Spring cleaning

Today we slept in. Its nice to do that now and again. Since last August, Nick and I have committed to the 5pm service at our Church. Doing so means that we can sleep later than 8am on Sunday, and it is awesome! When I got up today at 9 it was already around 60 degrees. At 10 when I opened all the windows and doors to take advantage of the cross breeze that floated thru the house, it was around 68. Our high today was 71. It was very nice. We spent about 3 hours cleaning the house. The kind of cleaning that is just shy of spring cleaning. Nick helped out quite a bit and I am grateful for that. Without his help I would have been cleaning for about 6-7 hours I'm sure. We got groceries and then headed to church. When we got there the sirens were going off. Apparently Washington County was under a tornado warning. Good thing the Genesis room is a "safe shelter" for severe weather. Turns out, the questionable radar stuff was to our east and moving north. What a good place to be if weather is bad huh?

When we got home it was still about 65 degrees, and still light out, so we took chester for a short walk. It was very nice.

Im down to my last 2 loads of laundry and working on editing some pictures from the "Super Cruise."

What a great day!

do you feed canned food?

Im sure by now anyone that has a pet, knows someone with a pet or follows the news has heard about the pet food recall. A large manufacturer has recalled lots of cans of food because of possible contamination that is making pets sick. I, working in a vet clinic, have personally fielded about 8-10 calls per day. This wouldnt be a bad thing, but most of the people that call us, have never fed the products. Then there is the majority of the callers (or stopping in) that may have fed the products that were recalled and are very worried. But I have never talked to more people that wanted their pets to be sick. It is just very weird. Im not sure if it falls into the hypochondriac category, or Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome? (due to it being the pet and not themselves) It really is strange that people call to find out symptoms, insist their pet has at least 2 or 3 of them, but then declines any exam or labwork which could tell us for sure if their pet suffers from kidney failure. I guess everyone wants to own a piece of this huge food recall.

Nick got the surround sound working today...here we come Top Gun. (the only tom cruise movie I like)

Sudoku adict

So, for any of you that dont know, numbers are not my thing...but I have become a Sudoku adict. Im not sure if they were gifts or exactly how we got 2 books in the house, but I have stolen both books and work on it any chance I get....so long alzheimer's!

Nick and I have decided to do the Cottage Grove Relay for Life. The day is July 13, 2007. Don't worry, we will be asking all of you to donate.

We spent yesterday in Waconia with my parents. We are trying to get everything cleaned out of the basement and upstairs (attic) in preparations for the Garage Sale. (stop in, we will give you a great deal!) We also had dinner at Timberlodge. It was not the best experience we have had there, but we got steak! mmmm....steak.

We did get to have some Corned Beef and Cabbage today. It was pretty good.


I tried to make sure I had enough links in my post...dont want to disappoint the fans...

(By the way, I do love your comments...but feel free to include who you are)

Green beer , corned beef and cabbage.....

3 things I will not be doing to celebrate St. Patty's Day. In fact, my celebrating will involve hanging out with my niece, Micah (pictured at right). Nick will join me when he is done working.

I spent the past week dog-sitting for Baxter, a blue-merle dachshund. While I was there, Emmitt (the cat) grew thumbs and let Chester out of the office (where he stays when we arent home) and he proceeded to let himself into the treat bin and gorge on milk bones, chew sticks and raw hide chews. Needless to say, "the putz" has had some GI upset and was begging to go outside every 2 hours. Poor dog....I wish I could say that would teach him, but it wont.

I also learned this week that my blog was set to only allow registered users to comment. I have changed that. Sorry Foodie, but now that you have created a blog, you can use it as a way to inform the world of all your thoughts, or just waste time....which ever!

Happy Californium Discovery Day!

old farmers almanac

Don't ask why I figured it was a good idea to look at the Old Farmers Almanac site. It just did. But I did learn about cricket chirps and how to convert that to the tempurature. Count the number of chirps in 14 seconds and add 40. Maybe this year if we are cursed with loads of crickets again, I can work on converting the chirps to degrees.

I also learned that Julius Caesar was assassinated on March 15, 44 B.C. (no, I did not know that)

Did you know that Oregon, Minnesota and Texas are the only states west of the Mississippi that do not have at least 2 straight (or nearly straight) boundries? Interesting stuff!

Here's to Old Farmers!

Deep Thoughts....

by Alesha Schutz
(ok, maybe just random thoughts)

It is still weird for me to see Schutz as my last name...even more weird for me to say it. I guess 28 years and 2 months of a name kind of gets you in a habit.

