Some Changes

The Thomas household has been a war zone this past week.

Piles of huge ugly messes EVERYWHERE. Dirty dishes, crumbs all over the carpet, you couldn't even see our dining room table because there was so much stuff on it, furniture haphazordly placed.

We do have explanations though.

For one thing, our vacuum broke for a couple of days. That explains the crumbs all over the carpet. Don't worry, it's fixed now.

And the other reason is we finally decided that Preston needed his very own room, so we basically turned the house upside down re-arranging everything.

You may be wondering why a little guy like this would need his very own space.

Could it be because he is a light sleeper? Because we had our computer and music studio in his room and it was disrupting his sleeping patterns?

Yes to both. If you have been reading my Belly Diaries blog, you probably then read the occassional post regarding our many failed attempts to sleep-train Preston. (He is almost 10 months old and still does not sleep through the night). As much as we tried to not have to move the "office" out of his room (because we only have two bedrooms), we decided it was necessary in order for him to get the quiet solitude he needed.

Well we couldn't move the office/studio to our bedroom because it was already the bedroom/entertainment center room. So our only other option was to move everything out into the living room.

So this is how Preston's room used to look...

Our "office/studio" used to be on one end of the room like this:

With Preston's nursury on the other end like this:

Well, we would now like to introduce Preston's new and improved bedroom...

It is really a ginormous room for one little person, but we really had no other choice. Now Preston goes right to sleep with nobody going in there to quietly type on the computer (he would wake up to the sound of mouse clicks).

I have to admit that having the room all nursery now is very relaxing and peaceful. I love rocking him to sleep now and feeling like I'm completely in a baby's room.

So this is what we had to do with the rest of our house...

This was the way our living room used to look:

And these were the changes we made...

We moved the computer out onto the desk in the kitchen area:

We call it the "old" computer now, because after a very long time of wanting to upgrade to a beefier computer to handle my music studio programs, we finally did. I had some nice royalty payments these past few months from movie deals that licensed my music, as well as an increase in music students at the beginning of this year - so I was finally able to afford a new music computer.

This new computer will be able to handle my huge files at lightening speed and not bog down the rest of the computer. It has a quad processor, 8 gigs of memory, 650 gig hard drive, and external harddrive with 1 terabyte of space, and runs on a 64 bit operating system. It also came with a 23" inch monitor so I won't have to zoom in so much and squint my eyes while editing.

So the music studio is now completely all out in the living room. Will is still getting all of my software loaded onto it - which will take a few more days. I also upgraded to a new digital audio workstation (daws) that is a producer-level software, so I will be able to now learn how to do a lot more engineering on my music that I regularly hire others to do for me.

Another reason we got this other computer because we were finding it difficult sharing one computer these days. With Will trying to spend hours online searching for jobs, and me needing to work on my album - it was just getting increasingly difficult. We were having to schedule computer time in shifts. Usually Will had the early morning shift, and then I would get on mid-morning. And then afternoons I would teach piano while Will tended to Preston (which meant he didn't get much job searching done during that time). And then any music time I wanted was usually during the middle of the night (sooooo exhausting). AND given our sleep-issues with Preston, this also meant that we would often have to put him to sleep in our bedroom (which completely defeated the purpose of having a nursury).

Hopefully having this 2nd computer now will allow Will many more hours to look for jobs, and me being able to finish this lullaby ablum sooner as well.

Now for my weekly Mamarazzi photos.

I had a little helper in the kitchen the other day...

He mostly was just...

And then would occassionally look at me as if he were saying:

And then would do this multiple times to get my attention...

Have you seen this kid's hair from the backside before?

It is finally starting to grow in on his bald spot, but I swear he just rubs it off a day or two later. You would think with the amount of time he spends sitting and standing he wouldn't have that bald spot anymore.

And now for some great Preston faces:

The End.

In Loving Memory: Derrell Alexander Lindsay (Apr 2, 1920 - Apr 3, 2009)

My Grandfather, Derrell Alexander Lindsay, passed away peacefully this morning at 3 a.m. while in the car with my grandmother on the way to the hospital after he had an asthma attack. He just celebrated his 89th birthday yesterday.

