Diane’s World

Why hello world! Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve updated. I can’t believe I kept a Carole King song that long on my main page. Must…change..it.

What you now hear playing on www.dianefeucht.com is Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” because it sucessfully has been stuck in my head for the past month. Ha.

Well anyways, since I last updated… I got Strep throat.

It sucked.

On the first day of it, I was totally out of it. I tried to get out of bed, but immediately collapsed on the ground. I slept the entire day, not entirely sure what hit me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to work for a while, and ended up missing three days of work… meaning my paycheck kind of lacked but I finally got some much-needed rest.

In this picture, my tongue is red because all I ate for three days was Popsicles and tomato soup. However, the fleshy colored red in my throat is definitely a big wallowing area of pain.

As I was trying to get over having Strep, Rachel and I moved. We now live in a small house that is in the backyard of our old apartment. It is affectionately called “The Chicken Coop”.

We are very happy with our new living situation… where we actually have DOORS between our bedrooms and the living space, a washer and dryer, a huge living room and open kitchen, and even every gal’s dream: Walk-in closets! Oh woo hoo!

The weekend after moving, I had quite the time – every night I was somewhere new, hanging out with different people and enjoying life.

Rachel and I decided to go on a sister date together to the Tulip festival… basically a big Dutch festival in Orange City.

Before going, we brought Bentley to my nursing home, and were so surprised about how well he behaved! And the elderly loved having the little guy around.

Then we watched a parade at the Tulip Festival:

And… we ate some Dutch food.

(those are poffertjes… basically mini pancakes).

Later that night, I was invited to hang out at a coworker’s apartment, where I met David.

I never met someone who thinks like me as much as he does… so needless to say, we have a really great time getting to know each other. He’s spunky, romantic, adventurous and an overall joyful and pleasant person. He lives in Des Moines (an unfortunate 4.5 hours away from Sioux Center) but we talk a lot on the phone. A lot. Thank goodness we both have Verizon and talking to each other is free!… :-X!!!

In the past week, my mom and dad (fresh home from Bangladesh) came to visit me and Rachel!

I had to work the first few days they were here, unfortunately, but I had Saturday and Sunday off.

Before I had to work on Friday, we went for a long walk with Bentley.

I then gave dad a tour of my old work place, Culver’s.

Later that night David arrived in Sioux Center. He came over real quick to see me, and my mom’s natural reaction to seeing David was breaking out in hysterical laughter. Apparently we look and act very similar.

Bah humbug! I guess I’m just attracted to myself.

Anyways.

On Saturday, Alex, Rachel, Mom, Dad, David and I took Alex’s boat to Lake Okaboji. It was an incredibly relaxing day… where I didn’t do a whole lot more than just lie in the sun and enjoy the beautiful weather.

It was an absolutely perfect day.

I ended the day by hanging out with David and a few of my friends. I decided to break out my brand new Hookah… yes, I bought a hookah. And I’m pretty much in love with it.

It looks just like this one…

except it has a pink base. Yes, a nice girly hookah. Doesn’t get much better than that, folks!

Anyways, I think that is about all I want to update y’all on for now. I imagine life for me is going to be exciting and adventure filled this summer…. so hopefully updating won’t be too scarce.

Have a great week, y’all!

So It’s MOTHER’S DAY!!!

And my dearest, most wonderful and beautiful mother happens to be very inconveniently on the other side of the globe.

So, instead of being able to send my mom a card and some flowers, or even being able to give my mom a call, I’m posting this blog to show the world how wonderful my mommy is.

The song playing (”so far away” by Carole King) is a song that I remember singing in the car with my mom on the way to go shopping one day. I miss those days that I got to spend every day with my mommy.

And she’s the source of my good looks. Can’t be too upset about that. *cough* *cough*

She has the biggest heart that a mother can have. I have memory after memory of her being the most unselfish and wonderful mother a child can wish for.  I hope that someday I could be half as good of a mom as my mommy.

Mom – Come back from Bangladesh soon and hurry here to Iowa! Rachel and I can’t wait to see you and Dad!!! Have a wonderful wonderful Mommy’s Day!!!

Love, your little Deebee

Hooray that the weather in Iowa is finally something I can love and enjoy! Temperatures are in the 60’s-80’s, and I’ve started running seriously outside again! On Thursday I ran around 7 miles, and on Friday about 10.5 . I’m proud of myself. Yup. Even though it was more like jogging/panting/dying by the last mile.

