My Swagger Wagon

There's three big things that we've been planning on this year.  Baby in August, buy new car and buy a home.

Well one of those is now accomplished.  We bought ourselves a minivan!  It was all done so quickly, and I'm still trying to get used to it.

We've been a one car family for 4 years.  In the first year of our marriage we did borrow a car from my parents, and it primarily only got used during the summer when Kyle and I both had jobs.  Then when Kyle was going to graduate school he did take the train into SLC, so I had the car during the week.  But lately things made it to where it was starting to get complicated with just one car, and also the whole winter of being stuck inside not able to even go drive to a place and play was a BIG bummer.  Then with a baby in August we laughed at how our little Mazda would not be able to hold 2 adults and 2 car seats.  So a new car shopping we went.

My mom has a Toyota dealership and salesperson she likes in St. George and he had a minivan that was amazingly priced.  My mom drove the 2 hours to go check it out, and she fell in love with it.  We drove down Friday, checked it out, and bought it.  It is a '05 Toyota Sienna XLE Lmtd.  Those last letters just mean it has all the fanciest stuff ever in it.  I still don't know what half the buttons and features in it do.

It being a Toyota Sienna also reminds me of the Swagger Wagon music video.  If you've never seen it go here:
http://youtu.be/ql-N3F1FhW4

Our new and constant discussion is money and a house.  It's such a bummer because it's so close, but yet there's a big bump right when we were planning on getting it.  We were all about getting a house this summer, but on March 1st when Congress didn't pass any budget forcing a "sequestration" it put a big damper on our plans.  What the sequestration did is put a furlough on civilian federal employees.  For Kyle's job with the Air Force all civilian employees will get 14 weeks of 32 hour weeks.  This is a 20% paycut for 3.5 months straight.  This hasn't happened yet and they keep adjusting things, usually for the better.  Like it was originally supposed to be 22 weeks, but they were able to give us 2 months back.  Yipee!  And on the bright side Kyle will have every Friday off for 3.5 months.  We'll survive the paycut as we are now, but think we would not be able to pay a mortgage when we're making 20% less during the uncertain months.  Maybe something amazing will happen.  We just think and pray, and follow what we feel is right.

One day I'll get my house

Anyways, we drove our two cars back home on Saturday.  I think Dexter liked being my travel buddy in his new spacious ride on the way.  It was General Conference weekend and we listened to it via radio.  Makes you really focus and takes out other distractions while getting to listen to the leaders' voices.  Plus...each time it would start Dex would promptly fall asleep.

On Sunday I got busy while listening.  My sewing pile had just kept growing and growing, and my drive to work on it would lessen and lessen.  But I took things from the top and started working down.  First up was some fabric from when I made a baby blanket for a sister I visit teach.  I still had enough to make another one, and I did.  At first I was thinking of giving it away, but after I wanted our little girl to get it.  It's so soft and cute.  Girly, but not pink.  So I'm keeping it.

Then there was a random mattress cover that had a small rip.  Easy fix.

Now came the big doozy of why I was procrastinating.  But I sat down and sewed, and sewed.  I cut and measured.  Then sewed and sewed more.  Once starting I wanted to finish it and then continued working on it until Monday night.  When I was able to say it's DONE!!!

By the end of Sunday, all the columns were done

By the end of Monday it was all together!

Okay, so it actually needs a strip of black on the bottom and top, and of course to be turned into an actual quilt.  But the hard part of interfacing, cutting, measuring, sewing row after row, and column after column is done.  I'm so proud of my UNLV t-shirt quilt.  But for now, another break from the sewing pile.