The Unadventures of Tracie

Lilyan Mae McNeil was born on August 22, 2008 at 6:01pm. I'm so excited to have a new niece! She's utterly precious. Austin and I visited baby and parents in the hospital on Saturday and took them dinner yesterday evening. You can check out "Trent & Jess" under my blog list for more pics and information. Congrats to Trent & Jessica for the new addition to their family!

A few days ago Austin and I were taking a shower when all of the sudden the shower head goes shooting off! A hydrant-like spray of water then hit us with full force. It was pretty funny and shocking. Austin kept trying to fix it but it kept shooting off, causing me to squelch like a junior high girl several times. We kept trying to fix it until the rubber washer washed down the drain after another of its high-force attacks. Austin called our landlord and we got to take baths for a few days while we waited for it to get fixed. It was kinda fun (and annoying) taking a bath. It made me feel like I was living in the good ole days again when there were no massage showerheads and when the longer you're in the tub, the dirtier you got. Fortunately, our landlord got back to us and we have a new massage showerhead, which we didn't have before. (It's actually really fortunate that this happened as we've hated our showerhead since we've moved in as it leaked everywhere, causin...

Last weekend Austin and I went camping with Charity and James up at Rock Canyon. Their ward was having a campout, and they generously invited us to attend. After much packing and preparation, we barely made it up the mountain in our car. We discovered that our tent was much larger than I originally thought. (Not that it's huge or anything but I thought it wasn't big enough to hold the 4 of us. Turns out it could've.) Austin, with much sweat and vigor, put up our brand new still-in-the-box wedding present tent. Then we stuffed our faces with s'mores, turkey sausages, tin foil dinners, and s'mores. In that order. After dinner we discovered that our mighty tent had fallen, as in completely apart on the ground. Since it was now dark, we had to use lanterns, flashlights, and James's car headlights to put it back together again. Fortunately, we learned how to do it the right way (with James's help) and got it up and standing again. Putting the tent back ...

This is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. If you are particularly sensitive or easily offended, don't click on the link. For the rest of us (particularly women), check this out for something that made me laugh: P-Mate Oh, by the way, I found out this is a real product. Maybe I'll get one....

Don't you hate when you're waiting around forever for something you want, and then when you finally get it, you don't like it? So about a month and a half ago I made an eye appointment because I was on my last pair of contacts and needed new ones. I go to my appointment to find out that wearing my contacts too long has caused an eye infection and that my eyes are too damaged to get an accurate reading. So I was to wear only my glasses and come back in a week. I HATE wearing my glasses full-time, but I wanted my eyes to heal so I wore them. I also had to put a substance similar to vaseline in my eyes at night every night. That was great gobby fun. No, it was annoying. After a week of this, I went in again to find out that my eyes still hadn't healed so I was told to get eye drops and come back in ANOTHER week. I was not happy about this. But I used the eyes drops and came back in...to discover my eyes STILL weren't healed and to come back at the end of the week, wh...

I'm the worst wife ever. Last night I made a mistake. A horrible mistake. So I was cutting Austin's hair right? It was really long and poofy on the sides like it always gets. So I plug in the clippers and brush them off and WITHOUT THINKING cut into his hair WITHOUT putting on the right extension piece first. Yep, I am an idiot. Fortunately it didn't go all the way to his skin and we cut his hair short anyway. Since I did not want to have to shave his head and knowing that hair grows back quickly, I continued with the haircut. I tried to blend it in, but there is still an obvious streak on the back of Austin's head. We took a picture. It'll be posted when I get home. I'll just say I've never felt more awful. I wanted to cry. I hope he still love me.

So I've received some good financial news, which is good considering all the bad that has happened lately. I received a bonus from work so now I can buy a camera (and a new computer for Austin). And I also received a raise. It's only fifty cents, but it made me happy because I didn't know if we would ever get raises. It boosted my spirits though it won't really make any financial difference. Gotta accentuate the positive!

So remember how I said I while ago I wanted a gym pass? Well, I got one! For a really good price too. A perk of Austin's new job is gym passes to Gold's. They're not free, but it's a really good deal. Austin didn't have to sign a contract and for every time he goes, he get a dollar off. (If he doesn't go at all, it's $20.) So if we go 20 times in a month, it's free! (For Austin anyway.) I had to sign a two-year contract but it's okay because I love going to the gym. And mine is only 17/month. We were going to buy an elliptical because I really love them but the one I wanted at Walmart increased in price and we weren't really sure we'd have the room. So now we're going to go to the gym, which is close enough to walk to, 3 to 5 times a week! I'm obviously excited. :) Oh, so we went for the first time tonight. It was great, and it felt really good to work out again. I'm going to start my work-out-every-day thing again, starting today...

