Bored at work (and general news)

One my main goals at work is to help as many clients as possible finish their implementation of our software as quickly as possible- the faster, the better, for both my company and theirs. Hwoever, getting clients to actively work on it for up to a month at a time is REALLY difficult, and I'm horrible at laying down the law and saying "look, we have a month to do this, then I have to sign off the project". But I'm learning. Finally, last week, with my manager's help, I was able to sign off on 12 projects, bringing my client load from 22 to 10. While this is very thrilling and I'm really very happy about it, it means I now have nothing to do. At all. Every day this week has been a real struggle to figure out 8 hours worth of stuff to do, and almost more importantly, who to bill that time to.
And of course, the whole time, I have this sweet little beagle puppy running around in my head, just waiting to be picked up and brought home.

Oh hey, I have good news! Kenny and I don't have to be homeless next at the end of next month- we can start moving some of our stuff into the new place in a few days and can officially move in on the 22nd or 23rd. Lori Swan (my coworker/future landlady) apparently got news from her current renters that they are moving out at the end of this month (march) and the place will be empty in april. This is happy news for us because we can now move in whenever we want and we can house the puppy a week sooner (now it's just a matter of not getting the puppy before Kenny is done with finals, or else studying will be very hard).

Let's see, other things of note:
-Kenny and I watched "I am Sam" the other night and Kenny really loved it. I had seen it before but still enjoyed it. In fact, Kenny liked it so much that afterwards he was in one of the best moods I have seen him in- and he wanted to watch ANOTHER movie. I've NEVER known Kenny to watch two movies in one day.
-we are going to a charity ball in a few weekends.
-we commenced spring activities last Saturday, with some Frisbee-golfing, ultimate Frisbee and tennis. It felt great to get out and be active again.
-It snowed today. 4 inches or so on my car. I'm pretty bitter about it.
-I get to baby-sit for a lady in the ward on Friday. I volunteered to for a Relief Society service auction. Kenny is planning on working, so this will work out nicely.

Changes

So Kenny and I have been married for over 7 months now, and I got to thinking the other day about the many ways we have changed each other o rubbed off on each other. All of the following are true statements that would have been false 8 months ago.

-I get excited/envious when I see a puppy
-Kenny gets excited/envious when he sees a baby
-I don't watch chick flicks anymore
-Kenny goes out of his way to watch movies
-I'll try any recipe Kenny requests (minus spicy ingredients, since I don't handle those so well)
-Kenny no longer does his homework 3 days before it is assigned
-I will no longer buy more than one candy bar during any supermarket trip
-Kenny shows interest in french things
-I love to Frisbee golf
-Kenny pays attention to actor's names and has gotten fairly good at the "what other movie has that actor been in" game
-I read comic books and am actually interested in the fates of Spiderman and the x-men
-Kenny enjoys sleeping in past 9 am (mostly for the cuddling)
-I now go to bed before 11 pm almost all the time
-Kenny shaves almost every day (Or else I won't kiss him)
-I no longer eat roasted garlic triscuits (Or else Kenny won't kiss me)
-Kenny watches movies like hamlet, braveheart, and boondock saints
-I'll watch movies like "iron man: the cartoon" and "titan AE"
-Kenny now technically owns goldfish
-I enjoy walking around malls (without buying anything)
-Kenny cares about politics (at least a little)
-I'm willing to camp out in the walmart parking lot for 38 hours for newest Nintendo gaming console
-Kenny likes Joni Mitchell

Fast Forward One Month

This month is going to be an impatient one.
First of all, we own a puppy but don't actually have it. We'll go up every weekend and see how she is doing. Kenny wants to introduce her to the Frisbee at a young age.
Second, it looks like we have to be homeless for the last week of the month- the darn landlord needs us out for 4 business days before new people can move in so he can have a cleaning crew come in. At this point, I'm tempted to drop a bunch of money on renting a moving truck for a week and living out of it (I'm sure we could find some good place to sleep).
Third, it's Kenny's last month of real classes. Next fall he'll be taking a bunch of "how to be a politically correct teacher" classes, then after that is his student teaching. We worked it out so Kenny doesn't have to take classes in the spring or summer, so that is pretty great.
While this is all very exciting, it's very hard to not want to fast forward one month. Only one month.
The only thing NOT to look forward to at the end of the month is Lori's moving away. That's going to be hard for me. And neither Kenny nor I even want to think about being farther away from best friend Ben.

Puppy!

