The Funny Sorts of Blessings

I've sort of shied away lately from sharing anything TOO personal on this blog, but I'm going to be completely honest this time...and then probably revert to only half-revealing things again. It's just one of those times when I'm in an introspective mood. (on a side note, if I made this blog private, how much trouble would that be for everyone? I've toyed with the idea before but ultimately didn't do it because I thought it would be too much trouble for people)

Anyhow, today marks a very important day because today, I am 37 weeks pregnant. I say that like I'm high risk, but I'm not really. More like high-er risk.

As most people may already know, I have a uterine anomaly known as "uterine didelphys" or more commonly referred to as a double uterus. What that means is exactly what it sounds like, I have two uteri. And two cervices. And so as many people point out, I could technically have two babies with due dates only months apart. Yes, I'm a freak. It's ok, I'm ok with myself. =P

I've known about the condition since I was 14 and that is really where my blessing start because I didn't have to go through the pain of not knowing for so long why I couldn't carry a pregnancy or other potential complications. (The other blessing being that I haven't had to endure that up to this point.)

As most people once again may know, I have gone through this pregnancy virtually symptomless. I still laugh that I used the pregnancy test out of sheer boredom one day rather than a suspicion that I was pregnant. (imagine my surprise when it was positive). This isn't something I particularly like to talk about because I feel bad telling other women that I feel fine when most people wouldn't;  I also felt affronted in those first few weeks when I was mentally freaking out because I had no symptoms and I knew I had this condition and everyone told me how lucky I was. I try to tell people that it evens out and either you're hugging the toilet, or you're crying yourself to sleep every night because you aren't sure that everything is ok.

I was sure to find a doctor who had a lot of experience behind him because I knew that it was important to have someone that understood my condition. I keep calling it a condition, like I'm ailing, but I don't know what else to call it. Luckily, the doctor I chose was knowledgeable and even though I got into a big clinic, I've had little to complain about in how they all take care of me. The only concerns with my condition, given that I was healthy, were a risk of preterm labor and breech presentation but they saw no reason to believe that I wouldn't at least make it to the third trimester.

I reached the third trimester shortly after school started and I expected to start slowing down. I worried about what might happen if I went into pre-term labor in the middle of the semester. I knew it would mean a NICU stay (which I was SURE we couldn't afford) and I probably would have to drop out of school without finishing. But I continued on and was surprised to find that I didn't have to slow down much at all...in fact I took on more because I got called as the YW secretary. (I had no idea how much work that calling would be!)

The doctors kept looking for signs of pre-term labor and when Andrew went out of town for a job interview he was a little worried that I might go into labor while he was gone. That weekend came and went and I just kept counting the milestones and the kicks. As we passed week 35 I breathed a sigh of relief but kept monitoring for any signs at all that something was happening.

Today, I'm 37 weeks pregnant. I'm having a baby on December 2nd by C-section because as they feared, she hasn't, and most likely can't, turn head-down. She could come any day now but I haven't had a single contraction, not even braxton hicks contractions and so I don't foresee her coming early. That gives me time to finish up my papers and get things in order before school ends.

When I say I'm having a c-section I get a lot of pity from people, but I'm really grateful. So, at the end of this very long post, I'm going to tell you why I'm grateful.

1. Knowing about the higher possibility of C-section since age 14 has allowed me to mentally prepare for this. I'm not disappointed, and I'd prefer no one be disappointed for me. I'm not really even scared...yet. Maybe I will be eventually.

2. Though I've never carried a baby head-down obviously, I am almost sure that the fact that she's breech is what has allowed me to keep my energy levels and activity levels up. I can still walk up the hill every day to school (even if I do it unhappily =P), go to mutual, go to work, make dinner (most nights), and attend classes. I can even focus unless the baby has the hiccups...then I don't pay attention.

3. Because I've been able to go to work, I have continued to be able to supplement our income. Money is as tight as it will always be for college students and to be honest, the thought of getting pregnant during school took a lot of faith...and our faith was tried through the whole pregnancy.

4. I'm extremely grateful that I live in a time when I don't have to worry that she's breech. C-sections are, for better or worse, rather routine and it is a low-risk surgery, really.

5. Because I'll be having a C-section, I don't have to worry that she'll come late and that I won't be able to take finals. I should be ok enough by then to have someone drive me to campus so I can sit for an hour to take each of my finals.

6. Since the hospital stay for a c-section is longer, my parents are delaying coming up. This effectively means that I'll have nurses for 4 days, a day by myself (and Andrew of course), then my mom for a week followed by my mother-in-law for a week. Previously there would have been an entire week between my mom coming and my mother-in-law coming.

Some other blessings that are slightly unrelated to the C-section are that Andrew did get that job he went to interview for and so in June, we'll be earning money again just as savings runs out. I'm having this baby before school gets out so my insurance coverage won't change. And just recently, Andrew and I have both received callings in the ward that allow us to really get to know people. As a result, even though I have never been to Relief Society in this ward, I feel like I have a huge network of support after the baby comes.

 When I look back on everything I'm absolutely floored at how the Lord has been right beside us every step of the way and helped us in ways that I couldn't have even imagined or asked for.

So really, what was supposed to be an explanation of why I feel like a C-section is the best thing in the world rather than a disappointing end to something that was supposed to be beautiful, has now turned into a literal map of all the ways we've been blessed through this journey.

And now because I'm pregnant, I'm crying. That's what they blame it on in Relief Society, right? =P

So Much for Everything

Oh man, heading into these next few weeks I am completely overwhelmed. I feel like I have so much to do at school! So, naturally, instead of doing it, I'm writing on a blog that I rarely write on. Makes sense, right? Of course.

It has really hit me in the past couple days that HOLYCRAPIONLYHAVELIKETHREEWEEKSOFSCHOOLLEFT!!!!

Yes, it's said all run together like that.

Most people have a couple more weeks than me, but hey, I'm having a baby after Thanksgiving. My last day of work is that Wednesday preceding Thanksgiving and then it is all downhill from there!

That also means with as little motivation as I have NOW, I don't think I could make myself write any papers after the baby comes. So I basically have to finish all my papers before I leave for Thanksgiving.

I've started to be a little more realistic and I've given myself until the baby actually comes to finish. Some are due before Thanksgiving anyway, but others can be put off a little. Andrew can deliver papers to my professors or I can e-mail them in.

But it SERIOUSLY puts a damper on the holiday spirit. These are my answers to typical questions lately.

Q: You're having a baby! Aren't you excited!?!
A: I would be...if school allowed for such a thing, right now I really can't think about it

Q: Aren't you excited for the holidays!?
A: I will be when school is done

Q: You're almost graduated! Aren't you excited!?
A: I'll let the excitement sink in when its a guaranteed thing...meaning when school is done

Q: Don't you get excited about anything?
A: Yes. Food.