Thanks Charlotte for the blog idea. After this post I will still be 4 posts behind. SCATTERGORIES... USE the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following, they have to be real...places, names, things-nothing made up. Try to use different answers if the person that sent it has the same first letter. And you can't use your name for the boy/girl question... What is your name? Tracie 4 letter word: Tiny Vehicle: Toyota TV show: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Body part: Toes Girl name: Trixie Boy name: Terrance Occupation: Truck driver Something you wear: Toga (thanks for the suggestion anonymous user. I accidentally forgot this one.) Food: Tortilla chips Something found in a bathroom: Towel Excuse for being late: Traffic (boring, but true) Something you shout: Thank you!

At long last Austin and I have finished the first draft of The Pirates of Madera , a one-act play we wrote for Troy. Many a time was spent procrastinating writing this thing but we still put a lot of work into it. Writing this we experienced bickerings, giggles, frustration, and long hours to finally get this done. We hope everyone, especially Troy and his activity group, enjoys it. It is currently up on Glass of Random for those that want to read it. If you don't have an invitation, let us know, and we'll email you an invite to be able to view our private fiction blog.

I just finished reading The Neverending Story for the first time. It's much different than the movies (particularly the second one). The first movie ends a little less than halfway through the book portion. Anyway, I really liked the book (though it did seem a little neverending to me). It totally put me in the mood to watch the movies. I LOVE the movies! If you didn't watch The Neverending Story growing up, I'd say your childhood was missing something. (Unless, of course, you weren't a child when it came out. ;) ) The story is one of the most imaginative stories I've ever read/watched. The movie was fascinating, scary, intense, sad, happy, and inspiring. Made you want to wish and dream. The book was the same way. I couldn't believe the imagination of the author. He created so many new and different things that were so creative. Made me wish I were that creative. I really liked the messages in the book as well. I remember watching the movie growing up and thin...

Is there anyone in the world who likes hiccuping? I sure don't. I don't mind sneezing. Sneezing feels relieving. Hiccuping is the most annoying thing. I had the hiccups consistently for over an hour last night. We tried everything to make them go away. I held my breath, drank water, Austin attempted to "scare" me, I stood up and stretched. Nothing worked! I hiccuped so much I started to feel nauseated. And my stomach felt all crampy. They eventually went away by themselves, but it really was horrible. At least it didn't become like this or this . Okay, so the title isn't accurate. I don't really have any other maladies to relate. But I thought it made for a good title and I was getting tired of using the date as a title.

It seems that I will be posting a day late for things. I'm finding this goal really hard. Austin and I don't do enough to have anything to write about. Let's see..yesterday I drove up to work, which was really difficult as I got less than four hours sleep the night before. I'm feeling MUCH better today as one, yesterday I took a 2-hour nap and two,I went to bed and got to sleep in as I'm working from home today. I've been having a really difficult time sleeping lately. Must be all the stress. Am I the only one who really can't function on small amounts of sleep? I used to be able to pull all-nighters every once in a while and get by fine on four hours of sleep when I was a teenager. And then when I was 19 I pushed my body much too hard by staying up too late, waking up too early, and working 8-hour days exerting physical energy in a warehouse. After a few months of this, my body collapsed from pure exhaustion and fatigue. Ever since then I haven't been a...

Agh! I'm doing horrible at this whole thing. It's past midnight so this will now post on August 4th instead of the 3rd. I vow to be better! Random thoughts/musings for Sunday: The mountain is on fire again. It seems to happen almost every summer. The sunset was absolutely beautiful tonight. I got to see it as Austin and I took a walk around my parent's neighborhood. My neck is absolutely killing me. It's completely stiff, and I have no idea why. Tomorrow is Austin's first day at a new job. Everyone wish him luck! I feel much better about things. I want to get a gym pass. Comcast's Internet isn't as "blazing fast" as they advertise. I joined my first ever hate group so I can post on its forums. I can't say what it's for since it's something that's very popular among my readers. Charity, you know what it is. I promise to make up for my lameness in blowing my goal the second day into it.

Austin and I went to see The Dark Night on this night. (August 2 that is.) I really liked it. I don't think I can say I loved it because it isn't the type of story that I could really get into. It didn't make me think or feel anything (for the most part). However, I did think the film quality and performances were very good. The cinematography was very well done. I found Gotham to be a believable and real city. I loved the effects on Two Face. My problem with the movie is it didn't have enough Batman for me. I felt like he was pushed off to the side a little bit. I found myself wanting to see Batman (and Bruce Wayne) more. For this reason I liked the first movie more. But you could say this movie wasn't about Batman. It was about the Joker. And if you take it that way, the movie did succeed. I thought Heath Ledger's performance was amazing. I couldn't believe it was him. He succeeded in creating one of the scariest bad guys ever. He was downright creepy....

Things are looking up a little. Austin has had a few job offers and has accepted one. I'll let him tell you about that whole thing. But anyway, I think we'll be okay. Though I am still mourning our loss of a car. Good thing I work from home most of the time now. So, Charity and I were talking the other day about not having anything to write about and Charity remarked that we probably do have something to write up every day it's just that we don't happen to notice it as a "something" in our life. So Charity and I decided that we would blog every day during the month of August to write about all the "nothings" that happen in our life. So now you can look forward to reading a little something from me each day. :)