Help? What should I do?

So I got one of my down blankets washed at the drycleaner after our move here to Ohio...it had gotten a little dirty. While at the cleaners I got a call saying that the blanket had a huge rip in it and in order to wash it they needed to fix it or have me get it fixed. I thought this was very odd because I didn't notice a tear in the blanket. I was sure that I would have because I would have feathers all over my house right? Well I told them to go a head and fix the hole. So I get the blanket back about two weeks later and it has been hung up in the bag until today when I decided to put it on my bed. Rocky and I spread it out and there are holes ALL OVER in it. Little rips and tears...mostly by the stiching of the blanket but some elsewhere...just in random spots. I was totally shocked. The blanket hasn't been used too much and seriously there are no feathers in the house...until now. I'm planning on calling the cleaners tomorrow. Has anyone had this happen to them before? Any advice on what to do? OH and the stich that they had to make was HUGE. Like 12" long. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed that.

What are you paying for gas?

Ours just hit $2.72....jealous?

We are in Hilliard, Ohio.

I would love to hear the price of gas in your neck of the woods. Leave a comment!

Feeding the hungry

A couple of weeks ago Rocky and I discovered a little pond by our house. It is where the ducks live. The first time we went there we didn't have anything to feed the ducks with so I made a mental note to feed them next time we had some time. Well that time was yesterday. We made the little walk to the pond to discover only two ducks. I was so sad. I figured they must have migrated. So we pulled out the bread for the two ducks there. That was the ticket. It was like the ducks could smell it and they were there in seconds. They flocked like crazy and at a point I was a little nervous thinking that we might be attacked. I befriended a duck that I quickly called friend. He would wait patiently in front of me until I gave him some bread. It was so cute. He would eat it out of my hand. Rocky befriended two ducks that were brave enough to jump up and grad the bread out of his hand. We called them "jumper."

Flying to feast

Waiting for bread

Hand fed

Rocky attended his first OSU game. He said that it wasn't the best game but the band was awesome.


I'm loving my new job. I'm a secretary/surgery scheduler for a Urologist at OSU.

My Magic Mirror

I don't know how I got so lucky but I did. I came across a Magic Mirror. This mirror tells me all things I want to hear like, "It doesn't matter that you ate a huge bowl of ice cream while sitting in front of the TV, you look amazing." "What? You haven't worked out for weeks? I never would have guessed, you look amazing." "The washing machine must have shrunk those pants because there is no way you have gotten bigger, you look amazing"

Not only does this mirror tell me these things, it shows me. Every time I look in it I think, "For not exercising I am looking really good." "The dryer is definitely shrinking my clothes."

It basically boils down to this. The mirror makes me look skinny. I don't know if it's the lighting, or if my eyes are getting bad, but it does it and I don't care how, I LOVE IT.

Now for all the other mirrors in the house, they are mean and cruel and have no idea how to win a woman's heart.

The End

Celine Dion + Joni = BFF

There are bonuses to being the wife of a med. school student, not many, but a small few. One for us happens to be that OSU will sometimes offer free tickets to concerts. The latest concert happened to be Celine Dion! When Rocky said they were available I pretty much made him stop what he was doing and sent him off to get them. Who cares about studying when there are free Celine Dion tickets to be had. Certainly not me.

Rocky got the tickets. Decided he didn't want to go and so I got to bring a friend. I took Melinda with me, since I had texted her and told her about the tickets and her husband was too slow to pick them up, sorry Ben but you were. So we went together, us girls. On our drive there we saw many cars filled with girls singing Celine at the top of their lungs. It was precious. We got to the arena, after about a 50 minute drive, that normally takes 10 minutes. We hurried to get to our seats, they happened to be at the very top, most lastest row in the arena. (they were free remember) The cute little man seating us said, "if you want to wait I can probably get you better seats." We were all for that, we fingured we could only do better. After about 20 minutes of waiting I was starting to get worried. They had closed off the entrance so we couldn't get in and the man that the little man told us to watch for was definitely not coming. Or so it seemed. Just as I was about to give up hope he came and he had tickets, better tickets, MUCH better tickets. We ended up sitting at the 14th row up. WOOO HOOOOO! 14th row tickets for the Celine Dion concert for FREE!