Maybe I should work on rewarding myself with food when I finish a paper...

Better Late Than Never

I'm 27 years old. That means that 2 years ago, I said that I would write a list of 25 things I had accomplished in my first quarter of a century and 25 things I wanted to accomplish in the next quarter. Perhaps one of those things I wanted to accomplish should have been this list.

But as they say, better late than never. Plus I'm pretty bored right now.

25 things I did before I was 25 (In no particular order):

1. Graduated from high school
2. Got my first job
3. Went to Japan
4. Served a full-time mission
5. Learned Japanese
6. Received my endowments in the temple
7. FINALLY graduated from MCC
8. Hosted a party that had more than 30 people in attendance
9. Made new friends
10. Got my drivers' license
11. Took my first road trip on my own (to Utah)
12. Got into BYU
13. Got engaged
14. Got married (you can see by engagement being a separate event that I am trying to drag this list out =P)
15. Made my first cheesecake :)
16. Went back to Japan
17. Hiked the Wave

Ok guys...this is actually getting quite hard...

18. Helped to rebuild the engine of a car
19. Tried Thai food for the first time
20. Made a menu plan/grocery list and stuck to it for 2 months straight (sadly I think that's my record)
21. Went backpacking for the first time
22. Saw Journey and Foreigner in concert
23. Went to Seattle for the first time
24. Tried skiing
25. I was awesome...most of the time. =P

Phew Phew! Seriously that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I know I did a lot of stuff before I turned 25, but remembering it all was hard.

Now for the next list. For this next one I'm going to pretend that I wrote this 2 years ago because there are some events that technically already happened, but they happened after I turned 25 and and I still feel they are important.

25 things I want to do in my next 25 years:

1. Graduate from BYU
2. Have a baby or two or three or...you get the idea surely
3. Buy a National Parks Pass and visit enough national parks for it to be worth buying
4. Go to Japan with Andrew
5. Take a road trip up the coast from San Francisco to Seattle
6. Make sourdough bread
7. Pay off the student loans
8. Buy a house
9. Try skiing again (yep, did this...I'm officially done)
10. See mamatus clouds
11. Learn to menu plan as well as my mom
12. Find a traditional family vacation spot for our own family
13. Understand even just a little bit what the heck Andrew does for work
14. Go to Europe (you know...just to change it up a little =P)
15. Get a puppy!
16. Hike the West Coast Trail
17. Take an Alaskan Cruise
18. Visit all the National Parks in Utah
19. Hike Half-dome
20. Hike the Wave with Andrew
21. Take a Kayaking trip on Lake Powell
22. Build my own kayaks
23. Make my own ramen noodles
24. Try fly-fishing
25. Be happy

Yep, admittedly some of those items are kind of shallow...or lame. Oh well. :)

Friday Night Confusion and a Soda Bar

Friday was an interesting evening. Mostly because Andrew was making a  WAY bigger deal out of our date night than normal. And we weren't going to do anything out of the ordinary either, we were just planning on watching a movie. Yes, movies are boring and it seems like that's all we do. But this was the first weekend since school started that we didn't have demands on our time and I felt like sitting around doing not much of anything. Except eating, I always want to do that.

Andrew started the conversation by telling me that if we went on a date on Friday, his test would be extended until 8pm the following day (it was going to close at 2 originally). I don't know what you got from that, but what I heard was "I don't have to take my test until 8 tomorrow, so we can go on a date tonight". Confused, I didn't pay much attention because I personally had something else planned for Saturday afternoon. (Can't tell you what it is yet, but I'm excited. I'll have to wait for a while though because Andrew has a final next Saturday and a potential interview in Boise the Saturday following)

He continued to plan for us to go on a date on Friday and when we finally settled on getting a movie from redbox, he proceeded to try to transform our living room into a movie theater and asked if we had any popcorn. At this point I was VERY confused because normally, we watch movies on his laptop in bed because our bed is more comfy than our couch and his laptop has WAY better color than our TV. But who was I to complain about the effort he was putting forth?

As it turns out, what he had been TRYING to say earlier was that IF he went on a date on Friday and had photographic proof of it, his teacher would extend the deadline for his test until 8pm on Saturday. Good ol' BYU. =P So he was trying to make the living room photo-worthy. 

In the end we didn't do anything with the living room except put pillows on the coffee table so we could put our feet up since we can no longer fit side by side on the couch when we lay down. Something about my stomach getting in the way or something, I don't remember. =P

Instead, we went to redbox and borrowed World War Z and we went to a new place that just opened called "Pop 'n' Sweets". It's KIND of a soda bar. To be honest when I read about it on Yelp, I had more of a 1950's image in my head. They are supposed to have soda on tap and creamery ice cream to make floats. Well, they have that, but they don't have the atmosphere which was kind of sad. 

What they DO have though is more bottled sodas than I've ever seen in my life. They have an entire refrigerator dedicated to different types of root beer and another for different types of ginger ale/beer. And then they have a bunch of different kinds of sodas. I was actually pleased to see that there were only like 10 Jones sodas because you could easily claim to have like 500 different sodas and then have them all be Jones sodas. Boring.

In addition to the sodas, they have a million different kinds of candies. If you're familiar with European and Australian candies, they have those. They have some Asian candies, and they have quite a few nostalgic American candies. If you've ever been to Water 'n' Ice in Arizona, the selection of candy is quite similar.

Andrew got some Mexican candy that he used to get every time he went to visit his grandparents in Mexico and I got Crybabies bubble gum, just for old times sake (It's not as sour as I remember). Andrew got a white birch beer and I got a lemon lime soda with bitters in it. It was hard to make a decision with all the sodas (I don't even LIKE soda) but I was pleased with my choice. The whole thing was kind of pricey, coming out to 8 dollars total, but I still feel like we'd go back again. I mean, they kind of have a monopoly on sodas you can't find anywhere else. And let's face it, I'm curious.

They were still in the "getting set" up stage so there wasn't much room to sit. They DO have a bar to sit at, and there are a couple of booths which at the time were blocked by boxes of soda. But really, if you're just getting a bottled soda, it probably isn't terribly worth eating in, especially since the place is somewhat devoid of atmosphere. But it's still definitely worth trying out. And seriously, that soda that I got was soooooo good!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand that just totally turned into a restaurant review instead of a blog entry about my date. Whoops.

On the way home we picked up World War Z and chicken me is glad that we forgot to turn the lights off and were too lazy to do so after the movie started. As zombie movies go, it was incredibly tasteful. I wasn't grossed out too much, most of the gross stuff was just the zombies' eyes looked all crazy but they weren't rotting corpses and there wasn't much blood if there was any at all. I can't remember. The movie was mostly based on suspense and tension. But like I said, I'm a big chicken. And also, I am not even into zombies, I think they are lame. So the fact that I liked the movie probably says a lot.