Even as I write this the 2 feet of snow we had just one week ago is being reduced to puddles and melty, mere inches of snow. The beauty of March storms. The current temp (at 5pm) is 46 degrees. Nick and I went for a walk earlier. He never thought 45 degrees was going for a walk weather until he lived in MN for 2 years. We passed 3 guys playing ping pong in the parkinglot. (yeah, I dont know...) They were wearing t-shirts, one was wearing shorts. Nick was a little confused. I guess when you grow up in Florida and live all your life in the south, this can be a little strange.

I found out today that my very good friends Mary and Nate are expecting baby #4. How exciting. All of their kids (unless there are more down the road) will be in elementary school before we even start thinking about kids.

We have a meeting tomorrow for the church plant. Woodbury Lutheran has voted to pass the church plant issue. This fall (Sept?) Pastor Ben, Guitar Brian and a group of people from WLC will be starting a church in Cottage Grove. Nick and I will be among this group. This church will be a ministry focused church. I'm excited about the change and the challenge ahead.

After a very discouraging visit to my periodontist on Monday, I called and talked to the dentist that is doing all the restoration to my actual teeth. Can I just say I love his office. They totally go the extra mile to make me feel like a valuable part of their practice. I can only hope people feel the same way about my vet clinic. If any of you reading this need a recommendation for a cosmetic/restoration dentist...or even for general dentistry, I will be happy to pass them along.

I think thats all for now.

Don't you love the dentist

Today has been a very difficult day for me, made worse by the fact that I started by taking sedating medication. My day was supposed to involve tissue grafting to my upper jaw. Long story short, the dentist got in and realized he couldn't do it as planned and he broke my teeth in the process. (There is lots of explaining there, just ask if you really want to know....) So now the hard part...I started with drugs, I spent $40 to get the medications I would need, I wasted my time going to see him (again) and my husband's time (he had to miss class) and part of the day of my sister-in-law, Aimee and my niece, Micah who came to pick me up. Oh, and my upper lip was numb for 12 hours. The reason I think it was a waste of time, is because Ive seen this guy about 5 times now. He has copies of radiographs, pictures, write ups and the benefit of having seen my mouth, minus the temporary teeth, in all its dental implant glory. Now, despite all of these things, he still didnt realize until today, 30 minutes into the procedure, after breaking the temporary bridge that he wouldn't be able to do the grafting the way he wanted to. Don't get me wrong, I dont want him to do a procedure that will cause damage, or just flat out wont work.....but how does one get that far into the whole deal before realizing he needed a different plan. I understand that implants and the stuff to go with them have changed alot since I got these somewhere about 5 years ago, but he knew that part too.... So now my mouth is sore and I feel like crap, and I'm not a bit closer to being done dealing with my teeth....again.

The silver lining: I totally justified having ice cream for supper tonight!

We also watched The Big Lebowski tonight. I'm not a fan. Maybe its the drugs....maybe it didn't live up to the hype from my husband...whatever it was...I wasn't impressed.

Celebrating a 9th anniversary

March 6 will mark the 9th anniversary of my car accident. I will be celebrating this by....having more oral surgery. I go in tomorrow (march 5) for surgery to graft/restore some gum tissue. I am a little nervous about it, as this is a procedure I have not gone thru. I do plan to milk it for all the ice cream and sympathy I can get from my hubby....

4 years of Ramen noodles

We found out this past week that Nick has been accepted into the U of M Pharmacy Program, class of 2011. Here's to eating Ramen and cheap hotdogs! (Keep in mind we will be living off my meager Vet Tech salary)

On the topic of good news...our church has voted to proceed with a church plant. Nick and I will be part of the group going to the new site. Not much has been decided, other than it will be in Cottage Grove. Next week starts the informational meetings. We have all kinds of exciting changes in our future.

Life on the Tundra

Life in MN includes snow. While we have been spoiled the last few years with mild tempuratures and lesser snow falls, this year, "global warming" got a run for its money. The Twin Cities saw back to back snow storms that made the record book. Total snowfall in Cottage Grove is about 20-22."

The blizzard conditions closed highways and even shut down the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus for the first time since the Halloween storm in 1991. About 400 flights were canceled at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

And I still had to work. Most of the area has spent Friday clearing snow from sidewalks, driveways and streets. I'm sure this will contiune thru the weekend. Ahhh, its great being in MN!