The worst thing about the nice weather here in Iowa, however,  is the array of buglife that is coming out.

It all started with this one:

I saw one of these for the first time in my life while working at the nursing home. I never knew that something so grossly bizarre existed. ICK!

Two days ago Rachel and I had three of these guys buzzing around my house:

I’m deathly afraid of bumble bees… imagine how scared I was to see these wasps. ACK! I actually killed one myself… a few hard wacks with a notebook. Took me an hour to get the courage to kill the darn thing.

After killing it I found an array of these dead things in my windowsill:

All the little asians beetles were sucked up into my vacuum cleaner.

And not to forget the little buggers that I often find in my shower in the morning:

Needless to say, Iowa is one of the worst places to live if you hate bugs.

And after a good conversation with a few friends tonight, apparently Iowa is abundant in these little fellers as well:

Yup. Just a mile out of Sioux Center, some church basement had a nest of these. *shudders*

Basically this to say, I am very creepy-crawlied out here in Iowa.

But there is one little creature that I was very glad to have enter my life:

Meet Mr. Bentley Boy, Rachel’s new baby:

Yup that’s my fourth nephew right there. A little hairier than the ones Sarah pops out, but Rachel’s new baby is just as cute.

Speaking of growing things, rachel and I started out own little garden. Rachel planted one half, and I the other. Can you guess who’s side is who’s from this picture?

Hint: my plants are the ones that are growing.

Anyways.

I feel like this blog was random, and completely motivated by the ugly bugs I’ve seen. So in conclusion I leave you with a picture of yet another bug I can only wish I’ll never see again:

Fuzzy caterpillars. Ew. last time I went running, they were all over the sidewalks, and I’m pretty sure I squished a lot of them and now have fuzzy caterpillar juice all over my running shoes. Yukkus.

Have a wonderful week, Y’alls!

Bugged-by-bugs Deedles

The song you hear playing (”You’re The Storm” by The Cardigans) is a song that was given to me by my great cousin, Dave. I think. Either him or my good friend Michaele. Either way, this was one of my favorite songs a year ago… when I was in my second month of living in Berlin. It’s worth a listen.

Anyways, many people have been reminding me that it’s about time for an update.

I’ve been working a lot. I think I had about 45 hours of overtime with my last paycheck. I worked 15 hours on Easter Sunday alone… giving people who have families close by a chance to spend the day with them.

I was very excited for my paycheck… but then Mr. Obama decided to take 1/5th of my hard-earned money. It was depressing. I better get a big fat tax return next year.

Jerk.

Despite working so much, surprisingly I’m not burning out yet! I still like my job. And although I haven’t had a day off in about a month’s time, I’ve still been sneaking in a tiny bit of a social life.

Last week I did something that was so-completely white trash that I amazed myself:

What you are looking at is beer, in a canning JAR, with olives in it. It’s a Beertini!

Just tonight me and my good friends Dave and Joel pulled out my sister’s hookah and had a good time on the front porch with a few beers and coffee-flavored hookah smoking.

Dordt graduation is in two weeks… I love the energy that finals week gives the campus. Despite all the stress, the last two weeks in the semester were always some the the best weeks… always something going on. I’ve been wandering onto campus a bit more often than usual this past weekend.

Another crazy thing going on is that my parents are currently in Bangledesh.

And although I am sure that they are having a grand old time, I miss having my mother to call. While they were gone I had to sign up for life, dental and health insurance, find myself an optomitrist and cook something yummy – all without the assuring lifeline of calling my parents for advice!

So Mom and Dad, I miss you. I admit it.

Anyways, exciting things are coming up in life!

1) Rachel and I are moving! To our back yard! Instead of living in a big house split into two apartments, we will have out own little shack to ourselves. It’s lovingly called “the Chicken Coop”. In addition, we are also are excited at the prospect of adding a third roommate… more information on that later!

With the money we would be saving with a third roommate, I’d hope to have a little extra money to buy a nice table to keep for my future apartment. I’m looking for a good counter-height table like this:

Isn’t it classy?

2) Rachel and Alex are getting a puppy! I am very excited. I have told all the elderly people at work about the puppy, and they are excited to meet Bentley. I can’t wait to have a walking partner.

Anyways I think that covers everything. Let me know if I left something out.

Have a wonderful wonderful week/month/however long until I post again!!!

The Deeds