However, it DID really get my adrenaline pumping and the fun thing about being pregnant is that what affects me, affects the baby. So, watching the movie wasn't terribly comfortable as I was frequently writhing around like a downed zombie because my baby would not sit still. So maybe zombie movies are best left to when you're NOT pregnant. The ironic thing about this being that I decided on World War Z because I decided that Les Miserables was NOT a good movie to watch in a pregnant and oft times emotional state.

Go figure.

Oh, and Andrew did get his test extended until 8pm on Saturday. His teacher also said we were cute. =P

Tired. Very Tired.

I can't REALLY, truly tell if pregnancy is finally catching up to me or if its just midterms, but I am exhausted. My family came to visit last week, which also happened to coincide with midterms (which for some reason are always scheduled right around conference, like BYU has no interest in our spiritual education). So I ended up staying up late many nights just to be able to visit with my mom and dad.

Midterms are over, thank goodness, and come Thursday I THINK I'll have time to breathe. I finished my last tests on Tuesday and then had my pre-natal class from 6:30 to 9:30. Tonight I have mutual until 8:30 and then I SWEAR it's straight to bed. I'm very, very tired. Hopefully I'll be able to sleep in on Saturday.

We didn't really go on any dates this weekend because my family was in town and we had to squeeze every free moment we had for all it was worth. Andrew and I did go to our mission reunion, which was very small this year because I guess everyone got old and graduated and moved away. :( I'm afraid this might have been our last reunion for a while as well, depending on where Andrew gets a job/goes to school.

I did discover a hilarious magazine at BYU though. Who here knew BYU had a dating magazine? I didn't. It might be new. I found it hidden away in a magazine rack in the SWKT. I picked it up because it had a huge list of date ideas (or so it said). Unfortunately the date ideas weren't really anything I hadn't thought of already but there were coupons for the BYU creamery in there so it was worth picking up. That and all the hilarious articles about how to ask people on dates, what girls and guys are thinking, and my favorite, a tutorial for guys on how to clean their apartments. Poor guys, I know some guys fit the bill but I don't think we can REALLY say they are messier than girls or even total slobs. Andrew is MUCH tidier than I am.

My absolute favorite part of that article though was the suggestion that if your couch has a rip or tear in it, cover it with a blanket to hide it. I'm not sure there are many girls in Provo that would walk into a guy's apartment and care if there was a tear in their couch because I've been in many Provo apartments, ALL the couches are old and crappy. Any girl who judges a guy on that, isn't worth his time anyhow. =P

At any rate, the magazine made me laugh.

Speaking of dates and ideas, I'm sure at some point or another all of us has looked for ideas on the internet. Pinterest is full of "dating ideas" lists. Does anyone find these helpful? It seems to me that they all have the same ideas and some of the ideas don't even sound like dates to me. Or they seem like WAY too much effort. Am I just picky or lazy? Eventually I'm going to have to stop calling catching up on Legend of Korra a date.

Girls Day

This weekend there wasn't really a planned date with Andrew. We spent time together, like always, but school is getting crazy and so our "date" was watching "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for my East Asia class. While we watched it, I fell asleep (which made the assignment kind of hard since I didn't really know what was going on when I woke up), and Andrew read his textbooks and studied for a test. Exciting, I know. Sometimes, that's just the way things go.

Instead, I had a "girl date" with a couple of my old roommates/honorary roommates (because we never ACTUALLY lived together).

We went to a new place in Provo called "The Choc'late Mousse". It's a pie bar. They have various mousse fillings for pies and you choose your crust and it all goes into the glass of your choice (wine glass, parfait glass, shot glass, etc). For some reason I find it really hard to explain every time I'm called upon to do so. That being the case, I'm just going to stop.

I got pumpkin and cheesecake. I like the cheesecake better than the pumpkin.

We had a lot of fun just talking...about adult stuff. Weird. We touched on politics, a broken education system, job interviews, kids, etc. What the weird? We're all grown up and stuff! But we talked for like 2 hours straight! When we left, I had like 3 messages from Andrew.

I guess he missed me. =P

Andrew also started interviewing for jobs this last week. He had a couple, one which was in Lehi and one for a company in Boise. Haven't heard back from anyone, which is ok since we've got plenty of time and we're still trying to figure out what we want to do. But even though I'm tired of Provo, at the prospect of leaving Utah I started to freak out. I blame hormones.

But really, I CAN'T leave Utah. I haven't made the most of living here yet!

Speaking of making the most of living here, the Government shut down this week so all National Parks are closed. I'm glad we went to Arches a couple weeks ago!

Best Husband Ever

Well, this weekend was my birthday. Since we don't have much money and school has started so we don't have a lot of time (unless you count all the time I waste on Facebook lately because I have really bad senioritis) I tried not to talk about my birthday much so Andrew wouldn't feel pressured to do much.

I was ever so surprised when he informed me that we were going to take a trip to Arches National Park and to the Green River Watermelon Festival!

We left early Saturday morning and drove down to Arches. It's only 3 hours away! We got there at 9. We made the hike to Delicate Arch and also hiked to Landscape Arch before we decided were were beat and it was time to head to the festival. I will DEFINITELY be going back to Arches though. It was absolutely amazing! We want to take the guided hike through the slot canyons but you have to sign up for it like 4 months in advance.

The watermelon festival was worth everything it took to get there. Green River is a little dying recreation town with nothing really to speak for it except the watermelons. I'd always heard Green River watermelons were amazing, but I wanted to try for myself. I didn't HAVE to go to Green River to get one, they sell them at roadside stands around here, but I figured it might be fun to go.

I had given up hope of going due to the intense outflow of money that happens every year just before my birthday due to school starting. So I was super excited when Andrew said we were going.

We didn't spend much time there. Just enough to eat food and relax after a long day of hiking. But the watermelon was more amazing than I had imagined was possible. I've never had a watermelon that I couldn't control the dripping juices but it was so juicy it just ran down my arms and face in a continual stream. And it made me so sticky! It was sooooooo sweet and delicious. I kept going back for more! (why not? It was free!)

I swear those watermelons weighed about 15 pounds each, at least!

We bought two watermelons to bring home. They weren't AS good as the ones at the festival, probably because they were already a day old and I hear watermelons start to lose flavor about two days after they are picked. But it was still really yummy. I'm still glad we made the trek to get them fresh at Green River though.

thank goodness it will be a while before this little girl is the size of this watermelon...this was the smaller of the two we bought.

All in all, it was the best day ever and I'm SO glad Andrew took me. We had so much fun!

