Diaries Of A Trophy Wife: 2009

Bento Box; Projects for 2010

So, as I was reading the January '10 edition of Parent's magazine I came across an article talking about 365 day projects or things to do with your children in the year to come. There was a link to a blog called Wendolonia about a mother who prepares "Bento boxes" for her children everyday. So today I spent some time trying to figure out what a bento was. It is a really neat concept.

According to Wikipedia, it's a is a single-portion takeout or home-packed meal common in Japanese cuisine. A traditional Bento usually consists of rice, fish, or meat, and one or more pickled or cooked vegetable, usually in a box-shaped container. But in America they don't have to be packed with fish, etc. because I for one would not eat that. Check out bento pics from Wendolonia's blog here.

This is an example of one.
(Picture courtesy of Wendy Copley from Flickr)

I am thinking of doing the 365 project. Most of these projects are people that take a picture of themselves everyday and blog it. I am thinking I might take one picture of me and Dalen everyday, or maybe even do a family portrait and blog it. I am also thinking of doing the 29 day Giving Challenge, also featured in Parents Magazine this month, but making it a regular event throughout the new year.

I am also getting ready to start this knitting project...

Cable Knit Scarf by Dagny

I am doing it in white yarn. It should be very pretty when I'm finished. Maybe I could get a few done this year for next year's Christmas gifts! LOL!

So, along with knitting projects, the 365 project, the 29 day giving challenge, and everyday life, I should have alot to look forward to and accomplish in 2010!

My Christmas Project

Now that I have given out all my gifts, I can finally post a picture of what I had been working on since October.

Washcloths with Rubber Duckies

This was a really cute idea. I got it from a blog called My Jewel Thief Knits. She made like 60 of them!!! Props to her! Anyways, I think everyone liked them.

We all had a wonderful Christmas! I got a new camera, that is awesome. And Travis got me a past, present, future ring. Love it! I have been so busy lately that I am totally exhausted. After a good rest, I have some more project plans up my sleeve that I'm thinking about for the New Year. For the first time in so long I am excited about the year to come and I have alot to look forward to.

We had a wonderful Christmas...

This was the best present ever. Well, besides Jesus.

The Latest Scoop

Last week I signed up to be an Avon Representative. I had thought and thought of how I could earn extra money while still being at home with my little man, and Avon was the only thing I could think of. I have been working really hard all week handing out brochures and doing online classes to learn as much as I can. I'm hoping that I can at least make a decent amount in the next two campaigns to go towards buying Christmas gifts. I am really excited about it and I hope to do well.

My Avon website is http://trishagibson.avonrepresentative.com/

I Love My Bumble Baby!

I had a rough week...

Alot of things happened last week. First, my dog Sammy passed away. He stayed at my parent's house. We've had him since I was in the 8th grade. He had been sick for awhile, the vet said it sounded like cancer. I'm going to miss him. With him being gone it also makes it seem like another part of my Grandma is gone. I know that sounds weird, but Sammy always kept her company though the day, and she would always get caught feeding him scraps from her plate. I was closer to her than anyone and I miss her alot. I guess I've never really been able to deal with her being gone.

Sammy

Grandma & Me

This is strange too. We had painted our front room two weeks ago and when my Dad first saw it he said how it was the same color as a cabinet that was behind where my Grandma used to always sit. Isn't it weird how things like that are in our subconscious?

Aside from all that, my neighbor from down the street committed suicide. I am still shocked that that happened so close to us. There has been alot of crime happening in my community lately, so I spent a day or so scared to death that someone murdered him and things kept running through my head, what if Travis leaves for work and someone tries to break in, how would I protect Dalen, and on and on it went. Then the thoughts started of I should've done something, talked to the man or something, maybe I could've prevented it. Maybe he was just lonely.

I know this blog post is crazy today ;-). But I'm feeling kinda crazy.

Anyways...

Tomorrow is mine and Trav's 8th Wedding Anniversary!

