Living in Phoenix

So we looove our house!! Except for the part where we still don't have hot water turned on, any appliances hooked up, or air conditioning! Haha. Right now we are selling Vivint's home automation door-to-door and it's going very well. Richard is currently the top salesman in his office and if we sell a few more we'll have our appliances already completely paid off. The hard part is that we are gone all day from 10am until 11 at night. It's at least a 12 hour day, if not longer. That basically means that if we wanted certain things turned on, we aren't home to let in the technicians and stuff like that. So hopefully by this weekend we will have a fully functioning living space.

We decided to cancel our trip to Thailand, because we would rather have money! We booked the trip before we realized we'd be buying a house in Arizona, and we had no plans for the summer at that time. Other than that, graduation was wonderful! My mom came out and saw me as well as Rich's parents. We had to move out the left over things from our already pretty bare apartment so it wasn't too bad. From there we went on a trip to Hawaii with the Low's and had a great time.

well this blog post was boring. no pictures or anything! Once I have even 20 minutes to spare I MIGHT change that.

Dessert Baking blogs = fatty fat blogs

First, I would like to point my finger at cup-cake, cake-decorating, any sort of mommy-is-constantly-baking-unhealthy-crap blogs.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? You are basically signing yourself up to gaining 20 lbs because you are cooking up amazing desserts! And making enough for at least a crowd of 12 people!

Am I the only one that looks at these blogs of people baking and frosting things on facebook and wondering why someone feels inclined to bake batches and batches of cupcakes 3 times a week for the sake of their BLOG? Sure, baking them for special occasions or for crowds makes sense, but for the heck of it, constantly? Yes, they are cute, but are they worth being glorified so much? Last time I checked, a cupcake never gave me insane amounts of pleasure. Only a sick feeling that came about 5 minutes after eating it because of their intense sugary-ness.

Maybe they simply adore having one bite of their creations. I, for one, have NO sense of self-control when it comes to sweets, so I have to be entirely removed from the temptation or else I will eat the entire batch of cookies I bake.

When I lived in the nursing home, I loved the desserts and had one every night. What happened? I gained 15-20lbs that I have been trying to lose for the past year and a half.

So that is my warning. It's like saying to the world "Hey!! Look at me! I stay at home with kids all day and I REALLY want to get fat! See pictures of me eating crap with my husband, are you SOO jealous??" Actually, no, not at all. You are making yourself look like a fool.

Then again, they may have great self-control and don't have issues over-eating with sweets. It still won't end very well. Someone is gonna want to eat those delicious treats. And clean off all of those dishes...washing dishes isn't fun!

Ironically, writing this makes me want a cupcake.

Our "pulchritudinous" home

A few weeks ago, we went down to Arizona in hopes of finding a cheap home to live in for the next four years, and hopefully in a nice-enough area where it will appreciate amid the housing burst down in Phoenix. With much research and house-shopping, we found a golden one. It was a little out of our price range, but it was still 100 grand cheaper than it was originally, making it cheaper than it was to even build the home. It came in a great area to boot, and we immediately fell in love. The only problem was that our offer eventually fell under 4 other ones, all of which were investors or 2nd home buyers. They offered more for the home than we did, but the bank was so kind to give it to use because we will actually be primary occupants! I felt very vindicated, because it truly wouldn't be fair if the investors and the 2nd home buyers always won every beautiful home in the phoenix area!! Nobody wants to live in a ghost neighborhood where all the homes are empty because they are owned by rich people who never visit. Anyway, we were both ecstatic when we got the phone call that our foreclosed home is now ours, and that after the next month (as we are closing) we can finally start moving in!

The only downsides to our house is that there are a ton of empty lots nearby because the builder went bankrupt, but the good news is that there is a new builder that took over the neighborhood and is planning to build soon. Also, the previous owners stole the appliances when they moved out, so we have no dishwasher, oven, or microwave. At least they left the place meticulously clean and well taken care-of. It was built in 2007, so we are hoping that means the home will not need any fixing up. The inspector will check it out and let us know.

A couple of my favorite features are the arched entryways that Arizona homes seem to prize themselves with! The kitchen is very modern and the master bathroom is one of my favorites I've seen.



It seems this summer we couldn't find any permanent employment because we will be traveling a bit, so we are investigating summer sales! I swore I would never sell security or pest control, but apparently that is the only job that will take in people like us. It may be hard to do such jobs, but we have nothing else better to do, so there is nothing to lose, right?? Anyway, learning to sell is always a good skill to learn. There are lots of subtleties. So, door-to-door salesmen we shall be!