Busy, Busy, Busy

I have been VERY busy lately and I would like to just volunteer the information that I am exhausted! I even started my third trimester and the day nearly passed before I noticed (which was weird only because thanks to my phone, I usually know first thing in the morning when a new week or trimester has started).

As a result, this milestone passed with less fanfare than 20 weeks. Not that I had anything planned anyhow.

Surprisingly (or not surprisingly) it is not pregnancy that has made me so tired lately. Well, aside from the part where I don't sleep without waking up about 4 or 5 times at night anymore, that makes me tired.

It's not even school starting that has made me tired. To be honest that has been relatively relaxing and it's been nice to be out of the house all day since I worked until noon over the summer and then sat around watching Netflix for the rest of the day.

It's church that is making me tired. I'm convinced that besides the bishop, youth callings are the most busy callings there are. There are so many activities to plan and attend! I can't really complain too much, it's tiring but I really love my calling. Part of it is probably because the YW president just oozes gratefulness for all of us. She's really good at that and so I always feel like I'm really making a difference in Young Women's.

But in addition to Young Women's, we also had stake conference this last weekend. The whole of stake conference meant a special stake temple session on Friday night that ended up lasting 4 hours (The temple was REALLY crowded that night, and our stake probably didn't help), the adult session Saturday afternoon, the youth session at 8am Sunday morning and then finally the general session.

There was a priesthood session too but obviously I didn't attend that, I went grocery shopping.

We also volunteered at the MTC like usual on Saturdays so it made a very packed Saturday indeed. Coupled with game traffic, monster thunderstorms that soak you through in 5 seconds necessitating a change of clothes before going to the MTC, and traffic due to power outages on the road you take to AVOID game traffic, we ended up being an hour late to the MTC. =P But I guess most people didn't even show up because their basements were flooding.

Oh and then I had a YW meeting on Sunday.

I hope reading all that made you as tired as it made us. We ended up counting the temple as our date last week, but that's not a bad thing.

Somehow, since last weekend, I haven't managed to sneak in a nap and here I am at the school library writing this blog instead of taking a nap. We have a ward party tonight and then I SWEAR, it's off to bed.

The good news is that school is started. I just got cleared for graduation as long as I finish my coursework and said coursework SEEMS to be spread out evenly enough that I can get a little bit ahead and hopefully finish before I have the baby.

Speaking of baby, we had another ultrasound (sometimes it is nice to be higher risk)and she was a little more cooperative this time. We saw her little alien face at least. (yes...I just called my child an alien)

Going back to the good news of school I find once again that geography classes are awesome! I've mentioned before but they come with built in dates! :) I have to write a restaurant review for an East Asian restaurant (Chinese, Japanese, or Korean), a movie review for an Asian film, go to several urban spaces throughout the semester (parks, libraries, wherever), and take a self guided "field trip" to anywhere in Utah that we choose. If we have time (and money) Andrew and I are going to try to go to Arches National Park or something. It's only 2 hours away! I couldn't believe it! I always thought it was further!

The restaurant review is due Monday so on Saturday we're going with a couple of friends to a place in Salt Lake to eat Dim Sum. I'm super excited because I haven't had Dim Sum since before my mission! The requirements for the assignment are that I try something I haven't before. Hard to do when you served a mission in Japan and grew up in a Hawaiian-Chinese household.

Most of what I haven't had before (that you can get at a restaurant in America) is because it was fish or it was just too gross for me to try it (chicken feet). I could go to a Korean place...but I don't like Korean food. I've tried 3 or 4 things and I didn't like any of them so I wanted to go some place I would enjoy. So we'll see what I try at Dim Sum...I might have to suck it up and try chickens feet. I'm not entirely sure the time for trying things that make you gag just thinking of them is when you're pregnant...but oooooooooooh well. At least I'll have sesame balls to wash it down with. :)

A Passing From Pseudo-Adulthood to Full Fledged "Now I Understand Everything They Taught Me in the Marriage Prep" Adulthood

Andrew and I have been married for a little over 2 and half years. We're expecting a baby in just a couple months here (WHAT!?) and school is finally winding down. We've had dinner together every night since we've been married (even if sometimes it's at 10pm). We've had it easy so far but I've been feeling a sense of urgency lately as we're about to transition from student life to real life (kinda...Andrew is still going to go to school for at least another 4 years).

But I realized this weekend that we've already crossed the threshold between "pseudo-adulthood" and what I feel is "real-adulthood". Or maybe we're in that weird transition zone that makes it all worse, I don't know.

Anyhow, it's our new callings that have thrown us into this whirl of craziness. Andrew was called as first counselor in the Elder's Quorum a while back. This being the prime month of transition for our ward (moving-season) he's been in presidency meeting after presidency meeting and of COURSE, he's been called on last minute a few times to engage in service projects like helping people move. I've been accompanying him to most service projects. I carry lightweight boxes and stuff when people move, it hasn't been bad and it's a good opportunity to serve together.

However, I was recently called as the secretary in the Young Women's presidency. Overwhelmed is a pretty good way to describe the new calling. I went to mutual on Wednesday and smiled and nodded when the girls told me excitedly that they were going to the "One Direction" movie on Friday. Ha, like I even know what that is. =P Ok I actually do but only because I know one of them dated Taylor Swift and I only know that because like a boring old person, I read the news. It's not like I listen to music.

But besides all that, I just got the stake calendar and realized just how busy this calling is going to be. I'm sure that youth callings are the most busy callings in the church between all the devotionals, activities, and regular Sunday lessons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm overwhelmed but also excited about this new calling. However, between it, school, getting ready for the baby, and just keeping the house under control in general (hahaha, yeah that doesn't happen over the semester even when I'm NOT pregnant and in YW, but one can dream), I think it's safe to say that I've reached that point in my marriage where Andrew and I will be so busy with our callings that we will hardly see each other. I now understand how important date nights will be because we won't see each other hardly ever.

And so, all those lessons in marriage prep are coming back to me full force and I'm glad I SORTA kinda brought back date nights (We went and saw Pacific Rim on Friday, by the way), and we're still working together on everything else they taught us was important in marriage prep including temple attendance, FHE (still kinda failing at that), family scriptures, etc. The only difference is now is that I understand just how important it all really is.

I know there are some people that experience this transition MUCH earlier in marriage, like I said, Andrew and I enjoyed 2 and a half years of being always together. It's just a crazy feeling to know that that is coming to an end.

Holding Down the Fort

This week's date was more of a success than the past few weeks...sort of. It has been wonderfully gray and rainy all week and it was actually somewhat cold on Friday, or it seemed that way. After sitting in the house for a little while with the fan off, I realized it wasn't actually that cold. =P

Anyway, I decided that for our date, we were going to built a blanket fort and fill it with pillows and watch Foyle's War. It's our favorite show lately. :)

Things got off to a rocky start when we realized that our sheets and blankets weren't as big as our plans for our fort. Also, stacking stools on top of each other is generally unstable and not advisable. In the end we used our big kid skills to basically sew our fort to the ceiling. The middle was hanging low so we looped some thread through it and strung it up by the ceiling fan. =P

Also, before we came up with the idea for the thread, my back started to hurt pretty badly so I didn't feel like helping anymore, which also made things less fun.

