Playing Catch-Up!

    Jared and I have been having so much fun the past few days! The weather has been GREAT a few days where we took a walk around the agricultural center that's really close by. We had such a FUN Easter this past Sunday too! I got my hair cut the way I wanted it too!

    Work is good, halfway over. I'm busy most days, which is nice! And I am still finding time to work on school. On my days off work, I spend the time off working a little on school. But now it's CRUNCH TIME and I need to start working hard on finishing everything up. 

    We've had some great treat ideas too! Jared made malts a few times and I make white cake so we can cut up strawberries and cover it all with whipped cream. Hooray for malts some nights and strawberry short cake other nights!

    I've got a few pictures to document our really fun days! 

These is all our stuff for the Malts!

Jared carefully read the instructions to make sure he did them the right way.

Enjoying the freshly made Malt in its perfection :)

The agricultural center is pretty great! And it was an awesome Spring day, perfect for a picture!

Jared wanted to put his hand in the little waterfall. He's so cute!

The fun little path we walked on. 

Me on the little path too. Jared gets tired of him being in most of the pictures, so we figure I should be in some pictures :)

We both love the smell of the honeysuckle bushes, so we took a picture by them :)

 Our cute little hard-boiled eggs, waiting to be colored!

 We didn't have any dye, so we got crayons and colored them :)

 We made some cute eggs. The middle says "Our First Easter." I made the smiley face one, the flower one, the multi-colored egg with the light colors and the "our first easter" egg. Jared made the speckled one, the black and white one, the multi-colored with dark colors and the egg on the left. It's cracked with yoke leaking out :)

This is our YUMMY Easter dinner. Jared made pork chops, I made the salad, mashed potatoes and the deviled eggs. The chocolate that can kinda be seen is from his parents. Such a GREAT dinner!

Oh! this is my awesome basket that Jared got me! It's a cute basket filled with little milky ways, Ghirardelli chocolates and MnMs! And it shows my hair cut

This is another shot of my hair cut. Pictures don't do it justice...it's cut up to my shoulders and it has LOTS of layers. 

    Anyway, that's the whole catching up bit. I'll try to blog more and keep it consistent so I'm not always trying to play catch up :)

    Oh, and good news! Jared and I finished LOST Season 2! So now we are starting Season 3. We're just speeding right through all these!

Ride 'Em Cowboy!

    What a crazy past few days with the weather. Goes from cold and icky during the week to a beautiful weekend. Then out of no where there are tornadoes touching the ground the next day and it's raining all over. Then it's cold for a bit, warms up to a nice weekend and BAM! Back to crazy wind and rain. 

    The cycle never seems to end. Yesterday was so nice and warm outside, sun out all day. Woke up today to clouds and rain and the trees were looking like they were going to be blown over! 

    I saw a crazy flash of light that was just like a camera flash outside and the thunder was heard not even a second after the flash ended. I about FELL off the couch it scared me so badly!

    Things got better when the storm started dying down. At least the rain was gone, but the wind was still going insane. It would stop for a few minutes and then pick back up right where it left off. 

    The funniest thing was looking out and seeing this cardinal out there sitting on one of the trees! The branches were swaying up and down and all over, trying to throw it off, but it just clung their for a few minutes!

    Totally reminded me of the cowboys at the rodeos I went to while in Utah! Some pour crazy dude getting on top of some wild animal who is encouraged and forced to go crazy...

    I couldn't help but to cheer for the bird! He hopped off that tree as soon as the wind died down. Guess he saw it as a chance to get away from the crazy, lashing-out tree! Like that crazy tree in Harry Potter that would attack people. 

The Womping Willow from the Harry Potter books

    The cardinal has survived to ride more rodeo trees another day! He seems to like that tree, if it's the same bird I've seen the other days. He reminds me of the silly bird near my bank that will sit outside one of the windows and attack his reflection! 

    Sheesh, it seems these cardinals are always looking for some kind of adventure! Trying to beat up someone to show who's the "alfa male" in a bar, or riding some silly bull, risking injuries. 

    All I can say to that bird is "Yeehaw! Ride 'em Cowboy!!!"

Workin Woman

    First week of work/training is over! And it was pretty great overall. I've met some fun people, I think I've gotten the hang of the computer/web stuff, and I only work a few days a week. 

    Now I can work half the week and work on school half the week! Woohoo!

    It has been hard though getting used to waking up early and leaving with Jared. And when I have to be at work at 8:30, things get a little rough. 

