Sic 'em

This past weekend was Baylor's 100th Homecoming. While we wanted to be there terribly, we just couldn't. But this short two-minute video helps capture some of the fun happenings and moments of the weekend. And while Baylor didn't win the football game, it still looks like it was a fun weekend. There's always next year.

Homecoming 2009 from Baylor Photography on Vimeo.

Miscellaneous musings

So I know it's been awhile. I've started a few posts, but scrapped them because there's just not enough to make sense. But I don't want anyone to think I've died. So I post random thoughts:

1.) I hate living in a different town than my husband is. It's not permanent, I know. But I'm miserable nonetheless and so is he. We know we work better together than apart, so the 16th can't come soon enough for us.

2.) We are now living in a place that it snows in the month of September. Holy crap! September in Texas and Virginia can be good beach weather complete with shorts and flip flops. I was driving in snow on September 30. I have a feeling we're grossly under-prepared for this winter. Anyone want to donate to the "we need a snowblower" fund?

3.) I'm really enjoying having my DVR back. It's not my Tivo, but at least I can record something and watch it later - fast forwarding through stupid commercials. Yes, I've become too good for commercials.

4.) I'm also very depressed knowing that Baylor's star quarterback is out for the season. I'm hoping that they can still pull off a win or two, but I know the bowl game we were hoping for is pretty much out the window. I don't have a lack of faith, but have a realistic view after being a Baylor fan for so many years.

5.) I'm missing my Jeep. I've been stuck with the car because we're having worlds of trouble getting it titled here in Idaho and have no sign of getting this resolved. I'm  beyond mad at Chrysler Financial for not dealing with this, especially since we started this process in JUNE!!! If I could climb through the phone and strangle people, there would be far fewer employees at that place. Grrrr.

6.) I'm amazed that the local ABC affiliate is overriding the regular ABC materials this weekend, including college football and NASCAR, to broadcast the semi-annual general LDS conference. That would be like Dallas, Waco or Austin broadcasting the Southern Baptist Convention. I can't imagine the insane reaction the affiliates would receive by doing something like that. Yet here, no one is blinking an eye. I'm telling you, this place is like no other.

7.) School's going well for me. I'm coming to realize I am probably the most disciplined and interested student in all my classes. Doesn't bother me, just makes me the target for stupid punks to ask for notes and my work. Don't worry, I'm not passing it out. I'm mean, if I can manage to go to class and take notes, so can everyone else. I'm also tutoring a Taiwanese girl that tends to be a little more lazy than I'd like to see. But I'm getting paid to teach and re-teach her the same stuff while she refuses to put a whole lot into it. Not my fault if she fails, I can't take the tests for her. She's going to have to study on her own. In the meantime, I kicked some midterm butt today in my hardest class, so that's a nice thing to know going into my weekend.

8.) I'm going tomorrow to go see my sweetie in Boise. We were going to take in a Boise State game on the smurf turf, but shelved that idea when the weather is calling for 40's and rain. I might go if they were playing Baylor, but no blue turf is worth my lips turning blue and pneumonia. Maybe next season we can go make a weekend out of it and stay at a real hotel and not the questionable apartment he's had to live in for over a month now. 

9.) We have a yard! Got our sod installed two weekends ago and are watering the thunder out of it, when it's not snowing. I'm hoping it roots out really well before any long stretches of freeze. We've had some overnight freezing already, but nothing days on end. It's coming, we know. I just want the expensive grass to get down good before it does. 

10.) The critters are doing well. Both went to the groomers today and weren't too happy. But I was forgiven after buying their love with some chicken nuggets. They look very pretty and smell great. That will last maybe two days, three tops.

That's really all I can think of for now. I've put pictures on Facebook if anyone wants to see what else we're up to. Went to some cool waterfalls in the far corner of Yellowstone a couple weekends ago when the honey was home. Check them out and have a great weekend!

9-9-09 = A whole lot of nada

Everyone was making quite a deal of the 09-09-09 date, and yet today's been like most ordinary days for me here.

