little green ones

Look at this!

Whoa, I have little baby tomatoes! I went outside to water my plants tonight and saw these cute little guys hiding.  I gasped so loud that I'm sure the neighbors are calling the police.  I am so excited! Number 1- I am excited that I haven't killed them yet and Number 2- I am excited to actually have little tomatoes starting to bloom!

I will try not to get too obsessive with these tomatoes, but they are kind of the highlight of my day right now :)

life lately

What's been going down at the Dunn household lately?

-Matt is loving his new supervisor position at UPS (and I am loving his new hours).  He has moved into a different department than he was in and is learning a lot.  Like usual, he has worked in this position for a week or two and then his partner is out of town this week so he has to man the ship alone.  He has done this two other times in other departments.  I guess they trust the guy :).

-I am still madly deeply in love with my new car.  She is great.  I get so excited when I get to drive her somewhere.  It's still so new to me and I get excited to show her off.  I hope that new car/new leather smell never goes away!

-Our trees and shrubs get delivered this week!  We went back to the nursery last week and made our final decision...

1. A "Brandywine" Maple tree for the front left of the house

2. An "Ace of Hearts" Redbud tree for the front right of the house- I didn't realize how much I loved redbud trees until this Spring when almost every house in our neighborhood had one in full bloom. They are beautiful!

3. A "Limelight" Hydrangea plant for the back corner- I love hydrangeas.  We weren't planning on getting one, but when we changed our mind on putting a tree up by the entrance we had a little left over in the budget and I ran straight for the hydrangeas.  This one will get pretty big (5-7 ft tall and 4 ft wide) so we are putting her in the back yard in a corner where Matt ripped out some old weedy trees a couple months ago.  We are going to let her grow wild (well while still-looking good of course).  The flowers' blooms will start out green and then fade to a light pink at the end of summer.  I am so excited for this one!

4. 5 Boxwoods for the outline of our walkway to the house.  We ended up getting the 2 gallon tubs so they'd be a bit more mature since they grow slowly.

We are planning on having a landscape party this weekend.  I am calling it a party because to be honest, I am not that excited about digging really big holes all day. It makes me feel better if it's a "party".  

-I am almost to the end of the 12 weeks I have been orienting a new RN on the floor. She is wonderful.  It is SO cool to precept someone.  I am the one shaping her.  Yes, she will go and do as her own style is once she's on her own, but I took a lot of my ways of doing things from my preceptor and I have noticed my orientee doing the same.  It can be exhausting, but I know it is all for her and for our unit.  I feel good about teaching her the basics, the right way to do things (follow the policy), and ways to get on people's good side as far as being helpful in your downtime etc.  She is getting so much better at talking to docs and catching little things (which usually turn out to be the most important thing) on assessment.  Everything she needed to work on in the beginning is now coming full-circle and she is great.  Other RN's have been coming up to me saying how my orientee reminds them of me and how awesome of a job she is doing and will do.  Warms my heart :).

-I planted some tomato plants last week.  My favorite thing ever is a fresh garden tomato.  This is my first time ever planting my own tomato plants.  Cross your green thumbs they survive!

-We went to visit my Dad's side of the family a couple weekends ago.  We went to see my Nana Sue and to spend time with the family. I was finally able to meet my baby twins cousins! They are 8 months old and the sweetest babies ever.  I can't imagine having twins, but my cousins make it look easy.  I love those babies!

And just because he's cute...

curb appeal

Matt and I stopped by a nursery by our house last weekend to search through their stock of trees and shrubs.  We talked about doing some landscaping this Winter and then the mixture of a super-mild Winter and the beautiful March we had really sparked our interest in doing some landscaping.  Our current landscaping setup is plain and boring. We are the only house in the neighborhood without a big mature tree in the front.  I really think it will jazz up the "curb appeal" and really just make me more excited about our house if we add a little green out there.

The guy at the nursery was so helpful and knowledgeable. We ended up spending at least 2 hours there (it was supposed to be a motorcycle ride up there, look real quick, and leave) and got a really good idea of what we wanted.  After talking with Toby (guy at the nursery), we decided we needed to do the "big" things first.  We knew we couldn't do everything we had planned on this year, some will have to wait until next year.  He encouraged us to pick out our largest items and get those planted this year so they'd have the most time to grow and mature. Great idea Toby!

