Lately

I just read my friend Joy's post about how time flies and I couldn't agree more.  I can hardly believe it is already late May!  We have been having a lot of fun this year, but sometimes I wonder if we are staying TOO busy.  Lately we have been:

Climbing:  We have gotten back into rock climbing since we moved to ABQ and we have been happy to discover numerous outdoor climbing spots within a 2 hour radius of ABQ.  As an added bonus, my upper body is the strongest it's ever been :).

Running: Micah and I both entered a lottery to run in the La Luz Trail Run (9 miles up a trail to the Sandia Crest in ABQ).  We were both selected to run the race so we have been spending time running on the trails, which are actually only about a mile from our new house!  I have never been much of a trail runner since I easily turn my ankles and going up is just hard, but I am actually having a lot of fun with it.  The race is August 7 so we need to get in a lot of good training between now and then!

Settling In: We are 99% moved into our new place.  We really love the location and the house suits us much better than the house we were in for our first six months in ABQ.

WFR Course: Micah and I both signed up for a Wilderness First Responder course.  I am still a bit apprehensive as we have to go to class Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:00-9:00 p.m. for the next six weeks, plus attend three day long Saturday sessions, but so far I have been learning a lot.  Yesterday we learned how to take each other's blood pressure, this weekend we will be learning splinting, and eventually we will even learn how to deliver a baby in case of emergency!  The course is intense, but I think we will both feel safer in the wilderness after we have proper training.

Celebrating Micah's Birthday:  Okay, this hasn't actually taken as much time as the other things we have been doing, but Micah's 29th birthday was this past Monday.  He doesn't really like to celebrate his birthday, but I decided it would be a great excuse to have new friends over to the house.  On Sunday evening we grilled and enjoyed great company!  Crazy that I have been around for 13 of Micah's birthdays!  That makes us feel like we are getting old...

We are really enjoying life in ABQ.  We have been blessed with jobs, great friends, a good church, and mountains in close proximity so that we can get out and enjoy the activities that we love. 

Driving Us Crazy

The song "This is the Stuff" by Francesca Battistelli has been our theme song for the last week.  If you aren't familiar with the song, here are the first few lines:

I lost my keys in the great unknown
And call me please 'Cuz I can't find my phone

This is the stuff that drives me crazy
This is the stuff that's getting to me lately


Micah and I had a week of mishaps after moving into a new rental house last Saturday.  We knew it was going to be stressful and exhausting as moving always is, but we didn't count on having so many problems.

On Sunday night I decided to cook again since we had been spending a lot of money on take-out with the move.  We decided to make quesadillas, which fortunately can also be made in a microwave, because we quickly found out that the stove didn't work.  The landlord came over the next day and determined that they had plugged the stove into the wrong outlet so it wasn't getting enough voltage, so it now works.

On Monday evening Micah decided to try to raise the shower rod while taking a shower.  Usually shower rods are easy to move, but this one snapped in half!  Since I take a shower in the morning and the other shower did not yet have a rod, this mishap resulted in a late night trip to Target for a replacement rod.

On Tuesday we went back to the old house to load up a trailer with more of our stuff and to start cleaning the house.  We left the old house around 9:00 pm and Micah drove his motorcycle to the new house and I drove the car pulling the trailer.  I do not know how to back up a trailer, so when I got to the new house Micah ran out and hopped in the driver's seat.  I brought my purse into the house and came back out to direct Micah.  When we tried to bring a load of stuff into the house, though, we realized the house was locked and we didn't have the house keys or our phones!  The front door has two doors and one is a self-locking security door.  You can flip a switch so it doesn't automatically lock, which I thought Micah had done when he ran out to back up the trailer, but he actually just propped the door open which I didn't realize in the dark.  Fortunately, I have been to our landlord's house so we decided our best option was to knock on their door and ask to borrow a key.  By the time we got to their house it was 9:45 pm, and all of their lights were out.  I felt horrible waking them up, but we didn't have any other option!  We finally got home a little after 10 pm to unload the trailer.

On Wednesday morning one of the toilets clogged.  When this happened in our old house, we let the toilet sit for several hours and then we could usually flush it without a problem.  When Micah came home from work he flushed the toilet, and the water rose higher and higher until it started pouring out all over the floor!  I ran around getting towels and buckets, and we finally propped up the bar in the back of the toilet with a ruler to make the running water stop.  Our plunger was still at the old house so we went back to finish cleaning and get our last trailer full of items.  Micah tried to plunge the toilet when we got home without success.  This resulted in an embarrassing phone call to the landlord Thursday morning explaining what happened.  They were able to fix the clog but we are a little weary of using the toilet.

Thursday and Friday were without mishap, mostly because we were off having fun running and climbing instead of doing stuff around the house.  We thought this meant that our mishaps were behind us...

On Saturday we decided to go to Lowe's to get items we need for the house and make copies of our keys to hide outside so we don't get locked out again.  After we went out to the car we remembered we wanted to bring the old bread maker along to donate if we saw a drop-off place.  Micah went back in the house and grabbed the bread maker and tried to lock the inside front door but realized he needed both hands to lock the bolt.  He set the bread maker down and by the time he turned around the self-locking door had slammed shut with the house key and car key inside!  This time we at least had my cell phone, so we were able to call our landlord and ask them to bring over the key.  We are lucky they are really understanding and gracious people!  The irony of it was that we were really on our way to make copies of the keys!

All week I have had Francesca Battistelli's song in my head since our mishaps would be nice additions to her lyrics.  But I have to pause and remember the rest of the chorus:


In the middle of my little mess
I forget how big I'm blessed
This is the stuff that gets under my skin
But I gotta trust You know exactly what You're doing
It might not be what I would choose
But this is the stuff You use


She is right.  Although we had a very frustrating week, we are VERY blessed as these mishaps are minor in the grand scheme of life.