October 27th, 2001

Project

I have posted a new project that I'm working on. It's called Random Patchwork Blanket. I got the idea from an online knitting/crochet community called Ravelry. I am not really going by the pattern, mostly because there wasn't a set pattern to go by, but I am making it unique, which will probably turn out to be a mistake, but oh well. Not every block is the same size so I'm piecing them all together. Here are some pictures so far.

Since shopping over the weekend, I also now have twice that much yarn :-) But it is a lot of fun making this blanket so far. I am not making it fancy stitches or anything, just straight knitting so I don't have to count. I thought that was the best idea in case Dalen needed me, I wouldn't lose count and mess the whole thing up. But it is also really relaxing to just sit here in the evenings, with relative peace and quiet just knitting.

I Love This!

More stories at Mcdonalds of Pomeroy

I need to get serious!

I think last Monday was the first time I went to see my new chiropractor, Dr. R. He also is some kind of expert on nutrition and supplements. He had me fill out a Symptom Survey at home and bring it back to him and he would compile the results for me. Yesterday I got the results back with his recommendations. It was a huge eye-opener to say the least. Most of you know that diabetes runs very strong in my family, and my Dad just got diagnosed with it just over a year ago. My number one problem according to the survey I filled out, having no clue what the results could end up as, was sugar handling. Dr. R says that basically I am in between being healthy and having diabetes. I just never thought. In the back of my mind I never thought it would happen to me, and another part of me was just resigned to the fact that I'd get it sooner or later, like when I was older or something. I need to get serious about my health now. He suggested some supplements, as well as eating more of a low carb diet along with being on WW and exercising. For over a month now I've not been taking my weight loss very seriously and I've been eating alot of things I shouldn't. I guess this is just the motivation I need to get back on track. It still just seems almost surreal to hear him say I have a sugar problem.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I think it might be better if we just moved away. Family has been mostly what is keeping us here, but now I'm thinking why even bother. It has been one fight, one frustration after another. Now that Travis is finished with school, we are seriously considering selling our house and packing it up. I would say at least 85% of my problem is stemmed from family issues, and I am just tired of the whole thing. We just want to be happy, and raise our son to be happy too. He is going to be old enough soon to remember things, and I don't want him to carry around comments and hurt feelings the way I have/do.

One time he was crying because he was tired. "If you keep crying, those truck drivers coming down the road are going to laugh at you." I don't want him thinking if he does something wrong he'll be laughed at. I have grown up thinking that if I'm not perfect in any given situation, I'll be laughed at. He won't.

He won't be growing up being upset during every birthday party he has because our family can't get past themselves for 5 minutes and put their differences aside and come to his party regardless of who is there. I've had to do it. And if that ticks you off, don't read my blog!

He won't grow up depressed all the time, and feeling like everything is his fault. Oh, Grandma's mad, it must be my fault. No, I don't think so. I have, he won't.

He won't be growing up listening to the family arguing everyday. And he won't be around those who call a couple times a month only to bring up things to start trouble and try to make others miserable like they are.

The fact is, I hate it here. I am so tired of only being here because I feel like if I move away I'll be letting my family down. I don't know that it will be much better anywhere else, but I will have the choice to be around who I want to be.

Sorry for the downer, but I had to get that off my chest.

Busy Busy!Party Party Party!

I have been so busy this week. I've decided I need to get my rear end in gear and plan Dalen's birthday party. I've got the venue booked and paid for, check. I designed his invitations and have ordered them as postcards online. I'm really nervous about it though. I'm worried I'm going to get them back and they won't be right and then I'll be stuck with them. But...I'm going to just not think about it. They will be fine. I got them for $0.28 each! The website is Gotprint. Sometime today I should be getting an online proof to approve before they begin printing. Which I think is awesome. Also the company is totally USA, with a printing factory in Kentucky.

I bought a digital scrapbook kit on The Shabby Shoppe called Giggle Box. I think it's really cute.

When I started out I didn't really have a theme, but it's turned into the word "one" and the number "1". His Grandma M is making his birthday cake, so I'm not sure exactly what will be the final product, but I e-mailed her this as an idea.

Also, if she still can order them, she can put images on the cake, like a picture, so I might revamp the invitations into one big image to go on the cake to keep things more consistent.