We have narrowed it down pretty close to what our 2012 plan will be...

1. Medium/Large sized tree for the front of the house off to the side a little (hopefully will add some pizzazz, color, and shade to the front)

      -Brandywine Maple-nice green leaves throughout the Spring/Summer, bright red leaves in fall, perfect size, moderate-fast growing

2. Shrubs for in front of our walkway 

      -Boxwoods (cute little green shrubs that will spruce up our front yard...I'll eventually plant some colorful flowers near them to add some color)

3. Small/Medium sized tree to go to the left of the front door entrance

      -Evergreen (I am not a fan of evergreens, but I have started considering it more because of how easy and low-maintainence they are)

      -Buckthorn (I just remember this name, I actually forget what it actually looks like)

      -Althea (Pretty flowers. Downside? We might have to trim this guy down every year)

4. MAYBE a nice little Redbud tree on the right side front of the house.  I love redbuds, but it may not be in the budget for this year.

That's all for this year.  We eventually want to add some Spring bulbs, Fall mums, hydrangea bushes, pavers and mulching. I also want to do a little island with some perennials (hopefully some zinnias!) in the front side yard. We need to spruce up around our mailbox too, but that may wait until next year.  

The plan is to get everything delivered next weekend so we can get to work! Wish us luck :)

hello Murano!

Deal! This weekend we bought a car.  Not just any car. My dream car.

I have wanted a Nissan Murano for just about forever, but they were always out of reach.  We luckily stumbled upon this amazing vehicle for just the right price (a tiny bit under budget in fact!). I am SO in love with this car.  It is way more than I expected we would be able to get and I almost feel like I don't deserve it.  Throughout this whole thing I have been reminded once again how selfless my husband is.  He puts himself on the back burner so that I can have a nice and safe vehicle.  Of course he wants/needs one too, but he is holding off until we are in the position to add another car payment.  Yes this is our car, everything is ours, but I will be primarily driving this beauty around town.  Seeing a smile on his face and the way he encouraged me to "get what I want", "if you like it, let's get it!', "do you want to come home from work to this in your driveway tonight?", "you look great in this car" makes me smile.  I am so lucky to have him.

This Murano has everything I wished for (and thought I couldn't have) and more.  I've got to say-I've never had heated seats...but now that I do I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back :).  It drives like a dream and has the comfiest leather seats I have ever sat in. It has dual sunroofs, XM radio, and a cool little camera that shows me where I am going when I back up.  I know this all may sound normal to some of you, but let me remind you that my previous car had crank windows. Don't get me wrong, I will always cherish that car because my dad and grandfather picked it out, but it is an amazing feeling to drive this new car.

Sayonara crank windows, hello most beautiful car ever!

Without further ado, here she is!

new 4 wheels

The search has begun!  For a new car that is.  We have been talking about getting a new car for me for a couple years now and right now is finally the time! I am pretty excited about it.

I have been living on AutoTrader.com and CarMax just looking around to see what I like.  I'll bring random ideas to Matt and he either agrees or vetoes. I need him.  He is a car man.  Well, he is an everything man but he knows how to fix just about anything on a car and he knows what car companies are good and not so good.  Me? No clue. I just know what cars look pretty from the outside.  I know what cars my eyes are drawn to every day I am out driving.

My "want" list started with:

-SUV

-A/C

-AWD/4WD

-Sunroof

-CD player

-Power locks/windows

Pretty easy, right? Well after searching my list has expanded to this...

My new and improved "want" (wish) list:

-All of the above PLUS:

-Heated seats

-Automatic start

-iPod plug-ins 

-Leather would be double plus

Obviously, I don't "need" any of these things and realize I very well may not get them, but it's nice to dream.  Car searching is so fun!

We are going to look at some of our picks tomorrow night. Here's to a new car!

working on your birthday?

I have to admit-I was little bummed when I realized I worked on my birthday AND the day after this year. Who wants to be at work on their birthday? Not me.  BUT I actually had a fantastic birthday today and a lot of it was because I was at work.

