Finally organizing my life

I was reading an article that mentioned the on-line personal finance software Quicken. I tried it out and am quite the fan. It keeps track of all your bank accounts, your transaction history, and how much you owe in the near future etc (including how much you owe on your credit card so it gives you your real total). It even has a nifty pie chart saying where the money is going. Best of all, it is free (though other versions are not, so make sure you go to quickenonline.com and use the sign in for quicken on-line.

sigh.

As far as other organization? That is still to come. We do have the baby crib and changing table set up. The other week I made sugarless applesauce and froze it in zip-lock bags for when baby can eat solids (I didn't have time/skills/supplies to can so I took the easy way out). We're also probably going to get a pager so that when I go into labor (hopefully in 5 weeks), Stephen might just happen to get the message. The end.

October 24th

(Last day of the mission looking at the marriage prep books in Church Distribution Center in Campinas)


Once upon a time when I was a missionary, the missionaries in my mission were required to have a planning session from 10 o'clock till noon in which we would make personal, companion, and investigator goals. Ugh. While this was occasionally helpful, there were certain areas and certain companions with whom these planning sessions were less than "effective." Most of the plans from these planning session came to nothing. Often our golden investigator we had planned on getting baptized the next week would fall through; it came to the point that we stopped even wanting to plan because the planned baptisms never happened. One plan, however, did not fall through (though I think I had less faith in it then some of my others). Somewhere amongst the many planning sessions, I came up with the idea that I would get married on October 24th. Why? Well 2 hours is a long time for a planning session if you don't have much to go off of, and of course, October is a beautiful month for Utah, and the 24th is such a nice sounding day. It was planned and set. The only thing missing, was the groom.

When I returned from Brazil, I told the plan to my family and friends and laughed with them at the odd idea (mind you I had never gone on more than 4 dates with the same guy). I do remember thinking as April came around that I had better start planning on October 24th of 2009 if not 2010. Little did I know that that Stephen Cranney from the C.S.Lewis society I had been eying (I'm not a very good flirt, and eying was all I was capable of) since January 31st would that June finally ask me out and two months later we'd be in love and engaged with the date set for October 24th. Little did I know a year later, I'd be checking his e-mail to see if he got my e-mail of how it's time to go home--and that home would be the same place. ohhwee.

Namesake

Stephen sent me this informative e-mail earlier today:

"So, I was looking on wikipedia, and you actually don't share the exact name of Andrew JAckson's mistress,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Jackson

, but this is a Rachel Donaldson worth being named after:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Donaldson "



What can I say, my husband has high ideals for me.

Grandpa Donaldson

 

32 weeks today

 

 

My sister Mary e-mailed me special today asking for some pregnancy photos. She claims she will never see me pregnant because the next time she is coming is at Christmas. Granted I saw her when I was 20-22 weeks pregnant, but I guess that doesn't count. I thought I'd finally put up our California pictures up while I was at it. We went and visited my sister Ruth and family over the summer. It was so much fun just to be with the family all summer long.

p.s. Don't ask me why we always seem to get pictures with other people's children in front of temples that we don't actually go inside of. We actually ended up only visiting one temple on our way, the Las Vegas temple which was so nice it actually made the drive through that crazy city worth it.