It was amazing. She is such a great performer. I was singing and dancing and I'm sure Melinda wished I wasn't singing and dancing but I couldn't stop. Click here to see the pictures I wasn't supposed to take.

After the concert we hurried out of the Arena and I thought we were going to beat the majority of the crowd. No, we didn't. We waited in the parking lot for an hour before we could get it. Oh well, it was worth it.

Thanks Melinda for coming with me, thanks Rocky for the tickets and thanks to Celine for a great concert.

I love my dad

My dad surprised me with a quick visit last week. It was awesome. I wish that he could have stayed longer. I figured since he was around I would put him to work with a "quick" home repair. We finally got our microwave and I wanted to hang it up. It is a little big so I also wanted to make the cabinet above it smaller. Rocky and I had talked about it lots and hadn't had time to actually do it. Well I thought since I had my dad's help we could do it super fast. We took down the cabinet, measured and made a list of all the things that we needed at the store. My dad ended up working a little bit and so Rocky and I headed outside to do some weeding while we waited for my dad to finish so we could all go to the store together. While outside weeding we heard a HORRIBLE loud crash inside. We went running in and asked what happened. My dad was sitting at the counter on the phone and I couldn't see anything wrong until I went into the kitchen. The cabinet next to the one we had taken down also decided on it's own to come down. It was only being held up by one small screw that was not in a stud. It hit the floor, broke and made a huge mess. Our small project got a little bigger, as most small projects do.

Needless to say, I'm glad that my dad was in town and didn't have to leave until the afternoon. He got it all put back together, all Rocky and I had to do was hang the microwave. It turned out perfect and after a month and a half with no microwave we are up and in business. Bring on the popcorn!!!

Here are some pictures of the event.

My dad taking out the middle cabinet for a minor adjustment.

Me checking out the damage of the fallen cabinet.

The space left in the wall from the fallen cabinet. The small hole at the white bottom right is where the one small screw was holding it in...actually not holding it in.

Rocky, the handyman, after we finished putting up the Micro.

Finished Product! Thanks dad.

Are you the Mole?

This is a frequent question I am being asked at work. Our trainer was notified that he might possibly have a mole from Verizon in our training class. He thinks it is me and I think it is so funny. Sure, I'll be the mole. He is scared of me. I make a phone call and he thinks I'm calling Verizon. I leave to go to HR and he thinks I'm telling on him. It certainly gives a little flavor to the training class. Very much needed flavor, but no where near spicy.

For those of you wondering where I work.... it's a call center for lots of different companies. I was hired for the Verizon team. After training I will be helping people with phone, data, and video problems. My goal is to not make it through training. I may have a new job by Monday. I'll keep you posted.

No Sticking or Flicking!

Those are probably two words that I NEVER thought I would hear on the job, unless it of course had something to do with some immature joke.

Today was my first day of work. We had to go through the run of the mill things like what you can and can't wear, what is considered late and where to park. Then we covered Hygiene. This was odd to me. We covered showering, bad breath, washing clothes and the mother of all topics...BOOGERS. Yes you will get points, and points are bad, for sticking and flicking boogers. Too many sticks and flicks = no job. Also anyone caught eating boogers will be immediately fired. Oops, I'm sorry, am I in the wrong place? Is this kindergarten? No? How odd. Fortunately for me I never got into the booger eating phase, what a relief for me, my husband, and the rest of the population.

The thing that gets me is they actually had to talk about this, so you know that it has happened more then once. GROSS!

Okay now onto our gifts from IKE, Hurricane Ike. Please see pictures below.

Gift 1: The pool floaty. For me? Oh how nice. This was up against the front door.

Gift 2: The extra shopping bag. How did IKE know that the 99 bags I currently had just weren't enough.

Gift 3: The fallen mailbox. Now I don't have to lean and pier into my box to see if I got all the mail. I just stand over it and look down. So much nicer.

Gift 4: Flapping siding. Another reason to love the aesthetically pleasing Duct Tape.

Compared to a lot of places Ike was really easy on us. I hope that no one see's these as complaints. They really are gifts and made us laugh. Crazy strong wind does that to a person.