Matt has been working nights so he woke me up in the middle of the night on his way out the door to tell me Happy Birthday first thing :).  I got to work to see my friend Amber carrying in a cake pan and a big pink gift bag. She had baked me a yummy strawberry cake and brought me an amazing blanket for my birthday.  I LOVE it! Everyone at work was so sweet.  They were wishing me a happy birthday and sharing the bday cake.  Icing on the cake? (no not the actual cake, just metaphorically speaking) I am precepting a new nurse on the unit and she has been rocking the socks off her orientation plus we had a pretty manageable assignment today SO she did our whole assignment (while I kept an eye on everything of course) and I was able to get some chatting time in with the other nurses. The babies were very sweet and gave me a bday gift of an un-eventful day. So thankful :).

One of the highlights of my day? Matt brought us Chipotle for lunch and met us down in the cafeteria to eat with us! It was so awesome.  So add together an awesome non-eventful day at work where I actually had time to catch-up with friends PLUS getting to see my sweet hubby for lunch? Pretty stellar.  My burrito bowl was delicious too.

I finished out an awesome day at work and then came home to a card from Matt which he had added for me to come wake him up.  I felt horrible to wake him up in the middle of his sleep so I just awkwardly sat on the side of the bed and stared at him for awhile.  Once he woke up, he had a cute surprise gift at the side of the bed for me.  An awesome swim suit and a brand new lens for my Canon! It's a 50 mm lens which takes awesome pictures. I am so excited to play around on it. Best husband ever.

Now I am lounging on the couch with my new blanket with Jax on my lap and playing with my new camera lens.  All of the sweet texts, calls, and messages today from all of my family and friends were amazing.  I feel so loved :). Thank you all!!

kudos to my other half

So...have I mentioned how awesome my husband is? I have one more reason to be proud of him because Mr. Hot Shot just got promoted at UPS this weekend!

Matt got hired on at UPS Freight last October (or September? hm) as a driver.  He was quickly promoted to a supervisor after management saw him work and heard about him through the grapevine.   The only downside to that was that he had to start on as a part-time supervisor.  Technically, a part-time supervisor can work no more than 30 hours per week...well that wasn't so great.  They quickly realized they needed him there more so his bosses kept fudging and finding ways around the rules to get him more hours.  A couple months in, corporate put an end to that and said they needed to limit him to 30.  Ok, fine. We will follow the rules.

In the beginning of March, they started training Matt for a position that one guy does full-time and that only Matt's boss knew how to perform.  It had to do with the planning of all of the routes for all of the drivers at UPS. Matt's boss ended up being promoted and was being transferred to another terminal so that left only one person to do the plan. SO what did they do? They chose Matt to train on the plan so that he could be back-up if they needed him.  This is how it was the whole time.  He was called "part-time" getting limited hours and a moderate hourly wage for doing the same, if not more, work than the full-time supervisors.  

In February, he took a test that could qualify him for a full-time position.  Everyone there wanted him on full-time, but a position had to open up first.  They had some issues with his first test so we had to wait around for him to be able to finish.  Once he passed this test, he could continue on with the process.

On Friday, Matt asked if he could take me out to dinner because he had good news.  I was hoping and praying it was that he had heard back from his test.  Once we got to the restaurant he says, "Well, I don't really have good news.  I was just really hungry and didn't feel like making anything at home." Ha! Oh that comedian of mine. He went on to tell me that everything had started happening really fast at work that past week and he had found out he had passed his test and then had been interviewing with regional managers, HR, and corporate all week long for a full-time position.  He was hoping he could wait out to tell me until Friday and then know by then if he had the position.  Well, everything didn't get pushed through fast enough so he didn't have as big of news for me as he'd hoped.  He was thinking maybe next week he'd hear the good news.

We went to a wedding in Tennessee this weekend for Matt's cousin.  We were walking into O'Charley's on Saturday afternoon to grab a bite before the ceremony and he got a phone call from his boss.  He told Matt everything had gone through, they wanted to hire him on as a full-time supervisor, and he would start Monday on the in-bound shift! YAY! 

We are so excited and relieved that everything turned out the way it did.  It was so hard to be patient, but I am so glad it all worked out.  I am one proud wife :).