Eventually, we got the fort set up and got Andrew's computer set up inside of it. We watched two episodes of Foyle's War before we decided to pack everything up. 2 Episodes is about 3 hours so we were in there for a decent amount of time. I was going to pop popcorn and grab some snacks and drinks too...but I never got around to it.

I think the next time I do this activity, it will be when I'm not pregnant because my back was sore to begin with and my hips just aren't used to the extra weight. I think my hip went numb halfway through the first episode. The floor just isn't that comfortable, even with all the pillows and blankets in the house.

On the other hand, if I DO choose to do something like this again while I'm pregnant, I'll probably do something more like this:

It was still fun though. :)

Also in happenings this week, Andrew went waterskiing and I got sunburned (even though I was in the shade the whole day...augh!).

Some Things Just Aren't Meant to Be

Last week marks the third week we didn't go geocaching. We didn't even try actually. The first week, the reference desk was closed. The next week, we checked out the unit early but at the last minute our friends who we were going to go with called and said one of them wasn't feeling well enough to go running all over town; we did dinner and a board game with them instead.

That was fun and probably honestly my favorite dates involve making dinner and playing board games (especially in NOT my own kitchen =P). I guess everyone has their personal fall back date and even though it might get routine, it works for them. And I guess at least this is one I can keep up relatively well even after the baby comes, so that's good. :)

The night after our date with our friends, I managed probably the most graceful event of my life. I fell off the bed and dislocated my toe. It was actually so comical at the time that I actually look back on the event fondly. =P

I had it taped all last week and it's mostly better, but I can't wear anything but flip flops and because I'm pregnant and prone to swelling, I can't manage on my feet for extended periods of time. So, we didn't even bother putting geocaching on the calendar.

If anyone else tries geocaching, let me know how it goes. In the meantime, does anyone else have any fall back dates that they always seem to end up doing?

The Green Ball of Happy

So I promised to post about dates. Well this week it was my week to plan. It didn't work out very well but it was a good date all the same.

The plan was to go geocaching. We can rent GPS units at the library on campus so on Friday afternoon I set about putting together a list of geocache locations to try. For some reason, I had a REALLY hard time doing that. It was hot as usual and I was pretty tired. I didn't want to do any caches that required a terrible amount of bushwhacking to get to but the ones around the city just didn't sound very entertaining. Eventually I put together my list and went to take a nap.

We left at about 5:30 only to find out the Science reference desk was closed so we couldn't check out the GPS. About this point, I felt pretty defeated and wanted to go home and take another nap and eat something.

Unfortunately, home had no food and we really didn't have much money so at that point I was upset because we were clearly going to starve to death.

In the end, our "date" turned into a search for decent fruit (This is Utah in the summer, WHY is it so hard to find ripe peaches!?) and then in an attempt to get my blood sugar back up we gave up hope of saving money and got dinner at McDonald's. Then we went to Target to get frozen fruit to make smoothies. The frozen fruit was too expensive but we found a really yummy pineapple instead. We just wandered around the store to kill time and at the toy section, I picked up a big green ball from the display.

It was the most pointless purchase ever but Andrew said I looked so happy holding the ball that he wanted to get it for me.

So now we have the green ball of happy. It sits in our living room and reminds me of that date that never was, but in the end was everything. :)

Stuffs That I Don't Know What to Call it.

It's just a general update of my otherwise boring life. We did find out the gender and we're having a girl. I guess having a gender and a name to call her by (besides Baby Powell) helps to stop the feeling of this baby just being an imaginary friend.

I went and looked at baby clothes on Saturday and then stopped. I think the only reason I went in the first place was because the baby store was air conditioned. I had to stop because I chose to go into the Baby Gap...which is very much my style...and very much NOT my price range. =P

We're very excited to be having a girl though.

Since the last time I wrote, Andrew and I have successfully been on 1 date. Not quite what I was aiming for, but its a start. We went to the temple. Andrew had a talk to give so it was a good motivation to get us there. Bonus, the temple is air conditioned.

See what my life has been reduced to??? Chasing air conditioning.

I think for our date next week we are going to make ice cream. I checked out a book from the library (which also has air conditioning, the library, not the book) with all kinds of recipes. We don't have an ice cream maker but we can rent one from the BYU outdoor center or I found a technique online that doesn't require a machine...just a lot of time because you have to pull it out of the freezer every 30 minutes and stir it up. We'll see, it'll be fun.

I'm past the halfway point of my pregnancy. It passed without a lot of fanfare. We went to JCW's and split a hamburger and onion rings. I told Andrew we were having a half a hamburger each because it was halfway day...but really its because it was cheaper that way, lets be honest. =P

Now I'm stuck in this really weird state where I'm excited that I'm halfway, and also freaked out, and also annoyed. I'm kind of an obsessive planner...I like to plan everything because it makes me feel like I have something to do. When it comes to things like babies, there is only so much I can do before there isn't anything else to do. It's a lot of waiting...and it isn't very fun for me.

Not to say I want this little one to come right now, that's where my conflict of emotions comes in. I'm a little freaked out that I've only got a few more months of just me and Andrew. Don't get me wrong, I'm super excited to take our daughter on camping trips and hiking trips and do everything with her that Andrew and I do together. It's not as if we do a lot of jumping out of airplanes and other stuff that you can't do with kids, it's just...I feel like all the same I need to be making the most of this time with Andrew.

So basically I'm stuck in this weird limbo.

But I'm doing my best TRYING to keep myself busy in the meantime. I can't really craft anything for the baby even because I have no sewing machine/no money for fabric or anything. (knitting and crochet are RIGHT out...we don't go there) =P Instead I'm using the baby as an excuse to do the spring cleaning I've been meaning to do since last year. Andrew helped me last night and now the nook in our bedroom is neat and tidy and our living room is a mess with all the stuff we're giving to DI.

I'm also trying to get us back in the habit of FHE. It was hard to do with just two people so we kinda sorta stopped somewhere along the line. Thanks to our sunbeams, who think the answer to everything is "Jesus" (it was a picture of a bird in a nest!) and if that isn't right, the answer must be "Jesus Smith"...I'm determined to hold proper family home evenings when this child gets here.

So there is the update of stuffs that I don't know what to call it.

That One Time I Did Really Well at Something...and then Didn't.