I'm flying solo now that the hubby's doing his peds training in Boise. I've seen him a  couple times over the past couple weeks and he's due home in a little over a week. In the meantime, I keep busy with school and classwork. I'm really loving what I'm doing and grateful to be back in a college setting. Not that I don't miss my sweetie like crazy, I just like that I now have something to help occupy the hours.

The house continues to be a work in progress - mainly outside. We've installed our own sprinkler system and only need a few tweaks here and there before it's good to go. It works pretty well now, just have a few sprinkler heads that aren't coming to life when the water's turned on. Once that's all done and the yard gets smoothed out, we'll get sod installed and have a real yard. The pups can't wait since they've had to go to the greenbelt and overgrown lots around for their bathroom needs. One day we'll get a fence and some proper-looking flowerbeds, but since it's about to be fall/winter, we're going to wait and see. I'd hate to spend any good amount of money on flowers or such to only see them killed in the first freeze. And seeing how it's getting into the low 40's at night now on a pretty regular basis, I'm going to guess a freeze will be sooner rather than later.

I just got back from a wonderful trip to New York with some of my college friends. I can't get over how much I love that city. I've been maybe 4 or 5 times now and still want to go back over and over. There's too much to see and do - and eat! Oh, the food alone is worth a trip. I'm glad I don't have those kinds of choices here - I'd explode! Pics are up on Facebook for anyone who cares. I'd post some here, but Blogger's being its usual pain-in-the-butt and I'm too tired to fight it more tonight.

Not much else going on to speak of in our world. School for me, work for him - pretty much a switcheroo from where we were a year ago. The pups are doing well and Austin's being a normal crazy cat. I think he's loving the cool weather at night as it seems to give him energy to pounce and run all over the house like a crazed animal.

And that's all for now kids. More when something exciting happens. Or not. There just isn't much exciting in the town.

Open to the new, cherishing the old

I met with my new college advisor today. It's weird to even say "college advisor."  After my wonderful years at Baylor, I considered the "college" part of my life over. Sure, maybe one day I'd get a masters or something, but that'd be a masters and therefore not really college. 

Yet, here I am. I walked onto Idaho State's campus today and went into my new home-away-from-home and even got a brief tour of where most of my classes will be. Made me miss Baylor in so many ways, but at the same time it was nice to see a newly renovated building dedicated to a communications department. 

My new degree is really all about visual arts and photography, not writing and speech communications. Yet, it is just another Mass Communications degree. But this will be worlds apart from what I did at Baylor. My one photo course at Baylor was on my old 35mm and focused on black & white media. Everything now is done digital and will involve a ton of graphic design and Photoshop work. I (hopefully) get to skip on all the basics - English, math, sciences, literature, foreign language, etc. -  and will spend most my time doing what I love. And as a bonus (to me at least), I have to do 15 hours outside my degree in the arts and humanities. That means I get to dabble in painting or printmaking or ceramics or music or theater and have that count towards my degree. My creative juices are already bubbling up inside! 

Can you sense how excited I'm getting? Not only to gain formal training in something I love, but to refine all my skills I taught myself and to even branch out and try totally different things. Including Scuba diving. No, seriously. I'm taking a course to get certified in Scuba and skin diving for practically nothing in tuition and getting two-hours of credit.

College is fun. I'm sure my secondary college experience will be vastly different this go-round. After all, I'm not your typical co-ed. I'm almost 30 (gasp!) and married and not concerned with sorority life and student activities. I'm here for the education. I can't even get my heart into cheering for the Bengal sports teams. My heart will always belong to Baylor. I'm a bear - I bleed green and gold.

Besides, you don't see ISU being featured on ESPN commercials. Nope, that's Baylor.

Here and there

So, we got to Idaho. It was an interesting trip. But we got here Saturday and turned around hit the road again. This time we headed to Texas, stopping in Denver for the night with some great friends, Christine and Mike and their little one, Davis.

We got to Texas just in time to see my little sister get hitched in the same church we got married in 7 years before. Nearly all the family turned out and celebrated with the newlyweds. It was great catching up with everyone and sharing in the fun family occasions. 

