Drama Saturday

Today's drama began at 1 a.m. Aaron woke me up because he realized when he went to go to bed that he was out of a prescription that helps him sleep. He really doesn't sleep that well when he is on the medication, and off it he doesn't sleep at all, and it's pretty much worthless the next day. Needless to say I was pretty upset that he woke me, especially since I'd gotten to bed about 45 minutes late as it was, so I'd only been asleep for an hour or so. I think he mostly wanted comfort, but I was just like, "And what do you expect me to do about it at 1 o'clock in the morning?" I know, not very supportive, but I dare you to do better in the same situation. It took me awhile to get back to sleep.

Update and Google Reader

News on Me

So, I think this post will be really random. First of all, I'd like to say I'm sorry for not updating my blog much. I have a lot going on to talk about, but the issue is I don't have a lot of time, and when I do have time to write for my own enjoyment, I usually don't want to.

Why? Because I've been writing for a job lately. In February, I applied for to be a writing intern at a media company in Draper, Utah. This has been basically my only source of income for the last few months. It's been consistent enough that I no longer get unemployment (though I assume I could sign up again if this work ends). It's been pretty good and I've enjoyed it for the most part. They even wanted to hire me, and proposed to their higher ups to hire a writer, but they denied the proposal. So until I find a more permanent job, this will help. If you want to see some of the writing I've done, you go to Purity Tox-X, Purity 12 Tri-Factor, Purity 12 Green Tea Metabolizer, Skin Care article, and Purity 12 Blogs. Those are just a few of the things I've written. Most of what I have done for them hasn't even been used yet.

What else is cool is they're paying me to learn about search engine optimization. They don't pay me much to do the training, but it's such good information to know, so to get paid to learn about it is great. I'm also doing some other training on my own to learn how to use Dreamweaver--which I can hopefully use to create my own site or something. So things have been going pretty well.

News on Alex

Crawling, Christmas, and Everything

Well, a lot has gone on in the past couple of weeks. First of all, three days before Christmas, Alex really started getting the hang of the whole crawling thing. He now can get anywhere and everywhere (well, except he's not going up stairs yet). This is frustrating because he doesn't want to be kept in his play yard (not surprising) and yet if I'm doing something (like pumping or cleaning), I need to know he's safe. Luckily he can be very patientat times. But it is exciting to see him crawling around everywhere. He's growing up so fast.

Trip to Washington

I'm so dead tired right now. I'm pretty much ready to pass out, but there are some things I need to do before going to bed, but first I needed a break to relax and to rejuvenate some before attacking those things, I thought I'd post.

So on Aug. 8, Aaron, Alex, and I headed out to Washington/Oregon to see family. My sister, whom I haven't seen in 5 years, was coming from North Carolina with her husband and four kids (two of whom I've never even met), so I took the opportunity to go as well so I could see her. My other sister and my brother were both there as well (the former lives in California and the latter lives in China). It was really great to see everyone and to see my nieces and nephews.

To take advantage of the rates, we decided to leave on a Friday morning and return on a Tuesday, a week and a half later, so it was a long trip, but with all who we had to see, it really needed to be that long. There was very little time where I had nothing to see or anyone to visit.

On the first day, we flew into Portland, and my sister Krissa (the one with kids) picked us up from the airport and took us to her mother-in-law's house to hang out till my mom picked us up. We were able to spend time with her and her four kids Jesse (8), Larissa (5), Mitchell (3), and Noah (8 months). And of course she had fun meeting and playing with Alex. In the afternoon, Mom picked us up and we went to my Grandma's in Salem, Oregon. We spent the night there (kind of crammed with six adults and a baby: us plus Mom; Roy, my step-dad; Jeremy, my brother, and Grandma). My sister Marcie flew in the same day with her boyfriend and his son. They came by for dinner and to hang out, but stayed in a hotel that night.

I've Been Married 5 Years!