I was just thinking the other day how I haven't been on a date with Andrew lately. Not a planned ahead date and that's what really makes the distinction in my mind. There have been a lot of road blocks thrown up that prevented that date, one of those happens to go by the name of "Baby Powell" (at least for right now) but if I really ever want to respect myself, I can't use that a real excuse right now. Maybe a few months down the road, but not now that I don't need a babysitter. =P

I'm trying to think of the last real date we went on. I think it was Thanksgiving Point back in June which admittedly is not that long ago. And it was really fun! But before that I can't honestly remember the last one before that. It could also be my lack of blogging, which has been the only way I keep up on life, that causes me to disremember what I've done recently.
I came across my journal the other night and the last time I wrote? June, 2012. What was that entry about? My wedding, because the last time I wrote in that journal was BEFORE my wedding. In 2010. So I guess in reality this post should be titled "Those many times when Jessica was good at something...and then wasn't."

*sigh*

But I didn't really want to write a pity story, even though this is turning into one. There are plenty of reasons that I haven't gone on a real date with Andrew lately-pregnancy, finals, no moneys, no A/C induced lethargy, etc. But they really are just excuses. Especially since I'm well into the second trimester and not tired anymore (the other reasons still apply...except finals, thank goodness).

No, in reality I just realized I haven't done something that is actually really important to me and so like a responsible adult, I'm writing my goals down and recommitting to them. If I don't post about a date once a week, however boring and lame, please feel free to call me out on facebook. Ok, make that 3 times a month...sometimes even our best laid plans go to puddles of goo and so I think I'm allowed at least 1 freebie a month.

Here's to re-commitment to one's goals.

Hmmm. Long Time and I'm Really Hot

I haven't written in forever and all I want to do is complain. I don't like how Utah is continually stuck under a ridge of high pressure. High pressure is evil! High pressure equals nothing but sunshine! Nothing but sunshine equals hot!!!

And I guess I'm with the rest of the western US when I start ranting about this considering it was 94 in Alaska. I don't know anything about Alaska really, but citing that always makes me feel cool. (No pun intended....because really, I am not cool at all, I'm really hot).

We tried to run away from the heat over the weekend by going up to the High Uintas Wilderness to go camping. We were not the only ones with the idea and we followed a LONG line of cars into the canyon. The campsites were all PACKED which is why I was glad we were backpacking. I was nervous about that too since the trailhead was packed but once we got to our destination we only shared the lake with about 4 other camping groups and we were the only ones on our side of the lake. It was REALLY nice, but I learned  a few things.

Backpacking is TOTALLY doable when you are pregnant, but there are a few things to remember. (This is probably going to be TMI, but I'm just being honest here)

1.) You have to stay hydrated...which means that when you have to pee every 5 minutes NORMALLY, it is not uncommon to have to pee every second. This can get annoying.
2.) Even if you DON'T have to pee, you will feel like you have to anyway because your pack will press on your bladder from one side, and your baby from the other. Once you go through the effort of taking off your pack, you'll be annoyed to find out you don't actually have to pee and all that work was for nothing.
3.) Once you put your pack back on, the whole cycle will start again. =P
4.) If you're going to hike to a lake, expect mosquitos. You'll probably shower in bug spray but inevitably (and understandably) you won't spray your butt. This will become painfully apparent the first time you have to take a bathroom break.

Now that I've probably scared everyone out of ever trying to backpack while pregnant, I'll tell you it was easily the best experience I have ever had in my life and totally worth it (especially since it was like 70 degrees). :) Coming back to the un-airconditioned house, was not the best experience that I've had in my life.

Also, make sure to remember your swimsuit. Or you'll end up swimming in your pajamas. =P

Nothing...

Surprisingly, I feel like I have less to write about these days. You would think it would be the opposite.

Still hardly any symptoms...but I'm practically in my second trimester so I've kind of given up looking for them. Cravings are all the same as they ever were and fish aside (which a lot of it I conveniently am not allowed to eat anyway) no aversions either...but who is really surprised at that? By the way...some old wives' tale says that craving spicy food indicates a boy...

What if you crave Thai food every day, even when you're not pregnant? Those poor old wives. They probably didn't have the plethora of delicious food available to us on every corner.

If you really want to talk about cravings though...I have a SERIOUS craving to go to Japan and eat food. The exchange rate is like 103 yen to the dollar (up from 79 to the dollar) so going now would be like a party of all things delicious.

I should probably stop talking about Thai food and Japan now...it's making me hungry.

I saw Star Trek. That was good.

I managed to make birthday dinner for Andrew on Saturday. I made blueberry pie and then was actually glad that Andrew decided he wanted fish instead of chicken pot pie because 1 double crust pie was about all I could handle. Fish only takes 10 minutes. And it was fresh enough that it didn't stink up the house...which is good because fish smell is gross.

That's about all there is to report. Just a quiet birthday at home.

Oh and also I'm really tired...so I fell asleep in the bathtub. My bathtub doesn't actually hold water very well so it was empty when I woke up. I think I bruised all my vertebrae. But I guess I can officially say I can sleep anywhere. =P

I Lied

Final grades are in and I got a B- in stats. That's even better than a C+ (in case you didn't know =P)

Also. I have the hiccups. grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Also also, I was reading a couple posts back and I said that my finals would be done early. That was also a lie...I put off my last final until the last minute and was consequently left waiting in this:

For those who have never been to BYU, that was the line for the testing center from my office in the SWKT,  about halfway across campus. Andrew and I got into that line and it took 2 hours to get into the testing center. Rumor has it that the line at some point actually stretched all the way across campus to the JKB. Glad I wasn't at the end of THAT one.

A Plethora of Happy News

My grades aren't in yet, though I believe they are due tomorrow. Luckily I can look most things up on Learning Suite so I only have one class I don't know about, and considering I got at least a B on all the tests, I think I'm ok.

The happiest news of grades came in yesterday, I got a C in stats! I would normally be unhappy with a C (in this major anyhow, normally if I can scrape by with a D I'm good =P) but this was stats. It was a C, actually a C+ to be exact. Considering I was shooting for a 70 even (yes, I did go through the trouble of thinking "I can get a 17/150 on this final and still get a 70"), I'm pretty darn happy with my grade. We're still on track for graduation.

Speaking of graduation, is it even going to happen? Maybe not in December as planned, some people might get in the way of my finals. And by "some people" I mean Baby Powell, who put on a wonderful performance at the doctors yesterday and was wiggling away on the ultrasound and had a very good heartbeat.

That was the happiest news of all, especially since I was TERRIFIED to go to the ultrasound in the first place. I could seriously be on "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" (except for the ever obvious sign of pregnancy, a missed period) because I've had absolutely no symptoms. I spent the last 4 weeks thinking I had somehow killed the baby because I was forced to sit through a 5 hour final with no food or something. Ok maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but I did think something was wrong.

