My new obsession

So the crafting that I've MOST been excited about (and by excited I mean newly obsessed with) is quilting. My friend Brittany talked me into taking an 8 week quilting class with her on Tuesday nights.  I was surprised and overwhelmed at the expenses and work that would need to go into this new hobby at the first class, but have now become quite enthralled with quilting.  I love picking out fabrics and finding quilt patterns that I like and seeing it come together!  My first quilt has been what I have named the cupcake quilt.
You see, once upon a time when I was doing some shopping for a friend's baby shower, I came across this outfit:

Isn't it so freaking adorable?! And so totally me.  I am a cupcake kinda gal.  So I bought it for myself with the hopes that someday we will have our own lil cupcake. 

So when quilting class started and I needed to think of a theme for my baby quilt to make (I wasn't gonna start out on a big quilt so baby quilt made sense to me), cupcake theme was an obvious choice to me!
So I picked out some fabric....

 And started cutting....

 And started sewing.... (this is called chain sewing... you just sew one piece after the other so it makes a long chain of pieces that you snip apart)

 And sewing....

 And mapping out....

 And sewing some more...

 Until I reached this point this morning!

Um, isn't this the cutest freaking thing you've ever seen!?!  I am very happy with how it's turning out.  I still have a border to put around the whole thing, then I need to do the backing, batting, and binding to finish it off.
My lil cupcake is gonna be one lucky lady!

Gettin my crafty on

I know there's been a lag in blog posts lately, but it's because I've been busy being so crafty!  I've been getting my crafty on and it's been so much fun.

Dustin's sister Nicole came into town with her boyfriend last week so in preparation for our guests, I've been working on getting our 2nd bedroom cleared out and ready. We decided to move our bookcase that we use for food storage into our dining room because 1) we wanted the room in the 2nd bedroom and 2) it makes sense to have it closer to the kitchen with all the food we keep on it.  The only problem is that it was so ugly.  Just plain, boring, tan ugliness.  I couldn't display something like that in my dining room where people would see it!  So we did a food storage book case make over!

The ugly bland bookcase in the beginning....

 Starting the make over....

 Fully painted.....

 And finished! (Don't mind the blobs of modge podge here and there that are still drying when this picture was taken...)

Now it's stocked with food and organized so it looks presentable to anyone who comes into our home.  Plus, our 2nd bedroom is freed up for more crafting, guests to visit, or a future nursery someday.

What we've been up to (the past 2 1/2 months)

I didn't want to write out a novel long post about the past 2 1/2 months and I have no time (am too lazy) to write out individual posts, so I quickly put together a photo collage. Unfortunately, it's kinda small....

So... sorry. I'll put up some bigger pictures with brief captions....

I made chocolate peanut butter cupcakes are for my birthday and we went to the Trail Blazers vs. Kings game to see Jimmer! Dustin got me a pink chi for my birthday present.We fed the missionaries a lot and loved having them here, so there's a pic of them in here too.

I decorated a cake from my aunt's birthday....

I made a bunch of bundt pan goodies....

I've been cutting Dustin's hair! Before and after picture included....It's snowed a couple times here in Portland. Gross. I hate snow. Good thing it never sticks around long.

And then Valentine's day pics! Dustin took me on a Valentine's date to Comedy Sportz and to the Melting Pot for dinner.I made red velvet cupcake pops for everyone at work for Valentine's day...
And now you're mostly caught up on our lives over the past 3 months!

Working girl

I know many people have been wanting to know about my new job and how it's going. Well... it's awesome!

The company I work for is called the House of Antique Hardware. They are an online store that sells, well, antique hardware. You can find their website here. I think my official title is Bookkeeper, but I work in the Accounts Receivable side of Accounting, which basically means that I get to take people's money. :)

I start my day with a sales audit report, which means I get to reconcile all the payments from each payment method (Visa/MC/Discover/Amazon/PayPal) for the previous day and make sure that what our payment processor said we made matches up with what our database says we made. After everything matches up, I make the deposits for each payment method into the proper account.

Then I work on billing... charging payments for each order that is ready to leave the warehouse for delivery to the customer. And billing takes up most of my day. Once billing is done, I work on doing refunds and other various things as needed. I'm still being trained on the other various things as I get faster at doing the billing portion :)

Something that is really nice about working with this company is that very rarely do we have a payment not go through. That was something that was so frustrating at StoresOnline--we had some really crappy customers! But at the House of Antique Hardware, our customers are contractors or designers, people with clients and business, and their payments actually go through. It makes my job SOOO much easier.

The people that I work with are very nice. My boss even bought me a little gift for my birthday- a mug and two boxes of hot chocolate with a little happy birthday balloon and card. She must have picked up on the fact that I don't drink coffee, which is a dominant smell in the office. Hahaha. It's definitely different working in a company where I am the only LDS person.

