Humbled at work

This week hasn't been the greatest at work. Luckily, it's only a 2 1/2 day work week for me because of the holiday.. However, that means most everyone in my office is gone, and few people are here to help me answer questions, of which I've had many.
One client called me on my cell on my first day off (last friday) at 8 am with problems. Called again at 9:00 am the day after christmas. I finally tell her I can't do anything for her til I am back in the office. I get back in the office and discover the problem was my fault- a hard line break in some hjavascript I had sent her. She was cool and understanding and just glad it was an easy fix. But then, she's had a problem pretty much every 3 hours since then. And since I'm all ignorant still, I have to pester a coworker to figure it out- normally I can split the pestering between all of my many coworkers, but this week I only have 2. So these 2 kind people have basically been doing my job for me all week. I feel dumb and annoying. And I really hate this client, and not just for calling me so early on the day after Christmas.
The other problem of the week is a client with a flash website is having trouble. I can't troubleshoot flash- I don't even know how to use it! Once again, pestering coworkers, but they don't really know how to use it either.
All in all, since I came back to work, it's not been the best week. In a way, I'm excited for next week when everything returns to normal. I'm also scared because I know our January clientload is huge and I still haven't closed out any old clients, mostly because I didn't know what I was doing when I set timelines with them months ago. *sigh*
I do love my work, but maybe just not this week. I want to go back home and be with Kenny.

Books to read

I finished the Tale of Two Cities last night, and let me just say, that is a wonderful book. My only complaint is that it wasn't written by Victor Hugo. He could have done some great stuff with the inner-workings of the characters. Then again, he would have spent 300 pages describing the history of the guillotine or something. Really, the plot is wonderful, and of course I do love Dickens.
So now I need to find a new book to read. I think Kenny got me at least one book for christmas, though, so I dont' want to get started on something that I can't finish in a week (which says very little- over a vacation, I can polish most books off in a week.)
Currently on my list of books to read:
-Jane Eyre (this would be a re-read, and I think/hope I may get it for christmas)
-A series of unfortunate events
-... yeah I really can't think of anything right now. There are so many! I need suggestions for quick reads. Lately I've been on a book-a-good-movie-was-based-on mode.
Any ideas?

Summer plans

Since our tax-refund money isn't yet spoken for, and we should get at least 2000 back, we're planning on using it for two short vacations. I believe in June we'll head to Houston to check out the scene and see if it is somewhere we want to end up. It's the front-runner in the list of possible destinations because the cost of living is so low (and they pay teachers relatively high.) I think ideally we'd end up in the northwest, but we want to be able to buy a house soon and it looks like we might be able to in Texas. That, and Lori and Kevin are both down there, and Kenny's closest sister, Jeanette, is in Dallas (or was it fort worth?). So strange how the family has migrated that way.
Our other trip is still up in the air. I think it will be for our one-year anniversary and we'll go up through Yellowstone to Glacier national park. Kenny spent much of his mission near there and never got to enjoy it much. I went to Yellowstone as a kid and barely remember it.
Other options include the grand canyon, southern Utah, or maybe the Northwest. We'd also love to go to Disneyland (I've only been twice, when I was very young) but I don't know if we'll have the funds for that.
We've also decided that the official its-OK-to-get-pregnant date is the 19th of August, so we can say we officially waited one year from our wedding:).

A product to be proud of

This week, my company released a new product, Omniture Genesis. It won't mean a thing to anyone not in marketing or analytics, but for those who are, it could be a big deal.
The company had a lot of hype about it. It was fun to see the reaction in the industry. I haven't used that product yet, but I know that all the omniture software I have used is endlessly cool. And it means so much to me to know that the product I am representing is actually a really great thing.
I certainly didn't have that at Heritage, which is one reason I left. I hated charging people 800 bucks for something many teenagers could do for free.
Omniture works with over 1500 international companies, including ebay, microsoft, apple, walmart, all LDS church sites, cnn, expedia... We capture info about over 3 billion page views per day, with over 5000 servers.
These companies pay Omniture a lot of money for my services (up to 250/hour), which adds a whole different dimension of pride to my work. My mere month of training doesn't feel worth that much, so I have to make up for it with skills I brought into the job. It's fun, because I enable people to ask marketing questions about information that only became available with this technology. And it's challenging. "I'm sure that's something this infinite software can track, let me just find out how for you". Accordingly, I do have some nervousness issues because every day I have to interact with clients who often know as much as I do, and I have to make it worth their money.
In short, while I do occasionally get bored at my job, I love it. I love the software and the possibilities. And, obviously, I love the pay. If any blog reader is in the market for a new web anaylitics solution, you just let me know:)

The party (and the weekend)

The work party was great. Dinner was delicious, the games were fun (though we didn't win any prizes), and they had a great stand-up comedian entertain us. And Kenny looked great in his tux (which my company paid for entirely, by the way).
But the most impressive part of the party was the women's restroom at the Grand America hotel. It was huge and all in pink marble and the stalls had chandeliers. Seriously, if I could have brought Kenny in there we might have hung out there all night.
All in all, it was a great party and a fun date.

Friday night we saw "Stranger than Fiction", which came highly recommended, and lived up to the recommendations. It was really good.