So we found our puppy. She is a sweet little four-week-old pure-bred beagle. We can't take her home until the end of April, though, when we will have our new house.
Here are some pictures:



Anyways, we are very excited.
On another note, we bought our tickets to come down to Houston- June 20th- 26th. Also very exciting.

Top twelve lists - bragging and confessions

Things I am proud of:
1. I handle all of our finances
2. I made 8 euros in one sitting while singing and playing guitar near the Eiffel tower in paris
3. I have read over 400 books since high school graduation (I keep a record)
4. I only missed one question on the English section of the ACTs (I got a 35/36 in English, and a 31 overall)
5. I sang solo at my high school Baccalaureate- "Forever Young" by Bob Dylan. I think it's my only public performance that I didn't pick apart too much afterwords.
6. I found my own apartment and lived alone in Paris for 4 months
7. I graduated with 123 credits- the requirement is 120. In other words, I didn't take a single class that didn't count towards graduation. This is because I planned it all out my freshman year and I stuck to my plan
8. I make awesome crepes (almost once a week or so- whenever Kenny requests them)
9. I can read novels faster than anyone I know
10. I've never met a little kid who didn't seem to like me a lot
11. I've only been in a "raised-voice" fight with someone outside of my family on two occasions, both times were with roommates
12. I cannot purposefully physically harm another person- even when I try it comes out very weak because I am so afraid of causing pain (I'm not sure if this is really something to be proud of or ashamed of- but I like that I am naturally a "gentle" person)

Things I am ashamed of:
1. I have only worn my hair down once in the last 3 months- I always do the same unnotable pony tail. I also have a horrible habit of going 8 months between hair cuts. blech
2. I get horrifically irritable while shopping, especially if it is crowded and I feel like I'm in the way
3. As I've already established, I pass out at bad times
4. I can't keep a secret very well at all.
5. I've tried jogging but never made it more than a few blocks or so- running a mile would kill me, I swear
6. I love swimming but cannot do the typical hand-over-hand stroke. However, I can breast stroke pretty well.
7. I didn't learn how to dive until I was 19- my mom taught me because she couldn't' believe I didn't know how (one of the few times that mom has mocked me)
8. I have a horrible zit-popping/eyebrow-plucking problem. (I like feeling in control of my looks)
9. Sometimes I eat sugar. 4 or 5 tablespoons at a time. straight. with cake decorations
10. Lori keeps bringing up to me the various embarrassing times I have had upset-stomach problems that led to, ummm, embarrassing situations with no bathroom nearby. And there you have it- my only real secret I don't tell anyone is now on my blog.
11. My GPA at graduation was around 2.7
12. I have the hand-writing of a 10 year old

Hurray!

Last night we found a buyer for our housing contract. The move is now official- come May 1st, we're in Lehi. Hurray!
Also, my brother-in-law Kyle graduates this week. Meaning my sister Becky gets her husband back. This is VERY exciting. Hurray!

For those who wonder

So I posted a bunch of pictures of our apartment online last night and realized many of you have never seen it, so here's your alst chance before we move. Go to this page if you want to see pics.
We've had a lot of interest- 10 or so people have come by or called since I posted it on Friday. We're hoping sometime this week we'll get it finalized.
I've already started throwing away stuff we wouldn't want to move- I went through my closet and got rid of quite a few shirts. I now have 63 shirts left, 12 of which I'll disregard because they are frumpy t-shirts I got for free that I can't wear anywhere (I hear they aren't very flattering on me). So that leaves 51 shirts. Of those, only 8 wear purchased after 2003. Most of the rest I got as hand-me-downs from my sisters in high school. Man, am I eager to sell my wedding dress and get some new clothes!
There was something else I wanted to blog about.... hmm. Kenny is wonderful. We had a delightful date on Friday night with one of Kenny's mission buddies. We went to "divine comedy"- a BYU comedy troupe that I've always really liked. It was a great show.
Oh, and I love the spring! It's 75 here today (so says google) and it feels wonderful. Work is crazy and scary because I wasn't in the office 3 days last week, but it should calm down shortly.
That's all I got for now:)