So as of last Thursday, Aaron and I have been married for 5 years! I almost can't believe it—it's gone by so fast. I still remember when we were engaged and I thought our wedding day would never come, and now we've been married for 5 years.

Well, I've been stressing about what we should do to celebrate. I wanted it to be really special because it's such a milestone. Even though I've been trying to think of something for a couple months, when it came down to it, I came up with NOTHING! On the day of, we didn't do anything because we wanted to wait till Saturday. On Saturday, I went to the grocery store in the morning and picked up a bed tray, some whipped cream, and canned blueberry pie filling. Then I went home and made Belgian waffles, bringing them on the tray to Aaron who was still in bed. He LOVES blueberry Belgian waffles. We pretty much just hung out all day, mostly in bed. Finally we did some productive things (if you call playing video games organizing my spice rack productive).

By 6 p.m. I decided I wanted to at least go out to dinner. I let Aaron pick and he chose Outback (which is the same place we went to last year for our anniversary). It was a good choice. Aaron go the mahi mahi and I got pork chops with grilled veges (their grilled veges are to die for. They're like marinated or something. Mmmm!). The pork chops were extremely tender and cooked just perfectly. Since it was a special occasion, I got a strawberry pina colada—so good! And to top it off, our waitress was awesome and very attentive.

So maybe we didn't do anything really special, but at least dinner was fantastic.

So do you want to know what else I considered? Well, one thing I thought of was going on a hot air balloon ride. How cool would that be? It's something I've wanted to do since living in Washington as a kid and seeing the hot air balloons sail over Puget Sound. Well, I looked it up and everywhere I tried was like $200 per person for about an hour ride. Worth it if you can afford it, but sorry if we don't have $400 lying around.

I thought about going to Park City or Salt Lake City and staying at a hotel, but that would be quite a bit, too. This one hotel, Anniversary Inn, has themed rooms where you sleep in a bed shaped like a carriage or a gandola or in a forest. It looked way cool, but was all booked when I looked (and I'm not sure Aaron would have wanted to spend that much, but Costco has a deal where you pay $115 for $230 gift certficate there, so half price). Maybe I'll remember that for a future anniversary.

I thought of just doing something fun like laser tag or miniature golf, but I was worried there'd be a lot of loud kids there, which would make it a little less fun.

I also tried to think of something creative we could do, like I could decorate the apartment with a Hawaiian theme, or starry night them, or rose garden theme, but I couldnt' think of anything really definite. I think I would need more time to plan something like that. Again, maybe something to do in the future.

Oh, well. All in all it was still a good anniversary and the important thing is that we're still excited to be married to each other.

Financial Stress

I hate it when you have unexpected expenses. Especially when they equal $1000 . . .

I just realized a couple weeks ago that we were not getting a Pell Grant this year. I guess I figured we would still get something, now that I'm working full time, but apparently the government thinks $20,000/year is WAY too much to get ANYTHING. So we absolutely got no money this year for school from the government. Well, at least Aaron got a half-tuition scholarship, so that helps.

So when I realized this I applied for a Stafford Loan to pay the rest. I called the Financial Aid office and they told me to fill out a form and they would notify us in 3-5 business days. So we wait 5 business days and then give them a call (we had to call because for reasons I don't want to get in to, we don't have access to our mail box, so I didn't know if they notified us by mail). I'm thinking that we'll call, see if we get approved and then have the money to pay tuition. Well, when we called yesterday we found out there was a whole bunch of other stuff we needed to do to get the loan approved, let alone get the money (that they didn't bother to inform us about when we first called). On top of that, UVSC adds over $200 in "Student Fees". Why this is not included in the tuition, or what it's for, is beyond me. It bugs, though, because the half-tuition scholarship doesn't pay for half of the student fee and so we owe almost $1000 to UVSC by today.

I hate money stress!

Great Weekend--Great Labor Day!