I've decided that I'm not buying matching plates, cups, etc. I just got styrofoam (yes I know it's not ecofriendly, but it was cheap) plates, blue plastic cups, and regular napkins. But...I've still got alot of shopping to do! I'm getting there though. Hopefully it will in the end be a great party.

A Fun Weekend

Travis is finally done with school!!! Yay!!! We are still waiting on his final grades to be posted.

We have been thinking of ways to spend more time together now that he has more time. We decided to get our Netflix subscription back. They have changed it some since we had it last. We can now get some movies and watch them instantly on our computer, they are mostly older movies. Ever since Trav's film class when one of his assigned movies was a silent movie, we have become big fans of them. So Saturday night we watched one called Nosferatu made in 1929. Nosferatu is German for Symphony of Horror! Wow. It scared the CRAP out of me! But it was awesome. They really knew how to make scary movies back then.

I've also been reading alot this past week. I was referred to a couple Christian authors that I though I'd give a try. I'm on the last chapter of Danger in The Shadows by Dee Henderson.

It has been a really good book. I've never read Christian novels before. The ones at Walmart all look like they are about Amish people, but this book is more about normal, everyday people. It has danger, romance (in a tasteful way), and suspense. It's a prequel to a series of books, so I'm excited to read the rest of them.

Dalen's not walking yet. But he is pulling himself up on my end table and pulling everything off, and he loves getting into our DVDs. The fun begins...

My baby will be 11 months old tomorrow.

I took these pictures of Dalen this morning. I guess his toy bin was
enough motivation to get him to stand up.

A Little Worried

For a couple months now I've been waking up in the middle of the night feeling really nauseous. I thought it was just indigestion, but sometimes I would actually be sick, and it still keeps happening. When I was at my dr.'s office last time I mentioned it to her and she said to make sure it wasn't that I was eating and then going to bed, and if it kept happening to come back and she would check my gall bladder. Well, about a month later it's still happening, and it's more persistent. I made an appointment to go see her this week. I'm not sure how they check gall bladders. Or if there is something wrong what do they do about it? I'm scared I'm going to have to have surgery or something. I also don't know if she will have it checked during my appointment or if she will just order it and I'll have to go back for another appointment. I am cheap, and do not want two copays for one problem. Here I go, flying off the handle. It could just be nothing and I've got myself paying out the ying yang and having surgery lol. Crazy.

Next week is Travis's finals!!!! NO MORE SCHOOL!!!

Mini Golf Date

Travis and I went on a Mini Golf date in Huntington. It was a lot of
fun!

Scrapbooking Continued...

I just wanted to add the page I designed to go into my journal.

I have a little frame so I can add a picture of the day, and I put four stars at the top so I can rank how my day was too. I took that idea from an iPhone App called Gratitude Journal.

I just printed this design onto loose leaf college ruled paper. It turned out really good.

Scrapbooking

A really good friend of mine has been talking about digital scrapbooking for awhile now, and I've been wanting to try it out. She uses Photoshop, I think, so I downloaded an older version copy I had and tried to figure some stuff out, and basically have no clue. It's a total mystery, and I hate it lol. Travis finally showed me how to insert pictures to a background, but I could not figure out how to resize them once I got them on my page. That poses a problem. So I said heck with it for awhile and used my Print Shop program that I love, but it only to my knowledge does pages that are 8 1/2 x 11, not the typical 12x12 scrapbook page. Bummer. Anyways until I can figure this mess out, I made a journal cover for a 3 ring binder that I got this evening to start journaling.

I downloaded this scrapbook kit called "Happy Go Lucky" from The Shabby Princess. I totally love how my page turned out. I am going to go now so I can design pages for my journal. I'm really excited about this whole digital scrapbooking thing. It is alot of fun, and plus it is alot cheaper than buying all the supplies and saves it alot of time! Let's just hope I'll have time to work on some pages. ;-)

I Am Loved

Lately Dalen has wanted me to hold and cuddle with him more. I am
loving it because he was not one to want held much. I am starting to
see that he loves me and it's the best thing in the world!

