A Few Words for the Matrix

"It was a good car... while you had it." My dad had just helped me take all of my belongings out of the Matrix, and with trash bags in hand, we were staring at the smashed remains of my first car.

I purchased the Matrix only a few days after moving to Utah, and just after I had written the first post on this blog. Having returned from Europe a few months before, I had it in my mind that I wanted to own a Smart Car, or something equal in size and European flare. My mom was test driving new cars with me, and we were in a time crunch. She would return to Alaska in a few days, and I would begin my new life in "the bubble." We had driven the Honda Fit, the Toyota Yaris, and the Scion Xa. Of course my mom was there to make sure that my first car was equipped with all the air bags I could possibly need. She was also concerned for passenger comfort.

"The Xa is so stiff and low! No one will want to drive with you... And what if you go on a road trip?"

"Mom! I'm not going on any road trips. Where would I go? This car is for to and from work, and maybe it will go with me wherever I do my MBA." My mom clearly had the bigger picture in mind when she suggested we test drive the Matrix, while I was still worried about just getting acquainted with "the valley" and finding income.

With absolutely no European flare, the Matrix won out after exclaimations of how much more comfortable it was compared with the smaller, smarter cars. Driving off the lot that day, I may not have been extatic, but I wasn't feeling any buyer's remorse. My mom was right, I needed to picture myself in my first car for more than a couple years.

I had imagined owning the Matrix possibly until the day it broke down. It gave me a good six years, almost to the day. I barely drove the car anywhere in the beginning, just to and from my new job, which happened to be a block away from my new apartment. I also drove to Salt Lake for Gilmore Girl Tuesdays with my best friend. My well-below-average mileage really paid off when I met Scott and we started taking multiple road trips to California. Then Oregon. Then a somewhat long, and now seemingly dangerous, commute to work in Corvallis.

The Matrix really did serve me well, as long as it was mine. So I guess I forgive you, Matrix, for breaking my nose... and I applogize for putting the Princess sticker on your bumper in the beginning. It really didn't fit you.

No Sé

It's been quite some time since my last blog post. At first that was because we had a lot going on. Scott was in Europe with his dad and brother, and I was occupying myself at home. Despite how much I rolled my eyes when I informed everyone why Scott was missing, I am extremely excited that he was able to travel Europe and especially glad that he visited Paris, even if I wasn't his tour guide!

There's another reason why I have been absent from the internet. On Tuesday I was in a car accident on my way to work. I was the driver of the third car of a chain reaction rear ender. Scary time, but I walked away with my first fractured nose and the chance to car shop again. I have been resting for the last few days, and Scott and I have been blessed with great friends who are so willing to help us in any way they can!

Most of Scott's medical school class knows what has been going on because Morgan and I were car pooling together on the day of the accident (Morgan, thankfully, is recovering well, too!). Not to mention that word travels fast in Lebanon! A few of Scott's closest buddies wrote me a Get Well Soon card with this cartoon:

It's pretty punny! If you don't get it (like me when I first read it), you may need some Spanish translation and a reminder of where my fracture is. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. I hope to be fully recovered soon! Then maybe I'll feel confident enough to post a picture of my bruises and smooshed car.

Living in the Model

One night a couple weeks ago I was lying in bed waiting to fall asleep and I noticed a hole in my broken down apartment. Not really unusual, since we've been living in the apartment for the month of February with torn up floors and missing walls and ceilings. This was the first time though, that a hole in the ceiling, from what I could see, had a little view of the outside. A sudden realization hit me that construction to put our apartment back together was going to take much morework and logistics than deconstruction.

I visited our complex management to see what our options would be, as I could forsee that living in our apartment was not going to be possible during the construction phase. They offered for us to stay in their model apartment while we waiting out the two week construction to put our apartment back to normal. Scott and I talked it over and agreed that this would be best.

So last week we moved half of our belongings into the model apartment, prepping for a two week stay. We then moved the other half of our belongings into our master bedroom to make room for construction workers to do their job. Hence why I was not very active in the blog world last week.