All kinds of excitement

Lots of news from this week:
1. We are thinking of moving to Lehi. A coworker is renting out her 3-bedroom basement in a nice, new house in the foothills. We checked it out on Monday with very low expectations and were very impressed. The 3 bedrooms are smaller but the rest of the place is large. Rent would be $70 or so more than what we are currently paying, but coworker Lori is more than willing to knock the rent down for any "improvements" we make.
We still need to get out of our current contract, but I posted it on craisglist on Friday and so far we've had 9-10 people interested.
The new place still needs some more kitchen cupboards and some paint and some lawn improvements, but nothing major. And having renters will really help out coworker Lori, who is a sweetie. She barely got out of a messy divorce and has 6 (!) daughters. Then we can carpool to work together and Kenny can have the car. Kenny's commute to BYU will be bad for a semester (45 minutes or so) but the following semester is his student teaching, and odds are Lehi is closer to the student teaching jobs than Provo is. In the end, the commute evens out I think. It has a washer and dryer and new EVERYTHING, but the best part is that it has a large fenced yard. Which leads us to big news #2:
2. We are getting a puppy!!! As soon as we move into the new place. We're content with a mutt, but we hope for a beagle. We know that it's probably wiser to get a slightly older dog but Kenny has never had a real pet and we figure this is our one chance in our lives to have a puppy. We can be sensible later:)
3. I got to go to my company's big fancy conference on Wednesday and Thursday and I had a good time and even got a few new clients (which may or may not be a good thing- if nothing else it should impress my boss.) Then since the conference was so successful my company gave us a paid holiday on Friday, which I used to do some chores, get a massage (my v-day present from Kenny) and help out new future landlady clean up her house.
4. I got commissioned to do a $300 website for a coworker. We were chatting at the big conference and he asked what I did before I started working here and I told him I had a web development background. He got all excited and asked if I would do a 10-page e-commerce site for him. I'm quite excited to be designing again.
I think that's all I got for now. All in all, a wonderful week.

I hate daylight savings!

So yesterday we got up at 8 and hopped in the shower in preparation for 9 o'clock church. It wasn't until we were almost done getting ready, at 8:35 or so, that we realized 8:35 was actually 9:35 and we had missed sacrament. So we missed church. Again. I swear they are going to think we are inactive. On the bright side, I managed to finish final fantasy VII and we had Ben over for games.

Other highlights of the week:

-We just started using Blockbuster's online movie service instead of netflix. We rented "On a Clear Day"- a delightful british film about a man who decides to swim the English channel. Then we exchanged that for "Mirrormask", the latest non-muppet movie from Jim Henson studios. It actually wasn't muppet-ish at all, but it was absolutely AMAZING. We both loved it. Beautifully done, unique, abstract without being weird… I hope to buy it and have it be a family favorite someday. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

-We went to sarah's house on Thursday for a jewelry party (like a "tupperware" party). I really enjoyed it- there were some beautiful pieces of jewelry. Unfortunately, I don't have spare money for such things, so I got to look but not buy. I did, however get some Guppy fish from Sarah. Hooray! I got 3 boys, 3 girls (all of which are pregnant, I think). I can't have babies; I can't have puppies, but gosh darn it, I can have baby fish now!

-We made peanut butter cookies for the cookie jar Kenny painted to look like a Nintendo. Kenny forgot to do the fork-smashy thing on the first batch, but I remembered for the second batch. I even went all out and got a bowl of sugar to dip the fork in. We discovered afterwards my bowl of sugar was actually a bowl of salt. Anyone want salty cookies?

-We went to the temple Friday night. Kenny's sister Jeanette gave us some names that needed endowments, but the temple was VERY busy and the needed people to do sealings instead. I had kind of wanted to do a sealing anyways, and we both really enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to the Brick Oven where I got an apple cobblery desert and Kenny got a lasagna.

-My spiritual focus, especially with the temple trip, was to try and teach myself to be more flexible in my plans for the future. The other day lori was talking about how it's good to plan, but it's also good to practice faith and just know that if you are doing what you should, God will take care of you. So I'm trying my hardest now to not set too much importance on our plans while at the same time keeping us in line to be out of debt and able to buy a house in a few years. Maybe we'll have a baby as soon as we start trying; maybe God will make us a wait a while. Maybe Kenny will stay home with the baby; maybe it will be too hard for me to go back to work. We'll just wait and see.

End of Apathy week

First off, good news: Within hours of posting the futon and entertainment center on craiglist, both items were claimed. Kenny and I now have 50 extra bucks to spend on a board game or movie. Yay. Now if only someone would claim my wedding dress.