Can I say that I LOVE paid holidays. Since I'm still a temp (which will hopefully change soon), I look forward to the six holidays a year that I get off WITH pay; I love it! To add to that, I completely did nothing yesterday--well, pretty much nothing. I got up pretty early and went over to Wal-mart to beat the rush. We needed groceries pretty bad and I decided I need to do better about planning out some meals and buying the ingredients for them. So Aaron and I picked out some meals that we both like and I made a shopping list. The meals the we picked are French Bread Pizza (so easy), chicken enchiladas, Rio Ranch Chicken Wraps (really good, pretty easy), and Twice-Baked Potatoes.

So that is what I did first. I was really frustrated because I was looking for coriander and couldn't find. I was pretty sure it was a spice (and I was right), but it didn't look like they had any in the spices aisle. I might have to go somewhere else to get some.

Then I came home and pretty much just hung out all day. I read some from a novel I'm rereading, Mistborn, and then watched How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (it was on Comcast's "Free Movies" list), and finally finished off the day by playing Oblivion on the computer. I can't believe I got sucked into a video game, but I have! I'm having fun with it. So that was pretty much my day. At the end of it I was feeling guilty for not being more productive, but I guess when you only get 6 days of "vacation" a year, you tend to want to just relax and have fun. Besides paid holidays, I haven't taken one day off from work for 18 months! So it was really nice to have that day off. I can't wait till I'm hired and I get a couple weeks or more every year. I'm looking forward to it (plus my company gives 10 paid holidays a year rather than 6).

Anniversary Pictures

So Aaron and I finally had our anniversary pictures taken. We didn't have them done around our anniversary because Aaron was having a hard semester, but once it was over, I scheduled them. I got SmilesbyWire, which is where you can view the pictures online and if people want copies, they can order more. I like this because I can download copies of all the poses, even though they're low resolution, so that I have a copy of all of them and not just the ones we ordered. I believe we ordered 6 out of the 12 poses, but it's nice to remember what they all looked like. Plus, digitally they look fine, even if they're a little small. Anyway, if you want the internet address so you can look at them, let me know and I'll email you the link. Fun, fun!

The user picture I'm using right now is one of the poses. It's one of my favorites. I don't even think I knew that the photographer was taking it, but it turned out well. More fun than just looking at the camera!

My Husband Is So Sweet!

Yesterday, around 9:30 p.m., I was driving home from Leading Edge when I remembered that my favorite show, Gilmore Girls, had been new that night and I forgot to record it. When I realized this, I was really bummed. I really didn't want to wait till it came on again as a rerun. I was pretty much kicking myself for forgetting, but there had not been new episodes on for over a month and so I had forgotten. So I got home and walked upstairs to the office where my husband was doing homework. I asked him, "You didn't happen to record Gilmore Girls for me, did you?" His reply was, "Yes, I did. It's downstairs in the VCR." I couldn't believe it. I started squealing and jumping up and down. "You're the best," I told him. "Thank you." Then I ran downstairs and watched it. Before going to bed that night, I must've thanked him a hundred times along with an exclamation of "You're awesome!" I just couldn't believe that he was so thoughtful to think to notice it was new and to think to record it for me. It was so awesome. He is so thoughtful!

My Anniversary Is in One Week!

Aaron and I have our 4th anniversary in a week. I'm so excited. I can't believe, in a way, that we've been married for a whole four years. It's gone by so fast. I'm excited to see what he'll get for me. I've given him some ideas to help him along. I got him a video game that he can play online called Guild Wars. He asked for it, so I know he wants it (I just hope he doesn't get into playing it for hours on end like many who play it do). I'm getting my hair cut on Saturday. As we do traditionally, we are having our picture taken. It's the only ones we really have of both of us together. It's hard to get pictures together when there is normally just two of you! So I'm having my hair cut so it's cute. I haven't had a cut in a year. I really hate having to go do it. I'm going to get a layered cut again, but this time, I'm leaving the length. It's now to about my shoulder blades. Nothing else to report.