Living in the model apartment has reminded me of how much I love my apartment when it is whole. It's so peaceful and stress free to walk into a staged home. Though I had to laugh at the advertisements on the nightstand and the kitchen wall. I know their purpose is for perspective renters when the apartment is shown, but part of me wonders if management felt comfortable leaving these advertisements for us to maintain a positive image of their complex through this ordeal. Either way, we are crossing our fingers that we'll be back in our like-new apartment in 10 days.

Home Fiasco #6

We didn't learn. It's been around eight months since our move to Lebanon, and last home fiasco. We should have known that karma (or whatever spurred this chain reaction of random drama every six months) had something in store. Maybe we were distracted by my 2007 Toyota Matrix computer dying. It was a red herring (which was fixed under warranty)!

It was a gloriously sunny Saturday, and I was dreaming of spring while baking some tasty homemade treats. As I was walking around the kitchen I heard a constant drip. It sounded kind of distant, like it was coming from upstairs or inside the wall. I checked the bathroom, thinking for sure I had a toilet leak, but when I emerged from the bathroom with a smile of no-drip satisfaction, I was quickly brought back to reality. A shower was starting to soak my dining room table and floor! The water was coming out of the sides of the sprinkler system in the dining room and kitchen.

I quickly placed a large bowl (and later three trash cans) underneath the spray, called Scott to rush him home, and phoned the apartment complex maintenance number in panic.

Turns out the apartment above us had a dishwasher problem, of sorts. They didn't catch it until their entire floor was flooded, which leaked through the walls to all the apartments below. Our apartment received the most water, but the apartment below us had a little dripage too.

Which formed a nice bubble in their ceiling.

I took a video of how the water looked in our apartment during peak leakage, but the lighting is bad. You can't see the water, but you can hear it. The domed light fixture is so full of water we were worried it would burst.





Luckily, since I was home, none of our belongings were damaged. We had to wait until the water stopped and the light fixture was removed before we were able to mop up the lake on our floor. I would say that it wasn't too much to clean, but it didn't end there. A carpet cleaner ordered by the complex came that night to soak up any water in the carpet. Then maintenance came by on Tuesday and tore up our floors and ceilings to expose and dump all the wet and damaged insulation. We are still living in just a piece of an apartment with boxes all around us.

As we mopped up massive amounts of water last Saturday, Scott and I reminisced of the time when our kitchen flooded in our first apartment because of rain. I do feel some satisfaction in the fact that none of our home fiascos were self-inflicted. Not much, though.

Stay tuned for our update this Fall. We'll be expecting it.

Another Home Fiasco Turns Sweet

One of the oddities about starting medical school as the first class to enter a campus is that housing in the area does not function like housing in an establish college community. Apartment complexes in Lebanon, Oregon do not yet offer Fall/Winter contracts, or prepare for apartments to be vacated and occupied again come August. There is no on-campus housing either, but luckily for us Cascade Ridge Apartments is a relatively new complex that is across the street from the school.

Scott and I decided a few things early on:

- I am willing to pay more for the possibility of seeing Scott more often during the grueling hours of medical school by living in close proximity

- It's better to rent and get an idea for the area instead of buying right away (even though, as many have told us, the market is hot here right now)

- Once an apartment comes up in our ideal location, we need to snatch it

And snatch it we did! In fact, I think we have the best set-up in all of Cascade Ridge! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

An apartment opened up to be moved into in the middle of May. We signed a lease without seeing the place, because we were assured we would receive a model quality home. We were given a time frame to move in. About a week before the move I contacted Cascade to tell them that we had booked a moving van in that time frame and were planning to move to Oregon on Tuesday. They responded with the go ahead. My mom graciously offered her services as driving companion as we had a two vehicle caravan going to Lebanon. Thanks Mom for flying down!

Scott arrived first, of course, even though he was driving the larger vehicle laden with all our belongings. When he walked into the office to introduce himself as the new move in, he was told our apartment wasn't ready! Complications! A few members from church were here to help us move everything out of the Budget van, which was due back on Friday. After some discussion, management decided to let us move our things onto the hard floors of the apartment. 