I was very close to my Grandpa. They only have 4 grandchildren, so you could say we got him (and my grandma) to ourselves. :) I have so many memories of him growing up. He was always there.

Here is what I wrote on my Facebook page this morning:

In loving memory of my grandfather who just passed away this morning, April 3, 2009. He was a great man - someone I always looked up to and aspired to be like. He performed our wedding in the Portland LDS temple (as well as my two married brothers' weddings). He was an outdoor enthusiast. And he had the best sense of humor - always playing jokes on people, tickling, and saying the funniest things. He also had a vast vocabulary of words that I'd never heard of. Words like spizerinctum.

He served in WWII, was a dentist most of his life, had a photographic memory, and had many friends who cherished him. He loved to read, loved the Gospel, loved my Grandmother and our family. At 5'6" he was always frustrated with his height his entire life, but always was a spiritual giant to the rest of us. The church and gospel were the most important thing in his life aside from family. He dedicated many hours of voluntary service to the church as a regional representative, stake president, and bishop.

He and my grandmother backpacked the mountains of Eastern Oregon for a good 30 years. He only had one lung, bad asthma, and in recent years had a difibulator put in. He has given us many scares - he's been run over by a runaway truck, fell into a sink hole with a snowmobile on top of him, has had many heart attacks....and yet outlived most all of his 6 siblings and loved life despite all these ailments.

He died peacefully in the car on the way to the hospital after an asthma attack the day after his 89th birthday.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years ( my grandmother), Thelma Sutherland Lindsay, their daughters Carolyn Lindsay Southworth and Leslie Lindsay Arbogast, their 4 grandchildren Michael Southworth, Jennifer Southworth Thomas, Shaun Southworth, and Stephen Southworth, and 5 (and 1/2) great-grandchildren.

Rest in peace. We love you and will miss you Grandpa. Don't worry - we will take good care of Grandma. I know you held on this long just for her.

The most recent photo I have with him - this past Christmas 2008

Preston's baby blessing - Aug 2008

At our wedding, March 2005

At my younger brother, Stephen's wedding - Apr 2005

Both of my grandpa's kissing my mother on my parents wedding day (1973)

My family at General Conference - 1985?

My family at the Seattle airport picking up my grandparents after serving a 2 year mission in New Zealand. My grandpa's family came to Oregon from New Zealand in the early 1900s. They had a homestead near the Bay of Islands for 30 years after coming there from Ireland/Scotland.

Just a few of MANY outdoor adventures with Grandma and Grandpa

My dad, me, and grandparents at their home in Eastern Oregon

Strawberry Kid

So Blessed.

I've been wanting to write this post for a couple of weeks now, but just never came across the perfect opportunity to get serious. We've been having too much fun lately for serious posts!

BUT...I do need to write about the numerous ways we have been blessed lately, during Will's unemployment...

But to make it fun, I'm interjecting pictures of Preston in here because I know the grandparents will be wondering why I didn't put Preston pics in.

I hope you don't mind the mamarazzi in me...

As many of you know, Will lost his job towards the end of November. He had been working in the Finance department at John Buchan Homes as an estimator for almost 4 years. It was his first job right out of Grad School, and what a great job it was. In the end, he was literally the last to go, as they only kept one estimator after laying him off and she had been with the company for about 10 years.

Just before the lay-off happened, we had witnessed many other employees getting laid off. In fact, JFB Homes went from an office staff of 125 employees in 2007, down to about 25 employees by the end of 2008. It was a rather sad and hard time.

Here's another Preston pic. :) He loves the vacuum, in case you couldn't tell.

We really did plan ahead for a situation like this in case it ever did arise. We had been putting money away into a savings account that equated to about 4 months of survival (including all the regular budget items such as rent, bills, insurance, gas, food, etc,...even our own personal "fun" allowances were included).