Student teaching is still going fabulously, I am really enjoying it. Richard has a freer schedule now, so I actually get to see him before 9pm every night! Also, we are house poor, and it's a very, very good kind of poor. I love it.

Salad is NOT filling!

For the past few weeks I've been religiously working out to videos indoors (need I explain how cold it is outside?), and I have felt/ seen some great results! The past couple of weeks I have only been eating salad for lunch AND sometimes dinner, and lately I am SO SICK of it! I tried it bc of a book titled "Eat to Live" which recommends salads for almost every meal. 'Yeah, right', I say! It's only filling if you drink tons of water and have lots of healthy toppings to go with it. Lettuce alone does not cut it. Even 1 lb of lettuce leaves me hungry later. It is so expensive and time consuming to run to the store all the time just to buy lettuce. However, if I do it right and plan ahead, salads can taste so good and leave me feeling very energetic because I'm not bogged down by a heavy meal to digest.

Anyway, student teaching is so wonderful! I love my cooperating teacher and I am learning a ton. I love having a solid routine for the first time in a few years, and it definitely helps to be distracted all day long so the days go by very fast. Some of the students crack me up. I like 7th grade because they are still in a period of adolescence where grades DON'T matter as much, and therefore you don't have to overly stress their grades affecting scholarships for college. I can teach the state core in fun ways without stressing a ton about their grades being perfect. I can focus on their learning for the state CRT test so "No Child Left Behind" likes us.

Anyway, life is so wonderful and great right now! If only Richard wasn't so insanely busy, coming home at 9pm every night. Ever since the Army physical stole two of his days of school he has been playing catch-up, trying to make up extensive labs, homework, and keep up with his 4 jobs. I still don't know why he piles so much on his plate but part of it was not his fault, it just all came to a head this semester. I guess that's what you get for postponing your hardest classes until AFTER you get accepted into Dental School.

Graduation is only 10 weeks away! (I counted!) We are so excited to be going to Hawaii and THAILAND this summer! (That is the reason I'm trying to lose weight....wanna look good in a swimsuit someday..)

So far we have bought our tickets and reserved some hotels, but we still need to finish up our planning! I've been so surprised at how MUCH there is to do in Thailand. Personally, I just want to do tons of hiking and see the wildlife (and catch insects, illegally of course....) *snicker*

I miss playing with HTML and Photoshop....

Gave my blog a makeover, do you like???







<3 Kristine

Some of my favorite kitchen tools!

So, this past month I have acquired some fun new kitchen tools at Target & as Christmas gifts, and I thought I'd share them because they'd make some great gift ideas or be convenient as a part of any kitchen.
Starting with some of the cheapest, these collapsible cup measure-rs are the BOMB. They don't fill up a ton of drawer space and the numbers (such as 1/3, 1/2, etc) never rub off b/c they are engraved into the plastic. They are a little pricier than normal measuring cups, but well worth it. These are about $15.00. They sell them at Target. Next time I'm invited to a wedding, I'm gettin' them these!!
I've recently discovered how much tasty-er home-made dressing is! There really is a different taste that is less vinegar-y and more fresh that livens up any salad if you use good ingredients. A salad-dressing emulsifier that I bought at target (that is actually a bit different from this amazon.com version) is great because it mixes and pours your dressing very well. I don't know how I survived without it, I was always getting oil stains on my clothes. I used to put my dressings in mason jars, but now I don't pour all over the floor instead of my salad. This cost about $12.00 at Target, great buy compared to some version by pampered chef.
This is a lemon-squeezer! Got it for Christmas, has already come in handy. Something I recently learned was to NEVER leave the entire lime or lemon rind in a slow-cooker. It makes your meat taste so acidic because the oils from the rind secrete out and make acid burns. Found this one on amazon for about $10.00.

The pampered chef garlic press is something I have been coveting. My mother-in-law uses it and you can crush the garlic very well without ever having to take off the skin.

A couple other kitchen tools I own that I truly adore include my Bosch Universal Mixer and my Nutrimill. I got these for our wedding, and they are very expensive, but I know they will last my entire life most likely, they are sturdy. The Bosch is like a kitchen-aide on steroids. :-) You can make six loaves of bread dough on this at once, and the blender is awesome. There are lots of attachments that you can buy for it, such as an electric cheese grater, food processor, juicer, pasta maker, pretty much anything you can think of.
AAANNNNND last but not least, my new-found LOVE:

THE DIGITAL PRESSURE COOKER!!I got this for Christmas, and it is now the love of my life. I seriously make every single meal with this thing. You can plump up dried beans in 22 minutes without ever using the stove-top. You can also cook a pot roast and it will be falling off the bone in 45 minutes! There are safety locks built in, so you don't have to ever worry about it exploding. You can slow-cook with it, brown your meats on it's 'browning' setting (which is HOT, burns garlic to a crisp if you dont watch it for even 1 minute), and of course an awesome pressure cooking setting. Love love love.