One might think that a nausea free pregnancy is a dream, but it's not. At least not until after you are SURE that the baby is alive.

But seriously, I feel totally normal despite the apparently healthy baby. Go figure. Well, I'm glad everything is fine.

Anyhow, Baby Powell is due on December 4th. That's two weeks before finals. Of course if the baby comes much earlier than December, I'm going to miss a LOT of school, not just finals so I'm hoping to at least make it past Thanksgiving (which is really only a week before the due date anyway). After Thanksgiving the semester is pretty much over anyway. Luckily I go to BYU; they're well equipped to deal with people having babies before finals.

But we'll deal with that when the time comes. Right now everything is peachy. I don't ever have to take a math class again, summer is here (wonderful weather lately), and Baby Powell is as healthy can be!

Curses...

So I thought I was being clever by graduating in December and then walking in April when Andrew graduates. (Since there is no ceremony in December). But BYU threw a wrench in my plans. I'm not sure yet if it's a real wrench but as of this year the Family, Home, and Social Sciences college (my college) is scheduled to walk at the same time as the School of Engineering (Andrew's college). So whether or not it is a real wrench depends on if everything stays the same next April...but I'm still relatively upset.

I had thought we'd walk at the same time and then both our families could come out once to see us graduate instead of coming out for one ceremony and then coming to another one 6 months later. Unfortunately, I was also hoping that Andrew and I would walk at different times during the day. -_-

Both our families can still come out at the same time, but Andrew and I can't see each other walk. That's super lame. If it comes to that, I might not walk. It'd be cheaper anyways cuz we'd only have to buy one cap and gown that would only be worn once. 

But on the other hand...I WAS looking forward to listening to someone attempt to say my middle name in front of a huge audience again. =P

Well That Was Rude, Semester

Usually I can't wait for the semester to end. Andrew usually dreads it. When I mention the end of the semester he tells me to be quiet because its too scary. I never understood that sentiment until now.

This week I haven't had any homework, it's been really relaxing. I even checked out a book from the library (which I usually try to avoid like the plague, during classes) It was the calm before the storm.

On Wednesday my climates teacher announced that we would be presenting our research projects on Monday. The original instructions for the paper were kind of vague and so my group hadn't actually DONE anything because we thought we were going to get more instructions. Now we have 3 days to throw together a research project. Luckily, one girl in my group is already involved in a study about avalanche prediction methods so the rest of us just need to come up with some good background information. I'm still stressed out.

Then I found out that we have to present our stats project on Tuesday. We HAVE been working on that steadily over the semester but we still have a LOT to do.

Then I found out I have a test that is open between Monday and Wednesday that I have to take and if I take it Wednesday, I have to pay 5 dollars. Wait...I said I have presentations to worry about on Monday and Tuesday? Guess I'll be taking it late night Tuesday to avoid late fees.

To add to the issues I'm having, I had a map due in GIS today that I THOUGHT was due NEXT friday. I even had it written in my planner that it was due next Friday! Augh! Well, there goes 20 points... =/ But I still have to do the project so that I know how to do some things for the final project which is due NEXT Friday. ...and it looks like I'm going to have to write some extra credit papers to make up for my lack of a map today which will also be due Friday.

At least my finals will be done with early...considering ALL my classes are scheduled for the first day of finals. Oh, did I mention that the first day of finals is a Saturday? And my first final starts at 7am? And my last final ends at 5pm?

Whose bright idea was that?

"Looks like I chose the wrong week to quit sniffing glue"

Brain Dead and Ashamed

Oh man, this week killed me. It's like my brain went on vacation without telling me. What a jerkface.

So we had 2 weeks to finish this project in my GIS class. It was due on Friday and the only real instructions were to do something new and different from the other projects we've done so far. We could pick anything to do the map on. Well obviously I went straight to trying to make a map of Japan. My original idea was going to be to make a map of my mission and mark all the areas that Andrew and I served in. Simple right?

Well I have since learned a few things about the great country we live in, the USA. Number one being that our military likes to develop new technologies and then put them out for public use. GPS anyone?

Japan is not like that.

In America, I can download any number of GIS applications and files for free and super easily. Can't do that in Japan.

I spent the first week of the project just LOOKING for the files. Then I finally found them and downloaded what I needed and started working on geocoding the churches in my mission. Then (this was Wednesday) I found out that all my files were in Japanese and my GIS program couldn't read them. The font was a bunch of squares. Not helpful.

So fast forward to Thursday, day before the project is due and I have no project because it just isn't going to work. I can't find ANY more Japan files so I can't attempt to map a watershed area or do an elevation map, nothing. I have to start from scratch. So at 10 pm Thursday, I download a bunch of files of Rainier National Park.

Well, in the US, there are different levels of available free information. In Utah, because Mormons love collecting and storing data (insert your last R.S. lesson on journaling and family history here) there is a plethora of free information for use. In Washington, most of that information belongs to University of Washington and LOOKS downloadable, but only if you have a U-dub ID. DANG IT!

So finally, midnight on Thursday I finish the crappiest map I've ever made because I just don't have information. It was a really sad map and I am very ashamed of it but I had been at the computer for 8 hours that day (not counting the 4 for work) and I was tired.

Friday, I slept through my first class and then typed up the essay that had to go with my map. One of the questions I had to answer? "Tell me why you deserve full points on this assignment"

"Honestly, if I looked only at my map, I would give me 2 points MAYBE, and that is being generous...but hear me out." That's pretty much how I started. Maybe he'll give into my sob story?

But in the meantime, to add insult to injury, I work really hard on my maps. I try so so so hard and my LAST map if you remember was featured on the board as an example of a good map. So when my teacher sent out an email to the whole class saying how proud he was of all of us and how he wants to keep some of the maps for future classes as examples, I died a little inside because my map sucked and I knew it.

Good thing I had easter weekend at Andrew's aunt and uncles to unwind and hopefully get my brain back. Nothing like 2 year old dyeing easter eggs to cheer you up. =P

POST SCRIPT: It's ok, by some miracle I ended up getting full points on the assignment. :)

PUPPY!

Last weekend I took full advantage of the puppy rental business they have here in Provo. We rented an adorable lab puppy named Toby. Isn't that the cutest name for a puppy! He was so fun!

All tuckered out from playtime

He's actually asleep, in Andrew's shoe =P

Look! Twins! =P

Playtime again!

I love his face in this picture =P

Time for another nap!

And Now, After Months of Waiting...

9 months ago I changed my major and pretty much my whole college plan. I tried so hard to keep my mouth shut so I wouldn't jinx it but now I can finally say...

I just registered for my last semester of college.

