Good Place to Work

So on Thursday, one of the managers in my department, whom I had been helping out by attending the meetings his team has and then creating notes from that meeting, sent me an email stating that my manager had told him I would be too busy to help him out anymore and so I would need to stop (this was news to me since I didn't feel like I had much to do lately, but maybe my manager is anticipating something that I am not). Anyway, as a thank you, this other manager gave me $30 worth of gift certificates to a restaurant, and $11 worth of movie ticket gift certificates. Isn't that nice? Just to say thank you (and I hadn't minded at all because most of the time, I did not have enough work to do and I figured it was just part of my job).

To kind of go along with that, my company is taking us all to see the new Harry Potter movie the day after it comes out. They also had a meeting to discuss how the benefits will be changing for next year and although I don't qualify for benefits, since I'm just a temp, I went to the meeting to get the information. They have such a good benefits plan! It's $10 to see a doctor, $0 for a dentist visit, and they cover 90 percent of the rest that is in-network (I've never seen above 80) as well as 75 percent of out of network stuff. Isn't that awesome? And since it's nationwide (they go through Blue Cross Blue Shield), it's doesn't matter if you're on vacation or if your kids are away at school. All this and before this coming January, they didn't make their employees pay anything! Now they have to pay, but it's only about $72 a month, which is still unbelievably low. I can't wait till I become permanent and can take advantage of this! This really is a good company to work for.

My Views on Weight Loss

Lately I've been thinking a lot about weight loss and such because I've been wanting to lose a few pounds, or at the very least not gain anything. So I thought I'd share my thoughts with whomever is interested in knowing it.

You can probably tell by my picture I'm not really fat by any means, but even so, I found my body mass index online, and according to it, I'm slightly overweight. Since I'm only 25, I thought I'd better do something about it now (especially before I have children) or it will a lot harder when I'm older. So I started exercising three days a week and paying more attention to what I eat. My goal is to eat 1500 calories every day, figuring that that is probably less than how many calories I should eat (but this is totally an estimate). I admit it's been hard because it requires me to eat less than I'm used to and I feel hungry a lot, but I also realize that this is mostly mental and as long as I keep it up, I'll be a lot healthier for. I'm not a dietitian or an expert on this subject, so don't take my views as such, but I have learned a lot through the internet, health classes, magazines, and television about the subject and this is what I've learned that has helped me. Click on the cut to read more.

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.

A++

Aaron just told me that he got a 101 percent on his test! He actually got a 99.5 percent, but his teacher decided to give extra credit for a couple questions that they hadn't gone over in class yet. Since he got them right, he got extra credit! That took him over the 100 percent mark. Congrats to Aaron!

Won a Prize!

So my work had a health fair yesterday. My work provides 100 percent of the health insurance for employees (meaning none of the cost comes out of the paycheck) and so they're always doing things to try to lower the cost of health insurance. They want to keep it free, but if it gets too expensive, they will not be able to pay for all of it anymore. So anyway, they do things like they had a campaign this last summer that if you ate enough "colorful" foods in a two-month period, you would be entered to win two roundtrip airline tickets. Of course colorful foods include fruits and veges (they said m&ms don't count, even though they are colorful).

Anyway, so they had a health fair where you could get your cholesterol and your blood-sugar tested to make sure you were within the right bounds and you could do a fitness test. You could have chiropractor do a scan to see if your spine was out of wack. And finally they had a raffle with some prizes. Now I am not one to win (and it's probably cause most of the time the odds of winning are so small), but I actually won something from the raffle. Since the fair went all day, the raffle was done by HR later and they just emailed the winners. So I won a Dirt Devil cordless hand vac. Cool huh! It made me smile :). I'm excited to start using it. I have to wait 24 hours while it charges up before I can use it, though. Ooooo, anticipation.

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 Adorable Girls

Things are going better for me as the Primary Chorister. I am getting the hang of how it works and now that we are done with learnign the songs, we can now just have fun by playing games that practice the songs. I am starting to learn more of their names, which makes me connect with the children more and they have more fun. Yesterday we played a board game where each square had an activity for them to do, like one children quacks the tune of a song while the rest of the children guess what it is, or having one of the children lead. It was really fun and overall the children liked it. Yeah!

So in a month or so, our Ward will be having their annual Primary Presentation and being the Primary Chorister I am in charge of the music for the presentation. I decided that it would be fun to have a small group of girls sing one of the songs and a small group of boys sing another song, you know, to add variety to the presentation. I had announced it last Sunday at the end of our singing time, and so this Sunday those who had volunteered stayed after to practice. You should have seen them. They are so adorable! There is this one girl, Abby, who wanted to do it who I thought would be too young (she is only 6). But she did wonderful. I had them all sing by themselves so I could get a feel for their voices and this little six-year-old sang so sweetly. And she was really well behaved and obedient as we practiced. So cute! I wish I had pictures to share to show her cuteness. I had a lot of fun practicing with them and I am so glad I got a good-sized group to volunteer (I've had 8 volunteer so far). No boys have volunteered yet, so I asked the Bishopric to sing it with they're sons and they seem up to the challenge. Each one has one son that is still in Primary, so it works out great.

So overall things are going well for me and the Primary choristering. I am so glad that I'm getting the hang of it. It really is a reward to work with children!