Carpets would be cleaned the next day, and two days from move in we would be allowed to... well, move in! It was stressful, for sure, and not what we had planned! But Cascade Ridge management did all they could to help us get everything worked out. The carpet cleaner came and fixed some stains on the beige carpets, CR's maintenance guru came up to fix creaky floors, and the corporate office sent us an apology gift for our troubles.

We're actually quite pleased with the outcome. We ended up with the best situated apartment in the complex! We love the L-shape layout with open kitchen, dining room, and living area. We have a beautiful back porch view of a grassy meadow (as opposed to the alternative views of development or other living spaces). We were able to locate a very nice/inexpensive hotel in the area for future visitors. Not to mention, I told Scott how excited I was to use my "Home Fiasco" label again on my blog. I didn't think that would happen again after bats and ants! Plus our apology gift from corporate has gotten us a smidgen closer to making our apartment more cozy! Here's a little sneak peak:

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Morning

This incident may actually be the cause of many if not all of my back dated blog posts.

On the eve of Monday, April 5 I discovered a large spread of ants in my pantry trying to steal my Fruit Loops. It was disturbing to say the least. I'm not a fan of bugs or crawling/slithering things. But Scott is so good to calm down my crazy when it comes to things like this. He quickly sprayed the visible ants with home pest killer spray we had from our previous apartment, and clean up all the pantry walls, shelves, and food therein. Yay for husbands!

We kept monitoring the situation with the bug spray, and by Wednesday it appeared that all the ants were gone. I couldn't see any more coming from the previous corner source. And as I left our apartment that morning to go to work, I grabbed my lunch on the table, only to see that now our front wall above our dining table was now lined with ants (picture doesn't show the ants determined faces and fangs). Ugh! Ewww! I grabbed the spray and managed to stop them all in their tracks. But as I left the house with my lunch unaffected, I kept thinking about this pesty problem.

I got in my car and started my drive from Springville to Provo. I was thinking about how we should probably tell our landlords, and wondering how many ants would be crawling around when I got home.... when I heard a clink on my windshield. Maybe more like a crackle. I had just reached the point where Old State St turns onto 9th East, heading up to campus. I looked around, and saw no rocks or people throwing rocks, or cars around me that might have turned up a rock. Nothing! But then as I looked again, I saw this thin white line snaking across my windshield. I watched as the crack went from one side of my car to the other.

And that is the crack that broke my tear canals. Then all the thoughts came of all the things I had to do at home, in addition to fixing my now broken windshield. I pulled over on the side of the road and called Scott. He told me to calm down and go to work. I went to work, but was too overwhelmed to think. So I took the afternoon off to fix things.

It was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad morning. Time to move to Australia! You never know, there may even be a good medical school in Australia that would give Scott a scholarship.

Thanksgiving Recap

Well it was a fast move and we survived! The weekend after we heard about the open apartment in our Relief Society President's basement, we moved in! Our home teacher was nice enough to gather together some of our great ward buddies with trucks and trailers (not that we own many large amenities), and "the men" moved one big load to our new place in less than one hour. We then made small loads in the Matrix, getting all of our possession from our previous apartment and into our new apartment by Saturday night.

I made one last stop to our apartment to gather our laundry (our new apartment is being furnished with a new washer/dryer this week... and until then we are dirty) and any last little nic-naks left over. As I folded our whites in our old closet of a bathroom, I heard a noise that had become more common in our old place...yelling in Spanish. This time it was out on the front lawn, and I'm not going to lie, I was imagining what kind of weapons could be whipped out at any moment in this obviously domestic dispute. This image was not based on precedence, but prejudice... I admit. Needless to say, I tried hard not to draw attention to myself until one apartment door was slammed and a car was heard screeching out of the parking lot. I then quickly packed every last crumb we owned into my car, and haven't returned since. We were able to get our furniture set-up and some decorations on the wall before leaving for our family filled Thanksgiving.

I got some Christmas decorations up when we got back from Thanksgiving.

Scott is really proud of our Family is Everything wall which he arranged, ALL by HIMSELF!

Thanksgiving was a TON of fun! The Alaskan parentals came to Sacramento to check out the area for potential retirement communities. They want to live near the Princess (that's me, if you haven't seen my tiara). And since Scott and I will most likely end up around the great city of trees, home of the Governator, my island parents decided they needed to research the radius. We drove around Apple Hill and Old Auburn, after my parents had already visited more northern cities like Redding.