Some things must be seen

Because of numerous requests I am posting a picture of the hole I poked in our ceiling. I have pondered why people would want to see the hole in the ceiling. Maybe they have never seen a hole in the ceiling. Maybe they have had something similar happen and are secretly hoping that mine it worse than theirs. It could be just plain old curiosity. Whatever the case I would probably want to see it too. I am one of those humans that looks when someone says "gross! don't look!." I'm the person that wants to know all the weird details about the surgery's Rocky has seen. I want to see the thing that I don't want to see. Does that make sense? If not here is an example. I had a friend who had a video of two people fighting, some type of Karate, Martial Arts, they were kicking and someone's leg snapped. You actually see it happen. I really didn't want to see it but had to. Well enough about me and my weirdness. Here is the picture.



Just kidding about this hole. That would be super hulk like strength from my little pointer finger. This was actually done by the plumber. Thanks plumber.






This is my finger hole. It doesn't look too bad at this point. I can fit my four fingers in it. I got a little paper clip, straightened it out and tried to pull down the pieces so it wouldn't look so hole-ish.

All in all I need to let you know that I love our little house. Problems and all.

Accidently poked a hole in the ceiling. Jealous?

Just as things are starting to feel finished (the work on our house was finished Wednesday) I go and start the race horses again. So being curious me, I wondered if the portion of the ceiling that our sellers told us was damaged by one little shower incident was really dry. It looked a little odd to me, probably the lighting in the room at the time. Well you will all be happy to know that it is dry, and brittle. My little finger poke left a hole bigger then my finger. You may all be questioning my "hulk" like strength, yes, I am too. It appears as though maybe there was a little more to this little shower incident. I'm not a house expert as of yet, so I will not claim to know how little or big or how long "the shower indecent" was. It is pretty safe to say at this point that we will also be replacing a portion if not all of the ceiling. I never liked that popcorn textured ceiling anyway. Any takers on this project?

Here is a little snapshot of the rest of the week.

Monday: Jacque and the boys go home. I get some major house cleaning done and quickly finish filling up the garbage can. Garbage day isn't until Friday, bummer.

Tuesday: Rocky back into the study groove after a 3 day weekend. With his first test on Friday he is setting up camp at the library. I am going crazy on this cleaning thing. I magically produce at least 5 more bags of garbage (did we really pack all this stuff across the country). Garbage can is super full, spilling out of the top full.

Wednesday: Rocky still studying. I reheat pizza on the stove with 1-pan, 1-lid, and a 1/4 cup of water. Turned out much better then I thought. Who needs a microwave? House is finished! We finally get to really move in. Still dejunking, at least 3 more bags of garbage. Garbage can is still full.

Thursday: Rocky is in deep study mode. I am in deep cleaning mode. I probably had about 10 bags of shredded paper. My shredder worked harder than it ever had before. Also found old journals. So completely embarrassing, so glad that I won't ever have to be 13 again. Garbage still full, but tomorrow is garbage day.

Friday: Rocky heads off to take his first test. Garbage man doesn't come, rats! Monday was the holiday. Rocky does an absolutely awesome job on his test. We celebrated at Carraba's.

Saturday: Still no garbage man. I'm getting anxious. We spend the day cleaning up the office, it becomes beautiful, except for my desk which now needs to be reorganized. Bah. Cleaned up the bedroom. Really make the bed for the first time. I know we are disgusting slobs.

Sunday: Still have extremely full garbage can out front of the house. Had a beautiful testimony meeting at Church. Talked to family and friends in Utah, and then visited some new friends and made new friends. Thank you Hannah and Daniel.

So I'm really hoping that the garbage man comes tomorrow. I feel as though I'm obsessing about it. All right, I know I am but really, who wants garbage piling up in their house?

Oh and one last momentous thing to write about. My car now fits in the garage.

Jacque and a full garage

Rocky and a full garage

The Bugley sleeping in the garage *sigh, it's so beautiful*

Joni needs...

My cousin Kami had a fun game on her blog, so I thought I would try it out! First, go to google and type in your name, followed by the word "needs". Now, list the first 10 things that come up. Here is mine.


1-Joni needs: a loving home with a dog friendly couch and a securely fenced yard


2-Joni needs: your vote


3-Joni needs: to wake up


4-Joni needs: some encouragement and is asking for others to minister to her


5-Jonii needs: to be added to the list of great 20th century composers


6-Joni needs: to chill


7-Joni needs: to learn


8-Joni needs: to be better, to be more consistent


9-Joni needs: to develop her "warrior" side that will enable her to face the world


10-Joni needs: help

These are in the order that I found them. I love the "warrior" one. Try it out yourself.

