suggested a St. Bernard. LOL!! Are you kidding? In a small house with no yard?! I don't think so) One idea we had was to go to a dog park and see a bunch of different dogs in action. Not that the behavior of one is always a representative of the entire breed, but at least it gives you an idea for a range of behavior.

Settling in

Things have settled down from when I posted last. We got some resolution on some open and scary issues. With that resolution, we were able to make an offer on a really nice townhome, just outside of a really nice town (walking distance). Everyone has signed off on the paperwork, so now we just wait. It will be about a month or two before we can actually start moving in, but at least we know a home is definitely within our future. Living here will not be easy - and we'll be carefully watching every penny we spend. We'll be living on a tighter budget than we ever had. That is pretty scary to me - but we'll do what we have to do. Anyway - the last time I posted, things were pretty much at their worst. So I felt I had to update. The next few weeks will still be hectic - I have work that has piled up while we've been busy with house stuff. And then there's Thanksgiving - we'll be visiting Sam's family back in Massachusetts. And then right after that is Hanukkah... then Christmas... Then sometime then or shortly after we'll start moving into the house... I'm glad we went to Hawaii when we did. It will be a long time before I can afford another trip like that - and while the rest of the chaos is going on, at least I know the place now and can go there in my mind when I need to escape. 😉

A Beautiful Mess

The last month has been a whirlwind. We're in California now, but I'm not sure for how long. We made the decision to come here based on some things that have now apparently changed since we arrived. It's a total mess. I hate to say it, but this was a horrible horrible mistake. It feels like a long series of events happened that were never meant to be. I'm praying that there will come a time very soon that we can get back on track, my kids can get back on track - and we can all live our lives with minimal damage from all of this - both financially and emotionally. I keep trying to find the bright side and at the moment it's not real clear. Aside from my getting to spend some quality time with my parents for the next 6 months or so - that's about the only good that I think will have come from this. We may still yet be headed to Portland, OR. I'm not sure. Our lives are completely up in the air, but I'm done destroying my kids academic year. We won't make any more changes in their lives until the end of the school year. Then I'll work on righting the wrongs. Until then we have to live with the mess we made.

Reflections

This time next week, I will have started an entirely new phase in my life. At least that's the way it feels. Everything will be different than it was before. I'm definitely ready for some "different." When we moved here about 5-1/2 years ago, I always knew this was a temporary arrangement. I never intended to stay in Utah forever. When people asked me what I thought about living here, my canned response was "It works for us for now." Over the past year, it's been more and more clear that it was working less and less for us on so many levels. I am not a very religious person, and I don't believe in "God" per se, but the way things have been going, I feel that what we are doing is following a path that "something" laid out for us. Everything has fallen into place, like it was always meant to be. Like it was planned out that way long before the thoughts came to me. It's a weird fence to be sitting on when I really don't "believe." Either way, I'm just following the road as it goes along. The decisions were tough because of the doubt, but once they were made, everything came together. I've been looking at houses out there, and I've found a few things that were close to what I would like, but not perfect. This of course makes me question everything, and lets doubt creep in - but I'm also trying to hold onto the belief that this is all happening exactly as it is supposed to and no matter how much I worry about it - it makes no difference. It will all fall into place at just the right time, and not a moment before. It's true - if the perfect house came on the market now, it would not be good - because we are not there yet, and can not buy it. So I have this crazy hope that just when I need the house, it will be there. And that may be the first day we get there, or it may be a few months from now. But we won't be "homeless" forever. The other thing I've been thinking about is how we will survive the next while... Let me paint a picture for you: my parents house is relatively small. Well, it's a perfect size for them: a retired couple that occasionally has a visitor. Not really designed to hold as many people as will be living there very soon. A 1500 (or 1400?) square foot, 3-bedroom house for 6 people. "Tight" doesn't even begin to describe it. We'll be loading up their garage with all the stuff we couldn't put in storage. We're converting their office into a bunk bed kids bedroom, and of course Sam and I will be taking over their guest bedroom. When I described the situation to a client of mine, he said it sounded like the premise of a sitcom. I totally agree. I really feel like I need to document our life there, because at some point (probably not DURING) I'm going to look back on that time and laugh at how crazy it all was. At least I hope so. But above everything else going on right now is this huge anticipation - that this isn't "just another move." This is just the beginning of something huge. That for the past 5-1/2 years we were in limbo - we were in the "waiting place." And NOW finally, stuff is going to happen. What that "stuff" is... I really have no idea. But I think it's going to be great!