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!
You can count on me. Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents by the tree!!!!
And no, it's not only in my dreams. Although the original plan was to not go home until March when my lil brother Dallin gets home from his mission, we decided to go home for Christmas!
The reasoning:
Dallin will be getting home the end of March, when Dustin's 2 week quarter break will be happening. Kinda. That's what we originally thought. Now that we have schedules planned for release dates and quarter schedules, Dallin will actually be coming home during Dustin's finals week, and then possibly not even giving his homecoming talk until April when we'll need to be back in Portland.
Nathan, Adrienne, and Elliott's spring break will come before Dallin's return as well, so they changed plans to come home for Christmas instead of March. Thanks guys, you're what got us thinking about changing our plans. We just miss that little Elliott of yours too much. And you too. Both of you :)
Dustin will actually have a THREE week break after this first quarter for Christmas and New Years instead of the usual 2 weeks. An extra week to party!
I currently don't have a job, so it's not an issue to take off holiday vacation time right now. Will I possibly get a job before moving? Maybe. But remember how I decided to stop living my life on maybes and just enjoy come what may? :) I remember.
We will get to be in Utah for Christmas, New Years, my momma's birthday, Evan's 12th birthday (how did he get so old?!), and East Canyon with the Creers!!! Basically, an all around win win win situation with lots of partying.
During Christmas break, I can see if Pandy at Wymount will hire me on for Christmas break help. That alone would pay for the plane tickets! And since my lil sister Ginelle works there, I'd still get to play with her while working. And since we'll be there for 3 weeks, I'll still have lots of evenings and weekends for family and friends!!
Doesn't coming home for Christmas just make sense? We're excited!
I have some pictures finally of our new place. Well, at least the family room, kitchen, and big bathroom. I love this apartment. It's close to the main street, but not on the main street and there's a residential area behind us, so it's actually really quiet and our deck faces trees which are pretty to look at. I LOVE how much room I have in this apartment! There is tons of storage, including outside storage on our deck. I also have tons of counter space in my kitchen which basically is heaven for me. I love that we have two bathrooms! It is so fantastic!!
Things have been a little different as we are setting up the house and with Dustin starting school. Our roles in our relationship have totally shifted. Back in Utah, Dustin was the one who did most of the laundry, got our lunches ready, made the bed, and even cleaned the bathroom most of the time. (I know, I married a stud). Now that he is in school taking 30+ credits each quarter, and I am unemployed, I am the one doing the cooking, cleaning, and laundry, and it's nice, but I kinda feel out of place. I know I just posted the other day about how I don't want to work, but it feels weird not working... just being home all day. At least our house will always been clean while I'm not working! Thanks to everyone for the suggestions about employment--I think that's exactly what I'll do! Keep enjoying unemployment and projects and blogging, while still looking for a job I'll enjoy. I just found out from another friend's blog today and THE SWEET TOOTH FAIRY is going to be opening up locations in Oregon and Washington! I don't know the areas, but I wouldn't see why they wouldn't open up a Portland or Vancouver shop, so maybe I could work there! I'll just keeping putting my application out there and send good vibes to STF to get a shop up here asap! :)
Now here are the pictures!
Family Room, TV/Entertainment Center/Piano side
Whole Family Room view
Kitchen
Our pantry, in the dining room
Look at all that counter space! There's just as much on the other side of the kitchen too!
I saw this idea on Pinterest and I had the jar with the candle votive and knew I had to do this! I just added a bow to it to make it cuter and match our bathroom colors!Now it's home sweet home!
Well, we made it! We have now been here for a week and while it still feels like we're on vacation, we love it! When we got here last Thursday, the temperatures were SO HOT all weekend! We finally saw a little rain Sunday morning, but it quickly went back to blue skies and has been BEAUTIFUL all week. Everyone kept trying to tell me about how depressed we'd be with the over cast skies and rain, but, man, this is heaven. I look forward to the rain that is coming soon too :)
BIG thanks to my wonderful parents, awesome sister in law Nicole, and fantastic aunt and uncle for helping us move!!! We hope more family and friends can come visit us soon!