I'd love to post some of my photos, but shortly after returning from our Texas adventures my brand-new Macbook decided to forget how to start-up, leaving us no choice but to send it off to Apple for a new hard drive. This resulted in a complete loss of all my files, photos, music. Everything. UGH.

Anyway, after the wedding we took several days and visited the hubby's family near Post. Managed to get some sun out on the lake and the hubby got his fishing in. It was nice to have some downtime after all the hectic scheduling of moving and traveling. 

But even R&R must end, so we left the lake to head back to my family's to see my two little brothers graduate from high school. It was so fun to see them both have their special moment and cross the stage at the same time. That leaves only one more little brother to go, and that's still 5 years away. Again, my pics are gone, but I hope to get them back from my folks down the road since I put them on their computer.

We headed back to Idaho, again staying with the Jenneys, but in their new home a little south of Denver. You know you have good friends when they let you stay with them in the middle of a move! We got into our new zip code with no extra time to spare, moving all our stuff out of our realtor's garage and into our house the very next morning. That left us one day, Sunday, to sort and unpack some before the hubby began his new job Monday at 8 o'clock. Can you see how I haven't had much time for blogging?!?

The weekend after he began his job, we went to Island Park, Idaho for the Residency retreat for all the residency staff and residents. It was nice getting to know the people we'll be with for the next three years. Too bad it was rainy and pretty cool. Tent camping in the rain just isn't nearly as fun. But the pups stuck it out with us and I got to visit Yellowstone National Park for my first time!

With the retreat behind us and the hubby going to work everyday, I was left with the details of getting utilities set up, cars registered in Idaho and the house in order and somewhat decorated in time for his parents to come visit this past week. It's still not 100 percent where we'd like it to be, but we've got to buy shelving and window treatments and little things to really make it a home. All that takes money, so little by little it'll come together.

My job now is job-hunting and getting ready to begin classes in about a month. Of course I've got to still see to the critters and house details. We finally closed on the house yesterday, so (along with the bank) we own our house and can continue making it everything we know it can be. And the best part is we've sent off our amended tax return, giving us the first-time homebuyers tax credit that we can use to make things really happen around here - like installing a yard, sprinkler system, a fence, the air conditioner, etc. 

But, for right now, I'll post a couple of pictures of the inside of house from a couple of weeks ago. We've done a little since then, but nothing overly dramatic.

You say potato

So, in the adventures of the Marcum family, we have now come to July. When I last left you, it was May.

May seems forever ago, but it brought so many changes.

After house hunting, we came home to pack up all our worldly belongings and attempt to come up with a moving strategy. It basically came down to packing everything in a Budget truck (the largest they offer) - including a boat! - and have it tow our Jeep while someone else drives the Neon and follows behind.

But, before we drove away from our beloved home and Virginia, we all watched my wonderful husband become a doctor. All the book knowledge he absorbed and training he tirelessly endured all came to one moment as he walked across the stage in Norfolk's Scope arena and accepted his diploma and hood. For all those years and years of work, he now gets to sign a little 'M.D.' behind his name. It also requires three more years of hands-on training as a medical resident - hence the move to Pocatello.





So, graduation was wonderful and we had a fabulous post-graduation lunch with our amazing friends and families. We we suppose to also have an amazing doctor-themed cake, but the local bakery I contracted with decided to forgo making said cake and produced NOTHING for us. Thank heavens my friend went to pick up the cake that afternoon because if it had been me landing on the lady's doorstep and her telling me they didn't make it, I probably would have killed her, which would not have made for the great celebration we did get to have. Thankfully, our friends (once again) came to the rescue and got a cake made by the local grocery store in time for us all to enjoy after our meal. It might not had a stethoscope on it, but it was wonderful.


And that was Saturday. Sunday was our last Sunday with our friends and family at First Baptist Norfolk. Heart-wrenching is all I can think of to describe it, but remember it fondly. We love our family there and miss it so very much. Still brings tears to my eyes as I write.