We also made a dizzying tour down the windy road to Cool. I don't recommend the trip if you get car sick or fall asleep in cars, because if you blink at any point, you may just miss the city of Cool. Fortunately, my dad the driver kept his eyes open and stopped for me to take this most awesome picture.

Pretty sure you can see the other edge of Cool at the back of this picture.

The vacation was great! It was probably the first Thanksgiving I've had with my parents since high school. Turkey was amazing, as was the ham, pomegranate salad, rolls, cheescake, pie... the list goes on. I got much needed rest and now we are home again to work and finish out the semester.

Can't wait for Christmas!

Hey, and how do you like my new Christmasy blog theme? It was overdue for an update.

Meteors, Legends, and the News

Three major events happened in Utah this week.

A meteor (or small asteroid, scientists are still debating) crashed through the sky near Provo breaking the sound barrier and lighting up the whole sky. Meteor hunters, yes they do exist, are crawling all over the area now because supposedly that piece of space rock is worth a bit of money. The governor may or may not (I learned sarcasm from Scott) be entertaining movie proposals. So watch for something akin to Twister in the movie theaters in 2012.

In-N-Out opened it's first stores in Orem and Draper officially yesterday, though we saw large crowds there Wednesday evening. Could In-N-Out have been behind the "meteor shower" as a public relations campaign? I can see it now... In AND Out of the atmosphere. These burgers are out of this world... I don't remember reports of an In-N-Out banner floating behind the asteroid (meteor... whatever). Maybe it fell off? In any case, Scott saw the never ending line of cars and packed restaurant yesterday and thought to himself, "I could have been a millionaire! Why didn't I bring In-N-Out to Utah my Freshman year?" Story of our life!

And the last big piece of news is that we are moving apartments! We were playing card games with friends and I was ranting about the many, many, many flaws of our apartment. They mentioned that the Relief Society president was desperately looking for tenants for her basement apartment. It's a cozy place, with all utilities included, and there are no interesting neighbors (in every sense of the word). So look forward to pictures of our new place and maybe a house warming party after the holidays.

Batman and the Bat Show

Now you may wonder, "Why would you get Scott The Worlds Largest Gummy Bat as a birthday present?" Not for Halloween, I would respond, "But because Scott needs a snack while he's out watching the Bat Show."

Many of you faithful blog readers know that our apartment is not the kindest to us. We haven't had the best experiences in it, but we stay for the love of our church ward and neighbors (though I did once seriously look at moving when a good opportunity presented itself). So you can imagine my unsurprise, when I arrived home one day and my husband was on the phone with our landlord. He was arranging a time for him to come over to fix something. When Scott got off the phone, I asked, "What's wrong?" "Why did you need to call the landlord?" "It's not spiders is it?" Scott replied, "Don't worry it's just a small thing... actually 200 small things." Ewww! I thought for sure it was spiders and told Scott that he better not beat around the bush any longer.

Well when Scott had gotten home that day, our neighbors were outside taking pictures of our house. As if that was odd enough, they called him over to talk to him. When Scott arrived at their fence, he realized what they were looking at. Every thirty seconds about 10 bats would fly out of our upstairs neighbors attic vent. The neighbors across the way said this has been happening for about a year, and they knew all about the bats. They were small, so they didn't have rabies, and they are not aggressive. Our neighbors suggested that we call our landlord about it, and they would have told us earlier except we were never home to tell when the bat show was going on, and they liked watching the bats.

Our landlord was going to be gone for a week and wouldn't be able to fix the bat issue until he returned. That didn't bother Scott though, he liked to sit down by the fence and watch "the bat show" every day around dusk. He liked to think he was Batman and even suggested we watch the new Batman movie series for Family Home Evening. I refused to think that the bats existed, because I was much happier that way. But I found Scott crouched down by the fence one day when we were painting the sofa table black.



You can't see the bats, but unfortunately they were there. The Chandler family will note that this is a picture of Scott with his longer hair...