Life Is Life

Well, I know I haven't posted, but I just really don't know what to postabout. Everything is same old, same old. Aaron is still having a hard semester and struggling to do well. He got a 96% on his American Heritage mid-term, but he still has lots of projects, tests, and 2 papers before the end of the semester and I don't know how he's going to get it all done by then.

Work is same old. My boss hinted that the job for me was approved, but he hasn't opened it up yet. He also hinted that he's planning on hiring me for it, but I won't know till it happens. I don't know what is going on and I'm scared to ask.

Leading Edge is going well. As we get closer to publishing the next issue, I start taking more responsibility on myself. Matt has been good at helping, but I still feel a lot of pressure to do well. I'm excited by the fact that we've already accepted four stories for the next issue (in October) and possibly will have our fifth soon. We usually on publish 4 to 6, so that means we should be ahead on production since we're not waiting on accepting stories so we can start on production. I think this is partially due to Matt and I staying caught up on reading stories that are passed up to us. We make decisions quickly instead of letting them pile up.

Still, no real big news there. Other than that there is not much happening to report on. Sometimes this is a good thing because news can be good or bad, and I want to avoid bad news as much as possible . Can't wait till Aaron's semester ends, though. He's been so stressed!

Happy Valentine's Day

Funny story: I was driving my husband to work and he says to me, "Today's the 11th, right?" And I'm like, "No, it's the 14th." I'm wearing pink cords, a cranberry-colored shirt, heart socks (not that you can see the socks cause they're covered), and a pink ribbon in my hair. He says, "Oh." No other response. I don't think he knows what day is today.

I'm not blaming him cause he's had a hard semester in school and is having to work really hard just to stay behind in his work--and he just spent all last weekend studying for two tests yesterday, but still. I have to say I was a little disappointed.

This morning I wrote him a love note on pink paper. I was able to sneak his backpack out of his office (with him sitting at his desk the whole time), take out his lunch, put in the love note (in a plastic baggy so it wouldn't get gross), and put back his backpack all without him noticing. I bet he'll be feeling bad when he reads it and remembers what day is today. Even so, I bet he won't forget our anniversary which is more important. He mentions every once in a while that it's coming up soon.

Anyway, happy Valentine's day to you all. Hope you have people to love. Today is a day to show any love, not just romantic love. Give out your love to everyone!

EDIT: Well, maybe he did forget, but he went and got me some roses that night and felt really bad for forgetting. So yea!

We're All Moved

Well, we got ourselves moved last weekend. I'm excited to be in the new apartment, but it's stressful to move and now we're living in a disaster! Everything is everywhere with hardly any organization. I've worked on putting stuff away and feel I haven't even made a dent in it and it stresses me out to have everything be such a mess. Sure I'm not the cleanest person, but I definitely don't like things to be so messy and disorganized. I know it's going to take a week or more to do it all (since I still have to work afterall), but I can't wait till everything is organized and put away! It'll be so nice.

We're definitely enjoying having a bigger place and having space! I put some stuff in the crawl space under the stairs and didn't even make a dent in the space that's available. We haven't even put stuff out in the storage shed yet. It's so great. I just hope we don't fill it up. I don't want to have to move even more stuff than I moved this time. It was enough. This is the first time we've had a real move. Last time we moved, the only furniture we had was a mattress, boxspring, and frame plus two small bookcases and a small computer desk. This time we had that plus dining table with 5 chairs, couch, a big computer desk, two dressers, nightstand, and a really tall bookcase. Plus, of course, all the other things we've accumulated in the last two years. But that's okay, we've moved and I'm happy :).

We're Moving!

