Showing posts with label Tesla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tesla. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Whoa! Who's That Chick?!

Whew! It's been a bit of a whirlwind since I posted that I wouldn't be blogging for awhile.

After the break-in it was rather jarring and hard to calm down and be excited about anything.  But it was really easy to be upset about a lot of things. So here is a re-cap of the good and the bad things that happened since I last blogged.

After the break-in we were scrambling around to protect our identities because one of the laptops that was stolen had our recently completed taxes on them, as well as some other documents that were useable for stealing identities. We also had to clean up the mess they left behind, then the mess the police made trying to help catch the guy.

Adam had recently decided to leave working on his PhD full time and find a job. He was on an interview when the bastards broke in in February. A month later he was offered all three jobs that he interviewed for, and he accepted the place he was most excited about. I'm very happy to report that he loves his job and he can't imagine being anywhere else.  He can't believe that he's been there 6 months already.

In March I was selected to interview at a non-profit. At the end of March they offered me the job and I accepted. It is a great job, a new position, and I love it. It's a very small office but we are doing good work. I've been there for 5 months and I can't believe it either! We're doing a lot of exciting things and hopefully there will be room for even more expansion soon!

Around the same time however, we learned some bad news. My Dad had been diagnosed with cancer. Cancer sucks. They caught it very early and he's going to be fine. At his last check he was cancer free. So, he's been cancer free for close to four months now.

Once Adam accepted the offer for his job, we started looking for a house.  We found one, made an offer, then another, the second offer was accepted and after many issues with our loan officer being incompetent, we closed on a single story ranch house with a full basement in a suburb of Lansing on Adam's birthday. It is a fantastic house and we love living here. How we moved in was very complicated, because we had planned to stay out our lease at our rental house on Lansing's east side.

And then it was burglarized again.

The second burglary happened the Monday after Adam's birthday, which also was the Monday after we closed on the house.  We didn't spend another night in the house. We stayed with some friends in East Lansing for two weeks, and moved out the Saturday after the second break-in, and into a storage unit and into the sun room of our new house. The former owners were kind enough to let us move a bunch of our stuff into the sun room while they were still living here.  After two weeks with our friends, we decided we didn't want to impose on our friends for too long, because we weren't sure when we'd be able to get into the new house. So we moved into a dog friendly hotel near our new house for two weeks.

Thanks to my father-in-law, we had installed a security camera system after the first break-in and were able to give the footage to the police which aided them in catching the kid who broke in. I can't say anything else because the court case is still in progress.

It was a very stressful time in our lives and we are glad to be past it.

We've been living here for four months and I think it's starting to sink in that we get to be here, that this place is ours (and the credit union's) and we just can't believe it. We are close to being done with furnishing the house, and there are curtains and shelves up and as many candles as I can get in!


Unfortunately, during this time, I also learned that a childhood friend was losing her second battle with cancer. This has been incredibly hard on her, her family and friends and I am kind of in shock. You don't expect to lose friends when you're 25. I hope that she beats this thing every day, but I cry a lot about it too, when I'm not in numb shock. Cancer really sucks.

That pretty much sums up the highs and lows of the last 6-ish months. I am hoping to get back on a regular schedule of blogging, but it won't be 5 days a week. I also have to fix how this blog looks in Chrome on Mac, because it looks funky.

Hug your loved ones, and tell them you care.

Here's a cute picture of Tesla.


Friday, January 27, 2012

Pinterest, where have you been all my life?

I recently decided to find out what Pinterest is all about and asked a friend for an invite.

Huge mistake, I am now addicted.  ADDICTED I TELL YOU.  It's such a wonderful way to keep ideas in a fun way.  I don't know about you, but I bookmark stuff in my browser and pretty much forget about it. Like, immediately.  But not only do I go through and pin neat stuff, but I go back and do them.  And, it spurs my own creativity!   I love it!

For example, I have seen a number of re-purposed canvas shoe organizers.  One that was used to hold cleaning supplies and one that someone used to grow an herb garden!  Both of those ideas are so smart and made me start thinking.

My house is 400 square feet.  This is not a joke. So space is prime real estate.  We have kind of been collecting an amalgamation of sorts on top of the spice racks.  Which are on top of the microwave.  Which is on top of the fridge.


This is after I cleaned everything up.  I did not want to unclean it up for a before and after picture, sorry. (Say hi to Adam who's finishing submitting a paper, "Hi Adam!")

After seeing genius re-purposing of shoe organizers, I had a brilliant idea of my own!  We have three doors in our kitchen. One to the back deck, one to the basement and one to the bathroom.  The back of the door to the basement was just sitting there, a blank canvas, waiting to be useful.

So.......

(How do you like the quilt batting shoved into the crack on the right? Keeps it much warmer upstairs!)

Ta-da!

I took anything that was in a random place in the kitchen and put it in here.

All of my Weight Watchers snacks, coffee filters, our asinine amount of tea, equally asinine amount of popcorn and many other things are all neatly labeled and in their spots. I felt so accomplished! Usually, for some reason, I leave my organizational COD at work but I brought it home and I don't want to stop! As full time work still eludes me, I can only do it a little at a time. Also, the basement is not a finished basement. And it's winter. In Michigan.  So it's cold and I don't go down there for long periods at the moment.  But, I will get there, and you will know it when I do!

The floppy pieces of paper are only temporary.  I tried making my own adhesive plastic cases to stick on each pocket, but the contact paper wasn't sticky enough. So tomorrow I am headed to Jo-Ann's coupons in hand (50% off, woo!) to get some thin plastic that I am going to be sewing on so that it's as easy to change the label on the pocket as it is the contents.

I leave you with more pictures of my DIY, of which I am so proud!

A liiiittle closer

Oatmeal!

See? Asinine amounts of popcorn.  And my lunch bag.

Temporary labels fastened with paper clips.

Aaaaand what I came back to find after taking pictures.  Stinker.

If you would like to join me in my addiction, shoot me an email through the contact me link in the side bar.

Love and hugs!

P.S. To all of the traffic coming from sopastrike.com, welcome, and I hope we continue to be successful in shelving SOPA and PIPA.  Poke around and I hope you find something to keep bringing you back.


Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Merry Christmahannukwanzaa! And a Happy New Year!

I hope you are taking a minute to appreciate those you love around you.















Happy Holidays from the Jensens: Adam, Jenny and Tesla!

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Our pretty baby

So I posted yesterday about a whole bunch of changes that have been happening in our lives.  Today we get to see more of one of those changes, our dog Tesla.

She's a boxer mix.


Who's about a year and a half old.


She's so smart, we worked on 'stay' tonight, and she stayed for a full minute!  Of course I didn't want to push it, so I called her over after that.  She's so good!


She's funny. And super sweet.

Just love on her and all these pictures!!



Baby girl! :D

Monday, November 7, 2011

Whoa! Crazy Train!

Quick updates!

I have been so super busy that blogging kind of fell to the wayside!  I have been made full time at work, temporarily, but with how busy I've been I am hoping that they will keep me at full time past the end of this month.

We also moved into a house. Renting, but we are living in a house and we LOVE it.  Pictures are coming!

Aaaaaaand for the biggest news: We got a dog!  She's a beautiful boxer mix who's about a year and a half old.  She had her first vet appointment tonight and she is a healthy girl!  Her name is Tesla Katherine, named for the wife of Nikola Tesla who invented the Tesla Coil. We start obedience classes on Saturday.  Many pictures and adventures with her to come!

How've you been?