Lazy Days of Summer

I have been such a bum lately.  My job at BYU ended last week.  I was sad to go, but it really was time.  I had 2 interviews last week for a job with Provo City, but I didn't get the job, even though I thought the interviews went well.  So I've just been sitting around the apartment, working on projects and reading and hoping I get some calls about other applications I've submitted.  It's actually been really relaxing, but I'm not so sure I want this much free time for the long term.

I have been making progress with my summer reading though.  Today I finished reading the Percy Jackson series.  I had such a fun time reading all five books and I recommend them to anyone who wants a fun, easy read.  I haven't exactly been sticking to my list... oops.  Today I went to the library and picked up some Gregory Maguire books and some Nicholas Sparks books that I'm looking forward to reading.

I really wanted to get out of the house last night so Aaron and I went shopping.  We went to DI and looked around, but didn't find anything worth taking home.  (I almost talked Aaron into buying a headboard, but only almost.)  Next we went to the RC Willey clearance center/outlet to look around.  We found a BEAUTIFUL bed frame that we both loved.  We found some super comfortable couches, recliners, and mattresses, along with some colorful washers and dryers and some smelly new refrigerators.  In the end, we came home having spent nothing.  Nothing!  I was so proud of us.  Our "shopping" trip turned into a free evening to look forward to and plan for a time when we actually have money to spend and a house to furnish.  And it was actually pretty fun!

I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.  Aaron's parents will be in town next weekend to bring his brother, Brent, out to BYU for his freshman year.  So we're going to get to spend some time with them, including a trip to the Salt Lake temple.  Then the next week, my brother Doug, his wife Cassie, and their son Archer will be out here to visit for a few days!  I haven't seen them in almost a year (the only time I've seen Archer) and I'm so excited.  Too bad Archer probably doesn't remember me, since he was only 5-ish months old then.

Oh, and our flowers:

Happy Thursday!

Long Time, No Post

It's been a while... oops...

Well, this is Aaron's last week of summer term, which is super exciting because he was taking 9 credits in addition to working and it's been insane.

Unfortunately, it's also my last week at work.

To recap:  my job is a student job, but my supervisor petitioned to the CIO (University VP) to allow me to stay since my replacement wouldn't be here until just before fall semester.  He initially said no, but because we made a good case for it, he came back and approved it.  However, the approval came with an hour-limit.  I am only allowed to work 910 hours for the year (starting in January), including the time when I was still a student.  Those hours will run out on Tuesday, so that's my last day.  I'm actually starting to get really sad about leaving.  I've been with this organization for 2 years and I've loved it and I've loved the people I've worked with.

Also, no luck so far on the job search.  Hopefully something works out soon.

In other news, since Aaron and I decided to go to a movie instead of watching the 4th of July festivities, we decided we couldn't miss out on Pioneer Day.  So we went to Spanish Fork to see the fireworks.  It was actually a pretty good show, set to music and everything (including everything from Disney to Amazing Grace on bagpipes).  We had a lot of fun watching the little kids running around the field with their glow bracelets and necklaces, and of course the fireworks too.  (However, I didn't look so hot that night, so all you're getting is a picture of Aaron.  He's a cutie.)  Oh and a video too, since the fireworks kept going for a little while even after the music was over.

Remember our flowers that we're growing outside our apartment?  They are massive now.  Some of them are over 2 feet tall!  We took these pictures a couple of weeks ago:

There are now at least triple the number of opened flowers and the colors are much brighter.  I would take an updated picture now, but it's dark outside and I'm too lazy :)

Vampires ate my weekend...

It's been a while-- oops.  It's been a crazy time at work, so the last thing I've wanted to do in the evenings was getting on the computer to blog.

We just moved offices from the Jesse Knight Building to the McDonald Building.  Instead of having one big office for the whole lab management staff, we have a series of smaller offices, so the OCs (Office Coordinators) have an office, the SAMs (Student Assistant Managers) have an office, and the technicians have an office and an equipment storage room.  We love it.  We have a nice big window, which we didn't have before because we were in a basement.  We have a door that we can close if we need to discuss confidential things, which we definitely didn't have before, since we shared a big office with IT Training.  And we have more desk space for all the random things we have to take care of.  It's great.

I finished The Lightning Thief and it was pretty good.  I'm excited to read the rest of the series, since this one kind of begged for a sequel.  I was actually surprised how much I remembered about the Greeks and their gods... We studied them in my 6th grade Social Studies class and I didn't think I remembered all that much from 10 years ago...

Also, this weekend I read Twilight.  Sorry Mom.  I just had to know what this craze is all about.  I have so much I could say about this book, but I won't bore you with everything... just the highlights.  Why can Bella smell blood when most normal people can't?  This was never explained, but she kind of made a big deal about it.  And I get it that vampires' natural human abilities are heightened when they become a vampire, but that doesn't really explain why Edward can read minds... was he a psychic back when he was a human?  And why can't he read Bella's mind?  And I'm sorry Stephanie Meyer, but you don't need to describe Edward's marble chest and bands of muscle every time he comes in a room.  I found though that if I read quickly, I was able to look over those ridiculous descriptions and hilarious phrases and was actually intrigued by the story.  As soon as I slowed down though, I couldn't help but laugh.  And even though I haven't seen the movies, I can't help but think that they should have casted very differently than they did.

So on to more Summer Reading.  I've already started Wicked and I'm planning on reading the rest of the Twilight series and the Percy Jackson series soon.

On a completely different topic, our weekend trip to Park City with Rebecca and Trevor was super fun!  We stayed at a family condo, walked around on Main Street, did some shopping at the outlet mall, and watched some fun movies.  And I got a perm!  Rebecca did it for me and... well...  it didn't quite work out...  The curls fell out, so we tried again later that week and it worked MUCH better!  I don't really know what went wrong the first time, but it doesn't really matter now because I have my wavy/curly hair and I love it!

Spring term is over, and Aaron did great!  But summer term has begun, and our plans have changed significantly.  Aaron was planning on just taking one class so he could work close to full time so we could get more money in savings.  But he found out that two of the classes he was planning on taking during fall are actually prerequisites for his capstone class which he has to take in the fall, even though he knows someone who took one of those "prerequisites" in their last semester a little while ago.  I guess they're actually enforcing things like that now, which they weren't when Aaron was making his plans for when to take his last classes.  So basically, he had the choice of taking those additional two classes now so he can take the capstone class in the fall and winter (it's a two semester class) or postpone graduation until the next April.  Well, I don't want to stick around in Provo for another year, so he's going to take 9 credits this summer so he can graduate on time.  Yikes.  This means I won't see him much during the week, since he'll stay on campus to work on homework and projects in the evenings if he needs to, since he focuses better on campus.  Oh well.  I'd rather sacrifice some time with him now so he can graduate and we can move on out of Provo.  But this means he'll only have 6 credits to take during winter semester, leaving him lots of time to work, apply for real jobs, and hopefully do interviews for those real jobs.

Our flowers are doing great!  So far they haven't bloomed, but they're getting big!  We started them as seeds:

And how they're huge!

As soon as we put our box out, people in the complex started copying us.  I rarely saw flowers in the complex until we put out ours when it was just dirt and seeds, and more started appearing.

Wow.  Long post, so congrats if you made it to the end.  Go get yourself some ice cream or something.