Lunch With Friends

Today Dalen and I had lunch with our friends, Anna & Owen, and Angie & Rylan. I totally forgot about taking pictures until after Angie & Rylan left, sorry guys. We all had a great time and ate great food. Maybe the food was too good lol. I told everyone that I was only going to eat half of a dinner roll, but I ended up eating the whole thing. Oh well. Dalen and I really had a great time with our friends. We hope to do this more often.

Owen (left) & Dalen (right)

Playdough Playtime!

I made some homemade playdough the other afternoon for Dalen. I'm not
sure he liked it very well, but he did like the cookie cutters. Mostly
he would grab at the playdough with a disgusted look on his face. I
had fun anyway ;-)

Here's the recipe I used if anyone's interested.

1 cup salt
2 cups all purpose flour
4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbl cooking oil
Food coloring
2 cups water

Mix dry ingriedents in saucepan, add water, food coloring, & oil, cook
over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture pulls away from
sides of pan.
Dump onto table and kneed smooth, (mixture doesn't need to cook long,
about 4-5 minutes).

Boring!

Today is not going to be very much fun. Travis has a lot of homework
to do so we won't get to be out and about much. We did just eat at
Taco Bell...It was actually clean for a change. Now I'm just waiting
on him to get a movie from Blockbuster for his film class.

This past week has been just crazy. I had a lot of fun at Bible
School, but I am glad it's over. One of my students was a little
terror, and one night another one went up and peed behind a tree. It
was quite interesting.

I wish I had a bunch of money to go shopping today.

Hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Sent from my iPhone

Test

Trisha Gibson
Sent from my iPhone

Hey Y'all!

I feel like I don't have much going on, but really it's not true. To update everyone, I did decide to drop my classes. It was just too much to take on right now.

This week I've helping with our church's Bible School. The theme is called "Jerusalem Marketplace." I am one of the Tribal Leaders who is teaching a group of kids and taking them around the "marketplace" to make jewelery, make bags of spices, and to the wood shop where they make traditional Jewish toys. They are also learning games that the Jewish children played during Bible times. There is a skit performed each night leading up to the final night when we get to see Jesus. The kids are all excited to see him. I asked one last night what they thought it would be like to see Jesus and he said, "Awesome!" I thought that was so cool. I have never been a teacher of anything before, so I've been nervous, but I think I'll be able to pull it off. We even dressed Dalen up in a Jewish outfit, it was cute.

I got his 9 month pictures back yesterday. I think they turned out really good.

He really is growing up too fast. He is crawling pretty well now, and pulling himself up on everything. Next think I know he'll be walking, or running, with me chasing behind lol. I can't believe how mischievous he is! Well, we are his parents.

I'm not sure if I posted it before, but a few weeks ago he weighed 22 1/2 lbs. and was 27 1/4 in. long.

Travis only has 4 weeks of school left after this week!!!!! The job outlook is not looking so good right now, but something will come up.

Last week I was sick with bronchitis. It really sucked!

We took Dalen to his friend, Grant's 1st birthday party on the 4th. I wanted to share this picture...I think the picture says it all.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Maybe next week things will settle down and I'll be able to chill out with Dalen more and we can play in the pool :-)

Overloaded And Torn

Well...Summer Quarter started on Monday. As if last quarter wasn't bad enough with the work load, I log on to just one of my classes and it says my assignments, that are due by this Friday, is to post an introduction about yourself in the discussion forum, read 3 chapters, do those 3 chapter quizzes, and take some kind of survey. I'm thinking this is just great. The other class was Business Writing, I had to read a chapter, do a quiz, post my introduction, upload my resume to the forum, and review one other person's resume by Friday (today). Well, it was a struggle, but I got it all done. This schedule is killing me though. And I feel like it's taking away from spending time with Dalen. It's summer time, and I'm at my computer trying to do all this work when I should have him out in his pool or playing with him somehow. Plus, it's been hard on Travis and I not spending much time together. When he is home for the past 3 months he's been on his computer doing his homework, and I've been on mine. I really hate to give it up though. I love the challenge and will love to have that accomplishment. But I'm wondering, is it worth it? Am I being selfish? And I keep thinking, Dalen will only be this small for a short time. Won't I regret not making the most of this time with him? I am done with all of my homework until Monday night, so I'm going to make my final decision over the weekend.