Chasing the garbage man

This morning wasn't any different from any other morning except for the fact it is Garbage Day. Because Rocky and I are fairly new at this home ownership thing, only 2 weeks in, we are still trying to get our garbage groove. I woke up this morning to the garbage truck right in front of our house, it only took me about 5 seconds for my brain to compute the following equation. Full garbage can + no garbage pickup = too much garbage for next week. I screamed "ROCKY! THE GARBAGE TRUCK." We talked about it fast and thought that we had missed our chance. I looked out the window and saw that he wasn't too far away and said to Rocky, "RUN." Run is exactly what he did, with the garbage can in tow. Now I didn't get to see it but it must have been hilarious. He said that he was wildly waving at the garbage truck, pushing the garbage can, hoping to get the drivers attention before he turned the corner and drove away, which was coming up fast. Rocky said he was surprised how fast the truck was. Well the wild waving worked and the garbage man stopped long enough for Rocky to catch up to him and get our trash dumped. Whew. Then the truck did something very unexpected. He didn't turn and drive away, he did turn but he went onto a street really close to us. All that chasing for nothing? Well we now know the garbage man route and have achieved the garbage groove we were looking for. I'm excited that we will have room for this upcoming week's garbage. Odd thing to be excited about but I totally am. I looked with pride at the empty garbage can next to the house. I'm pretty sure I've got an awesome husband.

Got Ya!!!

To Mom and Dad,

The hair piece rides again. Thanks for giving us a great laugh, although I don't think you knew about it. That made it even better for us.

Love,

The Girls (Joni, Jamie and Sara) and The Rock

We made it!

We finally made it to our home in Ohio! It has been quite an adventure so I'll start from the beginning. We left for Ohio on Sunday the 3rd. We met up with my family in Evanston and began the long drive. Well I guess Sunday's drive wasn't too bad. We stopped in Cheyenne for the night.

Monday was the Loooonnnngggg drive. I don't remember the exact timing of everything but it was super super long.

Tuesday we visited Independence and Far West.

Wednesday was Nauvoo - This was so much fun. I'm pretty sure that my mom would have fit in perfectly with the pioneers. This is also where I showed my talent with a metal ring and a stick. I'm very confident that if it were in the Olympics that I would and should be competing in it. The pageant was really cool. I am amazed at all the missionary's that are called there and then all the families that volunteer there.

Thursday we stopped at Carthage Jail and then drove to the Indianapolis speedway...we got there late so all we could do was peek over the side. It looked HUGE to me.

Friday morning we got to the house. Welcome to OHIO.

The house story....the agent that was working with the sellers of the condo we bought lost the keys to the house. We had to have a locksmith come out to the house to let us in. $200+ dollars later we were in the house. So exciting....until I went downstairs and noticed that the ceiling was sagging. I thought that was very odd and couldn't remember it being that way when we bought it. So I touched it and it was wet. :( I went back upstairs and looked at the kitchen floor...it was sagging too. We are very thankful at this point for insurance. To make the story a little shorter it is now Sunday a week and two days since we got to Ohio. We had to have the kitchen floor replaced, basement ceiling and basement carpet. The joys of homeownership. We are excited for next week when all the work should be done.

On a high note these are a lot of the things that Rocky and I had talked about doing during our 4 years here. Now instead of us doing them we get to have the work done by professionals and done now. I personally think that is a bonus.

We are so thankful for my family and all their help while they were here. We are thankful for a garage to put all of our stuff that we can't put in the house just yet. We are thankful for the Christensen's who fed us dinner...going out to eat is getting OLD super fast. Now that I think about it we have lots to be thankful for.

Here is a quick list of some of our firsts that have happened this past week.
using homeowners insurance
fixing a toilet, breaking that toilet, buying new toilet (thanks for your help Dean)
replace bathroom faucets with new faucets (3 hour project for first one, second one only took minutes)
buying a bed (thanks Cyndi)
putting out the garbage
picking out flooring
purchasing appliances

Just a quick note

Today is our official moving day. I can't believe it is actually here. It snuck up on me so fast. There are so many people that I am going to miss. Goodbye... sniffle, sniffle.