To be continued

Procrastinating Great Stories - Part 1/4

I usually am not a procrastinator. In fact, in college I liked to take the syllabus on the first day and if there was a project or paper for which I had sufficient instructions, I completed it long before the due date. I know, I'm a nerd.

Unfortunately, due to extraneous circumstances I haven't been updating my blog as often as I would like, and I have great life stories to tell. So I am taking this opportunity to write a blog series of random events:

Violation of Security

We had an excellent Christmas vacation with Scott's family in California. We returned home the first week in January so Scott could return to school and I could get back to work in the Career Placement Department at BYU.

Last semester, in an effort to car pool and save on gas, Scott and I spent most of our time on campus and were barely ever home. In the Fall, we left our house at 7:45 AM and came home exhausted at 7:40PM. So this January held the vision for a calmer semester and less expensive gas prices.

It was the first week of class at BYU. I had Cafe Rio-type pork simmering in the crock pot at home. I got the recipe on the internet using a copycat site that Scott's Aunt Lori had shown me (Thanks, Lori! It's our favorite.). When we arrived back at our basement apartment, I still had some preparations to make before dinner could be served. So I went into our bedroom to grab my macBook and relocate the copycat recipe.

My laptop wasn't where I had left it. "Scott, have you seen my laptop?" "I thought you left it plugged-in in the bedroom," Scott replied. "Me too!" So I looked in my laptop bag... and underneath the bed. "Could I have left it in the living room?" I wondered. So I walked out to the living room, scouring the floor. Nothing. Maybe I can do without it. Of course I could always use Scott's computer... but no, I want to update Christy's blog too!

I turned around to head back into the bedroom, and as I rounded the couch I saw that our DVD rack was empty. The two rows of our movie collection that had previous been there were now just two VHS tapes.

Scott! Could it be a prank? Call the police.

Our apartment had been broken into. Inventory of items stolen: my laptop, my digital camera, our 75+ strong dvd collection, and my replacement scentsy candle squares, which happened to be located in my underwear drawer. What a violation of privacy!

The Springville police spent a significant amount of time at our place, taking finger prints from my underwear drawer and taking pictures of footprints in the backyard snow. How did the intruder get it? Well, our front door could sometimes be pushed open, but we thought we had prevented that from happening again when we discovered that in the summer. Both doors were unlocked when we returned home that day. Other possible entry points? Probably.

The police questioned our neighbors to see if they had noticed anything or anyone peculiar that day. Our upstairs neighbors had only recently moved in to the complex, and having only been home a week we hadn't introduced ourselves yet. The couple reported that a man had knocked on their back door. When they answered, the man asked for a "Mike." Since no Mike lived in the apartment, and they were too new to know that there were no Mikes in the complex, the man left.

Since then I've been pretty paranoid about my security while in the house alone. I usually don't answer the door when home alone, unless I'm expecting someone. So what if an intruder were trying to scope out possibilities and I did nothing to signify I was home? Does that mean I should answer the door when I'm home alone? Our landlord came to fix the door locks, but didn't add any new deadbolts. We don't live in a particularly dangerous neighborhood, and it's not like this kind of thing happens often, because it doesn't. Still I feel like it has been more common lately with the perilous economic times for inherently good people to succumb to stealing. (Are you sensing my suspicions in my voice?)

In any case, I mourned for my laptop for several weeks, constantly checking Craigslist to see if the thief was foolish enough to post a sale. I was saddest for my lost homemade movies and pictures unblogged (including the pictures of my prcious macBook and I on the day we first united). I thought I had come close to finding it once, when a student was selling his laptop (legitimately). He had purchased it a few months after I had purchased my own. It looked like my macBook's twin, and (clincher) had a different serial number. I look forward to some day purchasing another Apple. Next time it will be a desktop in our med school home.

I'd like to say that the loss of my mac and digital camera were significant external factors to my procrastination of writing this series of four stories. Not to mention the time to mourn properly! But really the best reason would be the lack of internet service in our home, which should be altered in the next week. Until then, I will continue my stories by using lunch break time on BYU campus.


To be continued...