    We wake up and start getting ready around 7. We try to leave at 7:30 in case their is traffic going downtown when I drop Jared off around 8. Because our internet was slow during conference weekend, we didn't watch conference and we are now listening to one talk each morning as we get ready. 

    Traffic isn't too bad getting downtown. It's nothing like Chicago or any big city. I'm able to drop Jared off and the roads to where I work are pretty open, so I can sometimes even get to work early. 

    But it's silly I can't work over my 20 hours. So if I get there early, it means I either sit in my car until I'm supposed to be there, or I leave a little early. I guess leaving early isn't so bad, except for when I get on a roll with my training and I have to stop in the middle of something. 

    Half hour lunch is taking some used to, as well :) I've gotten accustomed to eating whenever while at home, that being told when to eat and how long I have is a little different. Even at MWW Group in Chicago, I was able to decide when I wanted lunch and I had up to an hour!

    Working has been good though. Jared and I had a Kohl's gift card and we decided to use it on work stuff. I got a REALLY cute pair of paints for work and Jared got a TOTALLY AWESOME shirt! We'll have to put up pictures soon. 

    Also having my paycheck go mostly to savings will be awesome! We've been able to still save a little with just Jared working, but now we can save a bit more without cutting back on fun things...like an occasional pizza. 

    We went to the Nashville Temple yesterday, Saturday, and my heart was just so grateful for everything! We are so blessed to be in Nashville where Jared is starting his career and we are living on our own. We are so blessed for me to have finally gotten this job so we can save up money for emergencies, like in case Bob Dixon gives up on us. We are so lucky to have a temple only 15 minutes away from us so we can go once a month.

    Even though work might get a little tough sometimes, I have to remember to be positive! If I hit rock bottom, things can only get better! And I get AMAZING benefits working at Bank of America and the people are SO nice. 

    It's not in Public Relations, it's more of what I want to do. I got great experience working at a PR agency, but I'd much rather have the physical, face-to-face contact with customers/clients. Phone calls just don't do it for me!

The Birds and the Bees

    I seem to learn more and more about the birds and the bees as I continue to grow up!

    I'm not talking about the "birds and the bees" special talk involving awkward moments between embarrassed parents and immature teenagers, but actual birds and bees. 

    For the past few weeks of Spring, there have been some GIANT bumble bees outside our patio door (and an wasp that comes every now and then). They are big enough to where I am scared to go outside when I see one and they make that loud buzzing noise when they linger as if they are watching me...

    Good news though, after that crazy storm Monday night, they seem to have been washed away. 

    Previously, I have complained about the birds, but now they are not nearly as irritating. They must have been loud and obnoxious when trying to find Spring romance (much like teenage boys who try and impress girls and end up being irritating. I don't remember, but were boys the birds or the bees in the "special talk?" In this case, they are birds.)

    As I continue to learn more about these FASCINATING (disgusting) creatures, I have found a greater appreciation for them. 

    THEY ARE OUTSIDE!

    Somehow, spiders keep getting into my personal bubble! I hate spiders and I hate them being within 5 feet of me at ANY time! Jared once found a spider crawling on our bedroom wall and I freaked. When he was working and I was rearranging furniture, I found a spider hiding under my DVD thing. 

    When rearranging a different time, I found another spider under my blanket basket! 

    Today, I saw a spider in the kitchen. THE KITCHEN! I have all these terrible images now of the spider getting it's grossness all inside the fridge where our food is! I'm terrified they can smell the yummy food (I wish) and are trying to find a way inside the containers. I do NOT want to open up my lasagna pan and see some massive spider chomping on a noodle!

    

    I believe spiders avenge their dead kindred. They come out of those gross spider sacks by the hundreds and probably develop close, personal relationship with their brothers and sisters. 

    Sheesh, I kill one spider and all of a sudden 4 pop up! 

    Jared's youngest brother, Spencer, didn't like me killing spiders in the house. He preferred me to let them or or leave them alone saying: "How would YOU like a big shoe crushing you?"

    But I'm not killing these gross things for fun. I am killing them because one day they will all come after me at the same time. I have to destroy the enemy now as much as I can, so I can stand a chance when the remaining spiders attack....

    Maybe one day we can live in peace and harmony together, but that won't be until the Second Coming. 

Madness Monday!!

    I've started training for my job at Bank of America! Nothing too exciting my first day. Just watching silly videos and getting paperwork ready and such. But big events came when Nashville had several tornado warnings!!