After being so patient for December to come so I could finally look for a place to move to at the end of the year, it's come and we've found a place. I'm very excited about this. I don't know how many people I've told, but I'm started to get sick of our apartment. I could stand to keep living there, but I really want a bigger place wither washer/dryer hookups. We've outgrown our 600 sq. ft. apt and can afford more. To top it all off, we could move closer to school and work now that I'm done going to BYU. So today I started looking and I got a call from an agent at Old Mill Realty saying that the apartment they're advertising we can have in January (or Dec. 31) if we look at it and like it. So we went and looked that night (along with two other apartments) and like it by far the best and for only $50 more in rent a month, it's so worth it. It is 1070 sq. ft. (so much bigger!) with two bedrooms, 1.5 baths, a laundry room, a crawl space under the stairs, 2 covered-parking spots with storage, a real place for a kitchen table, and a dishwasher (it's a townhouse, actually, so it has two floors). The only downside is it has a small kitchen, but we're hoping to fix that by getting some extra storage type things (including a kitchen cart) that we can use to expand the kitchen area. It may cram the dining table a little, but I think it'll be worth it. Here is a Web site on the place if you want to take a look:

http://www.oldmillrealty.com/bin/web/real_estate/AR136299/ACTIVATE_FRAMES/RENTALS/Orem/1092378311.html
(It's the one on the bottom, Meguro Apts.)

We can't wait to move in. It's going to be so great to have more room!

Black Friday

Many people avoid Black Friday like the Black Plague. They see figting the crowds, the early hours, and the cold as something to avoid, but I'm the opposite. I get a thrill at fight those crowds and trying to get good deals on things I would buy eventually anyway. Granted, I'm annoyed with the early hours and the cold, but when you get in that store and are racing around to get all the things on your list, I get excited. I was disappointed by some of the sales this year. Usually Office Max has some great deals that are free after rebate, but this year I didn't see anything that interested me. Rather I went to Staples, where I was able to get a flash drive with 512 MB of storage for $10, a paper shredder free (after rebate), and a Palm Tungsten E (for my hubby) for $150 with a free mp3 player. I was very happy.

After we went to Staples, we went over to JCPenny, where we spent the big bucks. They had 50 percent off all of their house hold stuff. We got towels, sheets, pillows, and a quilt. Then we got some jeans for Aaron (ones he really loves) again 50 percent off. We may have spent quite a bit, but we love what we got. The sheets are divine (at least compared to what we had before) and the pillows (which have a down-alternative) are really comfortable and help me to sleep through the night. Yea for comfort.

It was a great shopping experience over all.

Update

So Aaron has continued to do well in school. He's had three more tests and received A's on all of them (not even an A-). He also got a 98 percent on his programming project. I'm so proud of how hard he's worked and how well he's done despite feeling like his classes are hard and some of his teachers aren't very good at their jobs.

My job is still doing okay. Costco came to my work to try to get us to sign up for memberships. They had a drawing for some Halloween candle holders, so I entered and won one. Funny huh? I always considered myself unlucky, but I've had a lot of luck lately. First the Dustbuster and now the candle holder. My work is taking all of us to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire next month (the day after it is released). I'm very excited about this. We were planning on going anyway, but this will save us money, although we have to drive 45 min to the theater, so I'm not sure how much it's really saving :). They also provide popcorn and pop, but since it will be at 9 in the morning, I'm not sure I'll be in the mood for those sorts of snacks.

It looks like we won't be able to go home for Christmas. We were planning on it (our parents, his and mine, were planning on paying for the plane tickets), but we weren't able to find a cheap flight and with it being around Christmas, it's extra hard to find flights anyway. So it looks like we're staying in Utah. I guess that's okay, especially since my sister and her family aren't going to be there around Christmas anymore (they're going for Thanksgiving or shortly after). But it still would have been good to go home and see family. I don't think Aaron's too sad, though, because he saw his step-dad and step-brother, and his dad, step-mom, and siblings came in August; his sister and her family are moving here within weeks; and his mom is coming here to visit next month. So he's seen all of his family with the last few months (or will before Christmas). I did see my parents (mom, step-dad, dad, and step-mom) in April, so it's not like it's been that long, but it'd still be nice to go home. Oh, well.

So as I said above, Aaron's sister Andrea and her family are moving to Utah in a few weeks. This weekend she's coming to look at houses. She's asked Aaron to look with her. I think she misses him and wants to spend time with him. I'm interested to see what house she picks and where they'll be living. It will be nice to have her near. And with his other sister Ashley moving here next fall, we'll be surrounded by family. Yeah!