Flash Mopping

It's Labor Day, and Scott and I have school and work off. We were planning on hiking in Provo Canyon, but the weather turned ugly last night and this morning we woke up to a hail storm. So we decided not to tread outdoors, but instead turned on Hidalgo and looked up alternate classes to take this Fall (I can take up to six credits in Evening Classes as a benefit of my job at BYU.).

Walking into the kitchen for a movie snack, I mentioned to Scott that we needed to stop by the store sometime because we were out of sugar and Swiffer pads. I'd noticed some spots on my linoleum kitchen floor and was hoping to mop them away while I had time. 

One step more towards Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies, and I was in a deep puddle of water and leaves. Scott!!! We have a flash flood in our kitchen. I grabbed the mop, and Scott found three cleaning towels to sponge the water outside. 

These pictures make it look like I had Scott do all the work, which is partially true. He used the towels and I mopped. The pictures also make it look light outside, but it was pretty dark and stormy in Springville.

On the bright side, my kitchen floor is now sparkling clean, and we're planning a trip to Home Depot for better weather stripping.

My 1st Apartment

Scott and I have been setting up OUR 1st Married Apartment! The search for this fabulous abode was a little rocky and required exhaustive research, but it was well worth the effort!

If you haven't before heard of Craigslist, then here is our bzz: Scott and I have become expert Craigslist searchers. To prove it, the fruit of our works includes an affordable two-bedroom spacey apartment in Springville, UT with washer and dryer included; a sofa bed and loveseat; AND a king-size mattress, box, and frame in very good condition for $75 (bed set was $75, not the whole apartment).

Searching for an apartment in Provo was quite a difficult task. You wouldn't (or if you know Utah Valley maybe you would...) believe how many couples get married in the spring and want to arrange for their Provo apartment in March. Our first real-estate attempts were to start a new contract with a married apartment complex. There were options, but only one that we actually thought appealing. That became the back-up plan. Our next step was to search for contracts being sold, either on the BYU vacancy listings or through craigslist. It seemed like every time we arranged to look at apartment, the contract was sold before our viewing appointment. Then, when we actually were able to walk through an apartment, the contract was sold while we were deliberating.

Finally, Scott and I just decided: if we like how the apartment looks on paper/on pixels, and we feel good about the apartment and neighborhood when we visit, then we will make an offer immediately. So that's what we did. We found a great apartment in north Springville, for a very reasonable price, it was cleaner and roomier than all the apartments we had seen in Provo, and it included a washer and dryer. We told them we would bring by a check in the morning (Blessing #1).

I was able to start moving in my belongings during the last week in April (Scott doesn't move into the apartment until after we're married). The DAY the apartment became available, we found the sofa bed and loveseat for a very good deal from a BYU student couple who was moving to Georgetown for med school (Blessing #2). We moved the couches over that evening. This meant that I would have SOMETHING to sit on or even sleep on if needed. I didn't have to be out of my previous apartment until May 1, so I slept there and moved out my lesser-used belongings, one Toyota Matrix load at a time.

Then, on May 1st, after packing all of my final possessions into my car, with the intent to sleep on top of our lovely couch (covered with a fantastic suede couch cover from Bed Bath and Beyond as a gift from my parents); miracle of all miracles with this apartment so far, Scott found our new "guest bed"(Blessing #3). The king bed is incredibly comfy to sleep on, so if you're ever in the neighborhood and need a place to stay, OUR new married apartment might be most comfortable choice.

We also were able to buy an end table, kitchen table, and matching chairs at IKEA, thanks to the help of "Big Curt." The table has two leaves hidden underneath the square top. We think this is pretty special, because it means we can leave the table a square when dining for two, and reveal the leaves when we have a party.

Check out the pictures of our bare apartment... fun accessories to come after everyone contributes to the "Scott and Katie are a cute couple and need a cute apartment Fund." We're working on shortening the fund title.

Suede couches in our living room    +    The IKEA table and matching chairs that Scott assembled

Our kitchen with green stove    +      Scott having so much fun putting together the IKEA chairs

The most awesome-ist Craigslist find, YET    +    Currently empty Master bedroom, with Katie's junk crowding the walls

Our itsy-bitsy bathroom with washer and dryer    +    View from front door, with Scott putting together IKEA furniture