Moving on. Sunday evening was more packing and we had many of our friends and even our family (who traveled all the way from Texas) helping. Not a soul was lounging around. Monday was more packing and loading, with a break for one last dinner with our neighbors and East Coast family. As more of our belongings went onto the truck, we shared more hugs and shed more tears and we said our goodbyes.

And so, on Tuesday, May 19, we loaded the final odds and ends, and with my Dad, good friend Ryan, two dogs and a drugged-up cat, we saddled up and started our adventure west.

For those who care to, click here to see the map of our 2,400 mile trip across the U.S.A.

I'd have to say the most enjoyable part of the move was spending lots and lots of quality time with one another, but also documenting the trip for Ryan's two girls with their little stuffed animals Ryan brought along. Pinky and Kitty were quite the hit, and adventures can still be seen on Facebook by clicking here.




We finally made it to Idaho on Saturday, May 23. We ended up unloading all our stuff into our realtor's garage (because our mortgage hadn't been completely ironed out). We didn't want to risk moving our stuff into the garage of the new house and us heading off to Texas for two weeks if we weren't 100 percent sure we'd be moving it into the house when we got back.


So, we put everything in the garage and had one last dinner with Ryan and dad that evening. Ryan left us the next morning, getting home in time to spend Memorial Day with his family, and dad left Monday to get home for my sister's wedding the following Saturday.

So that gets us to Idaho. We ended up leaving out the following Wednesday morning to drive back to Texas for my sister's wedding, my brothers' graduation and some time with the in-laws up in the Panhandle. That'll be another post, but I did want to catch up anyone that might be wondering if we ever made it to Idaho. We did. 

And, yes, there are a lot of potatoes here. The plants are about a foot tall and in bloom. I know all this because there's a farming report on the local radio station every day at lunch. And in case you were wondering, wheat's not doing so great right now.

Home is where your rump rests

No truer words have ever been spoken - at least by a Disney cartoon warthog.

We've been going non-stop since I can't remember when and we've still got about another month of this craziness.

But to briefly attempt to catch you up, here I go.

The end of March I made a trip back to Texas to see family and attend my little brother's C.A.R. state conference as state president. It was in San Antonio, so I got to stay at the historic Menger Hotel and eat some yum-ee Mexican food. I got to then go back to the hometown to visit with the family some more and see my grandmother.

Then a couple of weeks later the hubby and I both traveled back the Texas, this time for the brother-in-law's wedding in Midland. It was quite a trip - complete with 5 hour detour to Oklahoma City's finest runway. But it was a great wedding and we made it back home in one piece.

And that got us home for a few more days here with friends and the hubby finishing up his medical school career. All of it. Done. What a glorious day.

Then there was some more packing and the mother-of-all yard sales. Ugh. It's done and over and what when out the door to sell most likely didn't make its way back in. We made a handsome penny or two and then donated the rest of our unwanted treasures to the Union Mission Thrift Store.

That will bring us to this past Monday, when we flew back West to Idaho to find a house for us to move into come the end of this month. Well, we flew into Salt Lake City since it's the nearest large airport and much cheaper than the local airport in Idaho Falls. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive.

Tuesday we met with the mortgage lady and did lots of paperwork to get everything in line for us to buy a house. Wednesday we looked at houses and Thursday was more house looking - with the added bonus of sending out an offer. And come about 10:45 Thursday night, we got word the builder accepted our crazy-low offer and is covering our closing costs! Seriously, the guy's got to be losing about $10,000 from the asking price and paying for the closing. Yea for us!

I'm including some pictures below - with the side note that while we toured the house I didn't think there would be any way we'd be getting this house, so I took no photos. It was VERY out of our price range and to lowball an offer AND get closing costs was not going to happen in my mind. But it did and I had no photos of the house we're in a contract to buy. So, we drove out to the house before we left town Friday for pictures. They're all take from outside since we couldn't get it - so pardon the dirt and blurs.

And so, without further ado, here's 1427 Kiersten - our (hopeful) new house! Pray everything goes well for us getting everything together and the closing goes according to plan.


















And one last one... the view from our back yard.