Will put this savings account into some investment accounts, which helped make our little "emergency fund" slightly larger. Well, that is before the stock market crash happened. Then I think we went from a 5 month savings down to a 3 month savings. LOL. But anyway...

We'd also been stocking up on food storage - thanks to Will. He's been very adamant about that for a long time.

Time for another Preston pic.

But even with all of our preparations, we have been blessed in ways that we couldn't have foreseen. God has surely sent earthly angels into our lives to lighten our burden during this time. These were all things that came as complete surprises to us and were such blessings in disguise.

• Right after Christmas, our bishop handed us an envelope. He said that the ward had some extra "items" that were donated by ward members during tithing settlement. We were curious but had no idea what was inside. When we opened it later, we found 3 giftcards to Fred Meyer - one for $100, and 2 for $50 each. We actually used it to go towards buying Will a new suit because the one he had been wearing (since his mission) was wearing out, and he would be needing a new one for job interviews.

• My visiting teachers from church on many different occassions would bring dinner by, sometimes unexpectedly. They claimed that they just happened to have "extra" and thought it would be a nice break for us.

• We also received several dinner invitations from friends.

• The Relief Society President called in February and said she was worried about us (and others) in our ward who had lost their jobs and wanted to know if the Relief Society could provide dinner for us once a week for a month. I told her it wasn't necessary but she insisted, so I accepted. What a blessing it was....every single time that a meal was delivered it happened to fall on a day where it was sorely needed.

• The owner of our piano called me last month (we lease our grand piano from a private owner). I was afraid that she was going to ask where our payment was - which we normally pay for 6 months in advance all at once. But we kept forgetting to get the payment in the mail for the Jan - June payment. I had the check all ready to go, just kept forgetting to stick it in the mail. To my great surprise, she called and said she had just been thinking about us and that she wanted to decrease our payments. I said "What?" I heard the word "decrease" but thought for sure she must have said "increase". But no she said decrease. She said she knew how bad the economy was right now and figured she didn't need the money anyway and so she decreased the monthly lease payments by half, and also told us to not worry about paying until June.

• In January, my piano student enrollment went up by 5 students making my total count 11 piano students and 1 violin student. While we keep my music income seperate from our family income, this has been a blessing to help me complete my album sooner...which in turn will bring in additional future income and well, also just help me get it done faster so I can go back to being a fulltime wife and mom. :)

• We have been fortunate enough to have good health. While Preston and I have health insurance, Will does not right now and he is the one doing all of the crazy races and adventures. We are lucky that he hasn't needed health insurance. :)

• We have had friends donate items that have saves us from having to purchase them ourselves - such as toys for Preston, additional food storage items, etc.

• We have been able to qualify for WIC, which if you are not familiar with it, it is a government program for mothers and children where they may either be unemployed or under a certain income requirement. Through this program we have been able to save about $200 a month on grocery items such as milk, cheese, tuna, baby cereal, and juice.

• This might be kind of selfish, but I personally am grateful that I have had the opportunity to work on my music for this album. I can honestly say that it would have taken me twice as long to complete had I not had Will here to help me with Preston during the day. I am also grateful that the two of them have had this time together.

One more thing, you have noticed that I mentioned earlier in my post that we had put away 3 months of savings, and here we are 5 months later after the layoff. It is definitely due to several things - for one my husband somehow grows money magically on trees. Okay I'm kidding, but he is pretty amazing with a budget and somehow we seem to always get by. Thanks to also paying tithing faithfully, the Lord gives back ALWAYS. And most of all, the help we have received from friends and family through the things I have mentioned here have helped us to continue to make it through.

There are many many more things that I could list, but I'll stop here. THANK YOU to those angels who have helped us. You know who you are.

I think it is a great act to serve someone, but it is harder to accept service from others. So many times lately I have wanted to be able to donate money or food, but I am reminded that at this time our family is on the recipient end of things. I hope that someday when our situation is reversed that we will be able to help other people in need with our abundance.

And now...for more Preston pictures. :)

Peek-a-boo...