I never use my slow-cooker anymore, although I still like to use my rice-cooker because I'm way too lazy to cook that. And usually I need rice to accompany something that's already being cooked in the pressure cooker, otherwise I would use the pressure cooker for my rice. Maybe having 2 pressure cookers would be convenient? hmmmm....:-)

Well that concludes my list!!! ......for now....

Hundreds of Bugs, Dental School, Christmas & Our 2 year Anniversary

SO much news!!

First of all, I would like to show off my semester-long project:

These are my yummy bugs from my bug collection, where I had to collect 300+ specimens and they had to represent a large variety of Orders and Families. Soooo I have Cockroaches, Butterflies, Preying Mantises, Beetles, Bed Bugs, Bumble Bees, Wasps, Crickets, Grasshoppers, Fleas, Lice, and tiny tiny things like Thrips and Silver Fish. IT was NUTS! I did trade away some of my best specimens in order to have enough variety to get a good grade...sad...but it was worth it. So after all that work do I love bugs now? Yes. Yes I do. It convinced me that bugs are awesome regardless whether or not I thought the class itself was taught the way I would have liked. Plus, everyone in the class is in my program, and they are so fun!

Also, in other news, I would like to show off our very first Christmas tree. You see, the past two Christmases we have not had the opportunity/ money to get a Christmas tree, so this year I was extremely excited to put one up!!! We won't get to enjoy it on Christmas day, but the Homer's who are staying here while we're gone for their Grandpa's funeral will hopefully enjoy it.


So as you know, we have been dental school shopping, and have finally made the deposit and after hours of debating, crying, praying, and bouts of apathetic frustration we have made the decision for Richard to attend Midwestern in Glendale, Arizona. This was incredibly difficult decision because we wanted a balance of being close to home and provide Richard with great opportunities, and after visiting the school in Arizona (which is a very new school, and as a result we had very low expectations) we were really impressed and found that it offered some significantly great experiences. Sadly, it isn't near home, and that was a huge let-down, but in the end we feel like we have made the right choice.

A couple reasons why we chose it:

• Incredible clinical experience: It is the leading school when it comes to letting their dental students learn not only basic dentistry but also work that normally specialties would steal from them....such as root canals, implants and other advanced procedures. We honestly think this fact alone will put him ahead of the game.
  
• The curriculum is systems based, he would learn everything (histology, anatomy, physiology) about the lungs one week, then move on to the circulatory system, and then another system, etc. This is a great educational approach when you compare that to learning your histology separately from physiology and then later trying to apply those principles to the body parts you are concerned with.
  
• The breaks are pretty long compared to other dental schools. We would have at least a couple months off every summer, and two weak breaks from Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. This doesn't make up for the fact that we won't be near family, but it is definitely a nice plus.
• There is a continuing education center (for dentists that already have practices) located very close by where professionals from around the nation that are top in their field will teach classes on specific procedures that dentists can add to their practice and essentially earn more money. These classes can cost dentists up to 20 grand. The beautiful thing about this is that Richard would be able to take these classes for free as a dental student at Midwestern. Plus, the school invites these professionals over to teach the students about their specialties while they are in town.
  

We are excited to head North to Canada to spend Christmas with the Lows, which will be a special time since Richard hasn't done this with his family for 4 years. Between his mission, our marriage, and seeing my family last year, it has simply been a while! It will be my first Christmas away from home so I am really going to miss my family, but at least we got to see them over Thanksgiving break. That was so awesome.

Our 2 year anniversary is on this coming Monday. I still can't believe it has been 2 years!
We started off in the assisted living home and had many learning experiences, and learned how to live frugally and then when we moved to an apartment for the first time we really got in the groove of managing our own place and cooking our own meals, etc. We have really grown closer, and sometimes we are just silly weird goobers and I'm pretty sure if people saw how goofy we are together when we are alone they'd think we were complete idiots. Its ok though, we're still kids right??? We just know how to have fun together. That is my favorite part about how we've gotten closer---the fact that we can make anything fun!