    This tornadic activity was totally AMAZING! And not so much amazing as being positive, but rather emphasizing the shear power that was demonstrated by the weather. 

    Most of the day has been raining, no big deal, it rains everywhere. The sky was mostly grey, which was fine, again, no biggie. 

    When the rain started pouring, I got a text from Jared at his work about 15 minutes away saying Nashville was under tornado warnings.  A couple minutes later, I SUDDEN BURST of storm out of no where came blustering by!

    It was impossible to see the giant light up signs across the street! A tree was knocked down and just BARELY missed one of my co-worker's car! Luckily, I parked Bob Dixon (our car) away from trees, but he was under a power-line. I had little day dreams of the power-line falling and ELECTROCUTING poor Bob Dixon!

    No worries, everything worked out fine. The storm stopped before I got off work so I could go and get our weekly groceries. Driving to pick Jared up from work was fine, but the way back was pretty lame. 

    Some of the traffic lights were dead or were blinking red/yellow. It was insane pulling up to a BUSY intersection and trying to figure out who goes when. If it wasn't for the car next to me, I would have just closed my eyes and hit the gas and pray no one would hit me. 

    The interstate was crazy because everyone was driving super careful because of the pouring rain and the lights still weren't fixed right after the exit, but after a few lights, things were smooth sailing. 

    Should I take this bad weather on my first day a sign of an awful future at the bank? NAH! From now on, I can handle anything! HAHA yeah, not really :)

    I'm very excited to go back though. It doesn't seem like training will be too hard and the people are VERY nice. Hooray I got a job and I can SAVE most of my MONEY! It won't be very much, but hey, we're poor newlyweds and we'll take what we can get!

Yearly Check Up-DONE

    I don't like dentists. Never really have, as far as I can remember. I liked the stickers and the gift bag when I was little, but now it's different. If it wasn't for Jared setting up the appointment and telling me to go, I wouldn't have even gone today!

    Pain is not tolerated anywhere near my body. Just the sounds of what COULD be pain sends chills all over me. Despite the nice-ness of the lady who cleaned my teeth and the dentist, I do NOT want to go back until next year. 

    I have no cavities or any big problems right now. If something happens, I'll analyze the situation and see if it is really worth going back to endure MORE PAIN. 

    All I wanted was a quick check up. Instead, I was there for an hour and a half. The first hour was all about getting my teeth cleaned and having my gums bleed constantly. I floss daily, but apparently I haven't been flossing the right way. So my gums are all swollen or whatever and she kept stabbing them with that poky instrument they all have...I appreciate her apologizing, but it would have been better if she had just stopped. 

    Finally, she has mercy and finishes up. Mercy only lasted for a few minutes. She comes back with those x-ray things and says somethings look funny and I might have some infection in one of my tooth roots. Great...no cavity, but I have an infection. 

    Turns out it was nothing, but some crazy name I forgot how to pronounce. So no worries. Then he pointed out a bright spot no where near my teeth. He kept asking me what it might be, as if I knew what could be floating around somewhere in my JAW! He quickly explained as anger flashed in my face that when a previous dentist was putting in a filling, something that should have been sucked up wasn't and it's now been absorbed somewhere else. 

    Anger was replaced by panic, so he reassured me saying it was fine, nothing bad will come of it. WHEW!

    We moved on to him asking me how long I've had my temporary crowns...I have no idea...At least 4 years. He about had a heart attack. Apparently they aren't supposed to be in that long...Oh well. I think he tried to scare me into getting it fixed right away because he talked about how they don't fit teeth very well, because they are only meant to be temporary. One of the crowns in particular is sticking out a little, which means, he said, I could be getting bacteria under the crown. 

    I don't feel any pain, so I figure I'm good. It was a bad idea for the lady out front to say it was a 2 HOUR operation. I will NOT be going any time soon. Just an hour of getting my teeth cleaned was bad enough. I don't want anything labeled as an operation or anything longer than an hour. 

    If I do have to have, they better drug me up with that laughing gas and whatever else the heck they have. I still clearly remember the pain after getting my wisdom teeth out. 

    Maybe I can make a deal with them. They can do whatever they want to my teeth as long as I am DRUGGED while they do it and they better whiten my teeth while I'm drugged. Sounds about fair to me. 

    I know I'm supposed to go every 6 months...NOPE. I'm good with going only ONCE a YEAR!!