Well, that's all for now.

News

Well, I found out some exciting news: my sister-in-law and her family (which includes two adorable girls who are 5 and 2) are going to be moving to Utah near us. Her husband applied for a position in Salt Lake City with his company and was given it so they are going to be moving here next month. How exciting! We'll have family near by finally. Plus I'm excited to spend more time with my nieces. So yeah!

My Husband's Family Visits

Last week my husband's family visited. I should clarify because he has so many families (his mother and step-father, his father and step-mother, his sister and her family, etc.). It was his father and step-mother who came with their three teenagers. Unfortunately, I was asked to attend training for four days at work, for 9 hours each day. I was able to get out of some of it to spend time with them, but normally I could have taken off as much as I wanted, so I was disappointed. It was fun to see them. Their oldest, Ashley, is planning on attending BYU next year after she graduates high school and so I showed her and her family around campus so she could get an idea of what BYU offers to students. She said that she knew that BYU was a good school academically, but she didn't realize how much they provide for the student including tons of computers, music practice rooms (she loves playing the piano), and a huge library. I also showed her the dorms so she could decide which one she wanted to live in. I was pushing for her to stay at Helaman Halls cause they are much nicer than Deseret Towers and would be more comfortably. Shy, humble Ashley just said to her mom, "I'll be happy to stay in either," since her parents are paying and she doesn't want to seem greedy.

Aaron and I can't wait until Ashley is able to come here for school. We really want to be near family and I am excited to mentor her through her college years (if she'll let me). The other two teenagers, Tim and Crystal, are also hoping to attend BYU when they graduate. This is great news for us and make us very excited. Free babysitters!

I guess this is a month of family visits cause Aaron's sister, Andrea, is also hoping to visit us this week. Her husband works for an airlines and so they can fly free, but only on standby. Yesterday Andrea tried to get a flight here and even though they expected 20 seats open, they had 75 people waiting to get on through standby. I am thinking it is those who decided to Education Week at the last minute. She is going to try again tomorrow, if there are projected spots, but we'll have to see. We're hoping it works out because we would like to see her and our two adorable nieces. So cute! Here's hoping.

To add to this, Aaron's step-father wants to bring us a dresser of theirs that they don't want any more and we could use and he is planning on coming Labor Day weekend, if he can get off work for it. I hope that works out cause I really want it and I think it would be great. Hopefully that works out.

Welcome

So this is my blog. Thanks for visiting! I don't really have any new news to report. My sister, Krissa, had another baby on June 19. He was a whopping 10 lb 15 oz. She deserves much praise for birthing such a healthy baby boy! Of course, he is darling. It's pretty much impossible not to be and be related to me. *all viewers nod their heads*

I am still working for Altiris through my temp agency. I hope to be hired on soon, as I was promised I would be. I've been quite involved in a lot of projects and along with being an editor, I also seem to be a trouble shooter (this is not on purpose, but since I am using the new version of one of our programs more than most, and I know how it is suppose to work, I have caught a lot of the errors with it). I hope this will help my company realize how valuable I am so that I will be hired sooner.

As many of you know, I was made Primary chorister a few weeks back. This was my third time leading Singing Time, and I have to say, I never realized how hard it was. To make things worse, I haven't been in Primary since I was 12 and I, of course, do not remember anything about what they did for Singing Time (other than I remember I enjoyed it). I have been helped in creating ideas and have been told that I have done well, so hopefully with time I will grow into the calling. It is a great opportunity to share my musical skills.

At the moment Aaron and I don't have any plans for the 4th. We are going to play it by ear (in case you didn't know, this means waking up late, playing video games, and if we're really feeling ambitious, doing some housework. I know that you're very jealous of the wonderful plans we have made). I hope you all have a wonderful 4th and remember what we are really celebrating. God bless America!