Christmas is all ready. Kenny and I have wrapped our gifts and the area under our tree looks very prosperous. I'm really excited about one gift I got him in particular, but I better not write about it just in case he happens to read this. I have no idea what he got me- he was creative in the wrapping so as to be deceptive. We also received a couple gifts in the mail from my brother Kevin and his wife, which we're excited about. Oh, and I found a re-release of the King's Quest games 1-7 at the mall for 20 bucks! Tough I bought it for myself with my allowance, Kenny was sweet and wrapped it for me. I'll start on it once I'm done with Zelda.

Kenny is officially finished with homework for the semester. Tomorrow is his last day of classes, then he has 4 finals, all at 7 am (blech). We're both working a lot over christmas break, but it will be nice for him to not have homework. Maybe he can finally catch up to me in Zelda (if I haven't beat the game by then.)

All in all, it was a delightful weekend, all the more so because of the anticipation of christmas.

The Plan

I spent about 4 hours yesterday working on our budget so I could make a plan. I have accounted for every cost, on a daily, weekly and monthly base, as well as tithing and tax, and here is the plan:
Well, let's start with the current state of affairs: we have 3300 dollars left on the vespa, 8000 left on ym car, and 10,000 left on my student loans.
If we follow "the plan", the month the kenny graduates (april 2008) we will make our last payment, then be entirely out of debt. By then we will also have about 6000 in our long term savings.
So what does this mean? With no monthly car, vespa or loan payments, and with a bunch in savings, and with Kenny being out of school, we won't need me to work fulltime anymore... I can have a baby! We've decided that if things go as planned, we can get pregnant next august and still be well off financially. So, here we come, may 2008 baby!

Busy Busy Busy

So it would appear that I will have little or no husband until Dec. 22nd (the day Kenny finishes finals). Kenny is so busy with school work and with workwork. Fortunately, I have two friends to commiserate with: my sister lori, who is in the same boat, and zelda, who is always there for me.
Lori watches TV with me, which is great, because Kenny isn't big on TV-watching and sometimes I have withdrawal. More than anything, its just fun to hang out with her like old times.
To date, I have put 30 hours into Zelda. I'm in my 5th dungeon or so and quite enjoying it. We also recently bought monkeyball, but it'll take some getting used to. The darn system keeps track of time spent on games- for example, we put 8 hours in on sunday.:)
So, Kenny is busy every evening with homework or work, so I entertain myself. I tell Kenny I can get through anything so long as there is an end in sight, and in this case, there is an end, or at least a goal: Saturday evening is the swanky black-tie christmas party for my work. It's at the Grand America hotel in SLC. It's steak and lobster, with games, like a rock-paper-scissors tournament for a cruise. I'm wearing the beautiful dress my mom made for me in 8th grade as a bridesmaid dress for my brother Kevin's wedding. I'm thrilled it still fits (on one hand, i means I haven't gained much weight, but on the other, it means my... figure... is the same as eighth grade.:() My company is paying for most of Kenny's tux rental, as well as 40 dollars for my outfit (which will probably go to new shoes.)
They are taking prom-style pictures there, so I should be able to post that on my website soon. I'm WAY excited for it. So that is my light at the end of the tunnel. And after that, there's always Christmas to look forward to.

The Wonderful Thing about Kennys

Is Kennys are wonderful things!
My husband is the greatest. So great, in fact, that I have trouble keeping up. Last week he worked 35 hours, plus 3 hours of tutoring, plus 15 hours in class (not counting homework.) He makes half our meals, does most of the dishes (my job is to put away the clean ones), and keeps me happy.
Yesterday I had a minor breakdown because I feel like I don't do enough to deserve such a great guy. We came home after Sunday school cause I figured I just needed to nap to make my brain be quiet and the world would look rosier when I woke up. That's how I always dealt with depression in the past. But no, sweet Kenny just cuddled with me while I cried and whenever I say "I'm so sorry you have to deal with this (my depression)" he just says "Oh, no! I have to cuddle with my beautiful wife!" I didn't take a nap at all, Kenny cheered me up in no time. These little depression incidents are getting fewer and farther between... maybe only twice a month, and then I usually know its my depression and I just need to get it out of my system. I want to emphasize how great that is. I've never been this happy or this in control of my emotions- and I'm not even taking any meds!
I love how much fun we have together. Seriously, not a day goes by that we don't play a game, watch a movie (my pastime of choice) or wander around the mall (kenny's pastime of choice.) I love that neither of us can handle not being near each other. Often when Kenny tutors I''ll be home alone an it's torture! Then once I came home from work a little late so Kenny had been home alone and when I opened the door he rushes over and goes "Oh, I'm so sorry to ever leave you home alone, it's miserable!"
It's too cold, so Kenny can't ride his vespa much, but I'm secretly happy because I get to give him rides everywhere. I "have" to come home at lunch so he can have the car, but really I just love having lunch with him, even if the drive home takes longer than lunch itself.
In short, Kenny is the most-perfect-for-me man ever.

New Job Joys

I have been at new job for a month now and I'm just starting to take on real duties. However, I have gotten much better at describing what I do.
Omniture's main product, siteCatalyst, tracks information about a companies website- for example, who is visiting and for how long. All it takes is a little bit of code put on each page of the site. If you knwo HTML, you can actually look at the code- most big internet names use our products (including walmart, CNN, ebay, microsoft...)
But really, our software can track ANYTHING... so my job is to tell customers what to track and how. So I have to learn all the ins and outs of software that really is infinite... I'll never be done learning about it. But I have finished my training and the rest I'll have to learn as I go.
Anyways, so that's what an Implementation Consultant is. Much more businessy than anything I've done, but I'm realyl enjoying and I can't complain about the pay.