I got my first paycheck last Friday and even though it was only for a partial week (from the week I started), it was so awesome to know we're going to be getting money on a regular basis! That was the first real paycheck we've had in 4 months! Also, I love that Oregon pays SO much better than Utah. Seriously awesome.

I do miss the little daily things I was able to do when I was home all day, like reading my scriptures and keeping the house clean. Of course those are still things I need to do, but it's been a lot harder to keep up on everything because I am always so TIRED when I get home. I'm so glad I have a husband that is so good at picking up my slack around the home, even if he's been at class all day.

I am so grateful that I have a job with this growing company and it will be great working there!

Timing is Everything

Remember how just a few months ago I just didn't want to work? You can read that blog post here. I would look for jobs or even go to an interview and I just really really really felt like I shouldn't get a job. So I didn't. We booked our 3 week trip home to Utah and I figured I would just start looking again when we got back from our trip.

We were originally planning a trip home to Utah in March during Dustin's 2 week break because Dallin was going to be home from his mission then.... so we felt bad that we wouldn't be home for Dallin, but just felt like it was the right time to go home. Well, the week before we left for Utah in December, I got a call from Robert Half Accounting saying that there was as full time permanent billing clerk position that they thought I would be a good match for. I agreed and they set up a phone interview.

I interviewed the week before we left and thought it went okay, but really wasn't sure because I couldn't tell their reactions to my answers over the phone. They asked what my schedule was like the following week because they would be setting up in person interviews for those they liked from the phone interview. I told them I would actually be out of town for a few weeks and they said that was fine, they were willing to wait for the right candidate.

That week we also got a call from my dad saying that Dallin was coming home from his mission on the 21st due to some health issues they wanted taken care of in the USA. He wasn't given a "medical" release, he was given a full time, honorable release from his mission and we were all excited that he would be home for Christmas and able to start getting better. This completely solved our worries about not being there in March to see him when he got home.

During our Christmas break, I felt ready to go back to work. We could always use the money as living off of student loans is not completely ideal, but I finally just felt ready for work and wanted to find a job. The job I interviewed for on the phone sounded like a good position for me, similar to what I was doing at StoresOnline, so I was hopeful that they would really wait for me to come back and interview again. I knew that if they liked the candidates they interviewed while I was away, they would most likely pick one because there's no sense in waiting for someone if you already like who you have and they are right there ready to work.

Well, I got a call after Christmas asking if i could come in the following week to interview, to which I had to explain that I wouldn't be back until the 6th, which they were fine with. The first week of January I got a call asking if I could come in ON the 6th, to which I had to explain that my flight wouldn't get in until 8 PM. They were also fine with this and we set up an interview for Monday the 9th.

I went to my interview with fingers crossed (and lots of praying), and I thought it went well. The company seems like a really good company to work for with lots of potential to earn bonuses. That night I got an email saying that I needed to fill out their application (cuz all this job finding and interviewing was set up through Robert Half Accounting) and a form for a background check. I figured this could only be a good sign... and it was!

I got the call Tuesday morning that they wanted to offer me the job and that I would start possibly Friday! Well, today is Friday and no, I am not blogging while at work, the manager is out of the office until Tuesday so I start Tuesday the 17th. The company I will be working for as a billing clerk is called The House of Antique Hardware, a company that sells hardware online. So before, I worked for a company that sold online stores to people, now I actually work for an online store! The location is NOT downtown Portland, which I am super happy about, but it's close to it, pretty close to the Lloyd Center, and literally 1 minute away from Voodoo Doughnuts.

I can't believe how perfectly the timing worked out for everything. Back in October, I had no idea why I just completely felt like I shouldn't get a job. The spirit was helping me on my path to find a job that I will like, at the same time getting us home for Christmas to spend time with our families and to be with Dallin at his return from his mission. I am so grateful for the blessings of the spirit and how our loving Heavenly Father sends us inspiration to guide us down the path that is best for us.

Timing really is everything! I got the job, now we just need to get the baby! Next step for us? Hopefully. :)

Just a little note

Do you ever feel like you have SO much to blog about that you just don't blog at all? Cuz it's hard to spit it all out in typing and you don't know where to start?

That's how I've been feeling. Or else you would have had a post a day. My apologies for not posting much at all. I'll try to spit it all out. We've just been having fun instead.... and I go on these blogging feasts it seems where I'll just get 5 posts in one day. Maybe if more people would comment to let me know someone actually reads this stuff....

Plus, I've also been trying to get everything ready for next week because it's Thanksgiving!! And my family will be here! And I am very excited about that :) So the house needs to be perfect.

So, for now, I leave you with a short post including a few pictures of happiness.

Photo 1: The tree outside our bedroom window. Man, I love fall. And I love opening up my window to see this. None of the other trees in our courtyard look as pretty as this.

Photo 2: Look at this adorable turkey! I don't think you can get much cuter than this as far as turkeys go. I wish I could claim that I made this, but I didn't. Thank you Quilted Bear.

Stay tuned for more posts coming [hopefully] this afternoon!