It has been SO great not working and having Dustin at home too before he starts classes. We were able to put our house all together, including most decorating done by Wednesday! Which is seriously record time for us. In our last two places, pretty sure we NEVER were fully moved in. I love love love our little apartment. It is the perfect size for us and I feel like we have tons of space for storage and everything. This complex is so amazingly quiet that sometimes I wonder if we even have neighbors.
We met our ward on Sunday and when the bishop found out we were from Utah he said, "Oh good! You're active!" Which we laughed pretty hard about cuz being from Utah definitely does NOT make you active. Our ward is pretty small, but after feeding the missionaries on Wednesday (we have missionaries just for our ward! How weird is that?! Okay, it's not weird, it's actually really normal outside of Utah!), we found out that the activity percentage is 25%.... so that's why it seems so small. We'll see how long it is before we have to give talks in sacrament meeting... and yes, I said HAVE to give talks cuz I hate giving talks....
We made some new friends called the Stanfords--Yolanda (yo-land-a) and Nate. And their 5 kids. The invited us over for lunch on Sunday and we had a great afternoon with them. Nate goes to Western States University like Dustin so he gave us a whole bunch of great advice. We had them over for a fondue and games last night too and it's nice to have friends here already!
Today was a fantastic day. Dustin got to go to new student orientation, and I got to work on application stuff. I am now trying to work with Robert Half Accounting and ExpressPros Jobs to find something to do out here. I did some more testing for Express Pros for Excel, Word, 10 key, and typing, and I feel really good about my scores so hopefully they have something for me when I go meet with them on Monday.
After I was happy with my test scores, I treated myself to a couple episodes of Desperate Housewives before Dustin got home. Hahahaha. Tonight we are heading over to my aunt and uncle's house in Battle Ground for they BYU vs Utah State game.
Pictures and more Portland happenings to come!
Tomorrow we will be boarding that Delta airplane and flying to Rose City, renting a car (how cool *and old!* are we to be able to rent a car?!), and exploring the area! I can't believe this is really happening. We will leave as tenants in my parents basement and hope to come back as renters once again! We have a couple places scheduled and hope that something will work out, but it's so hard to know where we should live or how much we should spend because so much of it depends on where my job is and how much I will be getting paid!
Which, by the way, I have applied to THREE jobs in the Portland area now that my resume looks fantastic, thanks to my beautiful SIL Adrienne. Thanks girl! I am nervous to be applying for new jobs and scared to get them and scared to NOT get them. What if they hate me and never contact me about the job? What if they love me but I totally screw up the interview? What if they love me and my interview is amazing and they want to hire me?! I seriously hate interviews and feel like I'm horrible at them so I've been telling myself that I am AWESOME at interviews and will totally rock them. I'm hoping that if I tell myself that enough, I'll finally believe it and have the confidence needed. Because really, isn't confidence like 75% of the interview?
We got the information about student loans a month or so ago and I started having a panic attack. This is serious stuff. Serious debt. And the worst part? We won't even be getting enough student loan to really cover our costs of living. I think that this school thinks that their students live in a mud puddle and eat dirt because the extra amount of student loan that won't be going towards tuition, books, and fees, will really only cover housing with utilities for the 2 of us. So of course, I am FREAKING OUT. Dustin called the school's financial aid office and they basically said, "your wife just needs to get a job." End of story. My May miscarriage is starting to seem like a blessing in disguise because if I were to be having a baby and NOT working when we move, we wouldn't be able to feed and clothe ourselves, let alone a baby!
Now I know people do this whole "grad school" thing all the time, but I'd really like to know your secrets. PLEASE TELL ME HOW TO SURVIVE. I know we'll be poor, I know they will be "the best years of our lives", and I know that it takes a lot of faith and courage. It's just hard to figure out how it will all logistically work out.
Hopefully one of these jobs I have applied for will work out, but I'm still going to keep looking until I have an offer. I am awesome. I rock interviews. I am an intelligent, well-rounded professional that is going to get a killer job. (self, is this working yet?)