Dalen and I have started walking with Angie and Rylan in the mornings. It's been alot of fun! Dalen won't take his eyes off of Rylan, he just will sit and watch him go beside him the whole time.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

My iPhone

Last Saturday, Travis and I got new cell phones. I got the iPhone. I have been doing nothing all week but playing on it...it's addictive.

It's so easy to browse websites with, get e-mails, update my Twitter, get on Facebook, check MLB scores (yes, I love baseball), and it has some really cool apps. It syncs with your computer through iTunes, so you can upload your address book thought Outlook, and you can even add pictures to your phone from your computer.

I got this one today called Puri!Lite. It does really neat templates and has stickers, etc that you can add to photos. (Yes, I love stickers too). It was free too.

My Little Reds Fan :-)

Have a great weekend everybody!

Dalen's Pool; Mule

I just wanted to stop in and let everyone know I'm still alive lol. School is almost finished for this quarter. I've only got one more assignment to do tomorrow and that's it! I'm not sure if I posted before or not, but Travis will for sure be done in August. I'll pretty much be on my own though for the two months of Summer Quarter because he will be on campus after work three nights a week. :-( I'm really dreading that. We've both got a week off in between quarters. We're hoping to go to a Reds game during that time at some point. Plus, Trav wants to go fishing too.

Dalen is almost 9 months old now. We got him a little swimming pool to play in this summer. He loves it. He has two bottom teeth, and is working on his four top front ones now. He is working on crawling, but is mainly scooting himself backwards.

Dalen had a big day on Sunday when he went to see his Grandma and Grandpa McCoy. We took him for a ride on Grandpa's Kawasaki Mule. He was asleep before we made it to the top of the hill.

This -N- That

I really probably do have other things I should be doing, but I've been wanting to just sit down and write in my blog for a long time. Not really for anyone's sake of reading, cause I think I've lost most, if not all, of my readers, but just because it makes me feel good to get things out sometimes.

School is going really good. I've got four weeks left in this quarter. In both classes, I have an A, so far. My economics class is especially difficult. My marketing class is easier, and kind of fun. This coming week I am going to do market research at Dollar General to study consumer buying behavior. I wanted to go to Wal-mart for this assignment, but I couldn't ever get a hold of a manager to get permission. I have been really examining my feelings on next quarter. Travis will be going to campus, aside from working, four nights every week for the eight weeks in summer quarter. It will be tough to say the least. So that will leave me a lot of time to do things on my own, but Dalen will be crawling, and maybe starting to walk by the end of summer, so he will keep me extremely busy. With all that said, I'm thinking about only taking one class. Summer quarter ends on August 14th, and Travis will have a degree! FINALLY! His academic advisor has already told him to go ahead and start putting in applications and resumes. With his grades I'm hoping he will land a job he loves. So after summer, Travis will be home alot more, so I'm not sure what I should do about continuing school. Would it be worth taking one class here and there? I would really like to spend time with Travis and Dalen as a family, since Travis has been so busy for the last two years! But at the same time I don't want to give up on myself either, or be a quitter. I've got some thinking to do on this.

Friday evening Travis and I spent at the Funeral Home in Pt. Pleasant because his Uncle Steve passed away. Then Saturday was his funeral. He was a really great person. I was really nervous about being around the whole family, most of you know the history there. But I was pleasantly surprised, everything went relatively well. It is sad though that it took having a funeral to get the family together, and speaking to each other for that matter. There were cousins and uncles of Travis's that I had never met before, and he hadn't seen since he was a kid. But there was a lot of tension between certain people, myself included. For the most part though, I felt welcome, and it hasn't been that way in a long time. I am really working on forgiving them, I cannot forget, but I am trying to let it go and accept them for the way they are, and realize that I can't make them into who I want them to be, they are who they are. It has been a very long road, but I am doing so much better with this.

Here's some new pictures...

Momma and Punkin.
He just had a bottle and couldn't stay awake.
He just fell forward on me and went to sleep.