Aside from Thursday, which was a delightful day for me, last week was the hardest of our marriage. Nothing happened really... no fights or anything like that. We're just both so burnt out and apathetic that we didn't pay each other enough attention. He's had so much to do with work and homework, and I've just been fighting to feel productive. The only relaxing thing we really did was play video games- me, final fantasy 7, and kenny, wiiPlay.
There was another big thing that happened that definitely contributed to the week's unhappiness. Kenny saw a flier for an internship that would enable him to graduate a semester sooner. I spent hours and hours playing with this new idea in our budget, seeing how much money it would save us and how much sooner we could have a baby. I got my hopes all up for a few days before Kenny's counselor got back to us Friday and said the internship wouldn't help him meet his graduation requirements. Whereas before I was perfectly content with our plan, now I feel quite disappointed and like it will be a long time before our situation changes.
I finally broke down on Friday night, half from guilt from neglecting Kenny, and half from feeling neglected myself (by the end I think it was 75% guilt from breaking down- I hate making Kenny deal with my emotions). After a long talk and some good cuddling, I felt much better. Saturday went a little better and Sunday... Sunday was wonderful. I think we both finally caught up on sleep and "personal time" that we were able to dedicate the whole day to just being together and enjoying each other. So everything is great now. The only thing left is I still need something to look forward to in the near future to break up the monotony a bit. I think we are looking at a celebration weekend next month when Kenny finishes school- any bright ideas for fun little trips or activities?

Fun facts

Here is a collection of random, personal and fun facts about me:

-I like commercials where animals are given human-like characteristics.
-I wear sandals year round (even in snow unless I expect to be in it for a long time)- my current pair of doc marten sandals have lasted me 3 or 4 years; two pairs preceded them, all the way back to 1997 or so.
-I love wading in fountains.
-I'm a summer girl. Winter is just that annoying thing that comes between summers.
-I still have dreams of being an author someday.
-Books I read on a yearly basis: Les Miserables, the Little Prince, Screwtape letters, Lord of the Rings
-Books I've read in French: Les Miserables, le Petit Prince, the Livre de Mormon, Le Seigneur Des Anneaux (lord of the rings), Notre-Dame de Paris (Hunchback of Notre-Dame). And I still won't speak French unless I have to.
-I love watching dog shows on TV.
-I've had at least 6 concussions. I've only had one broken bone (my collar bone when I was 5) and one sprain (my wrist, my senior year).
-I've been to the hospital at least once a year since I was 16. I've had 3 MRIs, 2 EEGs, 2 Holter Monitors, countless blood tests, and seem perfectly healthy, aside from that whole passing out thing.
-My husband has never been to an ER for his own sake.
-I had a horrible crossbite and had an inch of bone taken out of my jaw my junior year of high school.
-I'd kissed 5 boys before Kenny- basically one guy a year since my first kiss when I was 17. Most of them were mistakes.
-I told Kenny I loved him about a month too soon and scared the crap out of him. 2 months later we decided to marry.
-I took Arabic for two years and don't remember any of it. I can, however, still write in Arabic Script (as the doodlings on my sacrament programs attest).
-I've had at least 25 cavities, mostly on baby teeth. I'm down to one a year or so now, and those are mostly to fix up the fillings that were poorly done when I was little.
-My favorite sound is rain on water.
-Fun times that I've passed out: while fighting with a teacher in 6^th grade, a choir concert in 8^th grade (mid-performance), while applying for a job at JC Penney's when I was 16, while working at a doctor's office my senior year (that was the first of the "bad ones", where I pass out while sitting down and get all pukey and weak), while awaiting a lunch date with Jonah Barnes my freshman year, while giving a presentation to the BYU Law Society, and while preparing for my first day at my current job.
-I love the word "formidable". I have no idea why.

A day off

Today I'm taking my first "personal day" since I started working at Omniture. I've been having bad headaches lately and felt permanently tired. Also, this week there has been VERY little for me to do at work- filling up 8 hours with productive work has been a bit of a challenge. So I figured, what better time to stay home and get caught up on rest and chores?
I slept in til 10:30, then got up and immediately went to work around the house. I've washed 5 loads of laundry (my own clothes, plus pretty much every sheet/towel in the house- and mind you, we don't have a washer and dryer. I spent $7.50 on laundry today!), scrubbed the bathroom and vanity, done the dishes, cleaned the front room, paid bills, posted our unwanted furniture on craigslist (anyone need an entertainment center/futon?), and most notably, haven't played any video games! Considering my "day off" has been nothing but work, I feel great. Now I need to make dinner for my sweet husband who's been working all day.