How do you like that?! :)

Accomplished

I feel so accomplished today. Since I got home at 5:30 today I've:

-read a chapter in my book (a book I started BEFORE my mission...I seriously need to finish it),
-did the dishes
-made dinner(tomato soup from scratch and grilled cheese sandwiches)
-did the dishes
-made cookies
-baked 6 cookies
-did the dishes (the sink fills up really fast when you do so much cooking in one day)
-written a paper
-studied for a quiz tomorrow
-made myself sick off the rest of the cookie dough

But I think my biggest accomplishment today is convincing Andrew to help me make dinner. :)

I Miss Having Television...WHAT?!

Yesterday I went over to my visiting teaching companion's house to watch a movie with our visiting teachee. When I got there, our visiting teachee hadn't arrived yet and so I sat down on the couch and watched the TV guide channel scroll through several times as my companion tried to get a hold of her. After about the third loop, I noticed that Jeopardy was on and I hadn't seen that in a while; I wanted to know if I was any smarter than the last time I watched that show (which was when I was like 10).

Turns out, I was only marginally smarter. I knew that Jan Brewer and Janet Nepolitano were both governors of Arizona ("What is Arizona?") at least. It was really fun to watch it. Jeopardy is a crazy good place to pick up random trivia. And that is something many people probably don't know about me, I love trivia. I suck at keeping it in my brain, but I love it. I read Wikipedia in my free time just so I can learn random facts...that I forget almost immediately.

But now, I kinda wish I had cable so I could watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Just those two shows. Maybe I can get our TV antenna to work so I can get local shows? They're the only shows I can locate and watch anywhere else but on TV!

Thoughts on Impulse

Do you ever get that impulsive urge to do something crazy? Something that probably isn't good for you, but you wonder what it would be like anyway? You know, like "I wonder what it would feel like if I just stuck my foot under the tire of this car as it backs out". Of course you would NEVER do it, but you can't help but wonder anyway.

Then there are the times when you actually WOULD do it...like on Sunday when when I came home from church and there were two huge farm geese hanging out across the street. When I say farm geese I mean the ones that are probably about as tall as you from webbed foot to giant beak and are typically of a vicious nature. Basically not Canadian geese....not that I've ever tested the temperament of a Canadian goose.

At any rate, there were 2 huge geese across the street. I don't have any idea where they came from, its a very random thing to see in a Provo neighborhood, especially so far from the BYU duck pond (which doesn't have geese anyway). And I was struck with this indescribable urge to take a stick and poke them, just to see if they'd bite me. I WANTED to go get chased by a blood-thirsty goose. At least the part of my brain that controls my impulses suggested I use a stick instead of my finger. =P

Unfortunately (or lucky for me) by the time I changed out of my Sunday clothes, the geese had vanished and I never got to poke them. :(

Fridge Awards

Today was a great day! Aside from being sick...again. Guess cold season isn't over yet. And also having to take a test. And also having to go to a stats review session for the test I have to take tomorrow. Ewwwwww, stats.

Anyhow, today in GIS everyone got their maps from Project 4 back, except me. Why didn't I get mine back? Because mine was hung on the wall for everyone to look at! I've never once been selected as an example for anything so I felt pretty darn special, plus I put a LOT of work into my map so I'm glad it paid off.

My map is the one in the middle. I think I went back to look at it like 5 times today. =P It's hard to see because I took the picture with my phone. What I did was I digitized a route for the Geology class field trip (I don't think it's a real field trip, but I could be wrong). The route is in red. The call out boxes are directions as well as label some of the elevation points along the way. :) There's more to the map, I'll make it a PDF and upload it in another post. 

In other news, Puppies for Rent got a new puppy. It's a golden lab and it's SOOOO cute. (and his name is Toby, which is a name I LOVE...for not my future kids...my laptop is named toby.) I think we're gonna rent Toby for our date next weekend! :)

The Saddest Thing Ever

We don't have church until 1. I don't really like the 1pm schedule because it means I usually laze around in bed until noon (which is great, don't get me wrong), spend the rest of the day in church, and then the day is pretty much over. Especially in the winter when the sun goes down super early.

However, on Saturday night I usually start dreaming about how I'll have time for a nice breakfast. Maybe I'll pop some bacon in the oven, slice up a couple of grapefruit, and I'll have put the oatmeal in the crockpot overnight so it's ready in the morning. It's going to be fantastic. Then I realize...

Tomorrow is fast sunday :(

Proof That I Has No Monies

Here's what I've been working on at school. We got to make maps that showed all kinds of demographic information. This one as you can see, is the percent of people living in poverty in Provo and Orem. I took the liberty of labeling my house for you. It's right there. Right in the section that by the legend indicates 44.1-84.2% people living in poverty.

Yes, I made that map all by myself. No I didn't label my house when I turned it in for my assignment. =P

February 14th

I've never really celebrated Valentines day, I didn't much see the point. Occasionally I like to celebrate it like they do in Japan (Which I learned came about as result of a translation error when they started celebrating Valentines in Japan), just for fun but that's all. It's come to my attention recently though, that Andrew does not seem to share my apathy for the holiday and tends to feel bad that he didn't get me anything no matter how many times I tell him I don't care. So I decided that if he wants to get me something, I'd best make the effort to do something for him too.

So on February 14th I braved Smith's on my way home from school. That store was pinker than a breast cancer awareness rally! There were balloons everywhere, flowers, chocolates (ok I didn't mind the chocolates) but really. There were men carrying DOZENS of balloons. I can think of only 2 possible reasons for this. They have absolutely crazy significant others, or they themselves are crazy. I quickly walked to the produce aisle to get my gift for Andrew before I gagged from all the cheesiness.

Problem was, they didn't have what I wanted in the produce section, or the whole store. I was looking for whole walnuts. Not because Andrew loves walnuts but because of a long standing inside joke. It was just just going to be something small to show him I care. But they didn't have any so instead I grabbed a box of Gushers that were on sale (because Andrew loves gushers).

Then I proceeded to write the best valentine ever written.

"Dear Andrew,
You may notice that this is a box of gushers and that it is for you. I could write something gut-wrenchingly smarmy like "I'm gushing with love for you" but I already hurled my lunch in aisle 17 of Smith's. The truth is, these were on sale and Smith's doesn't have walnuts which was my whole purpose in going there in the first place. So enjoy these gushers and know that I still love you walnuts, even if Smith's doesn't support that (probably because they aren't pink)."

Then I proceeded to lace the message with subliminal messages written in between the lines that said things like "You want to eat Thai food". =P I also tried to draw walnuts, but they looked like poo...so I called them "poonuts".

I think that is quite possibly the most fun I've had on Valentines day ever. =P

It Was Nearly as fun as Registering for Wedding Gifts

I got a new phone last Saturday. I wanted a flip phone but Sprint has a notoriously lame selection of flip phones. The only one they had was clearly made for old people because it had a gigantic 911 button right in the middle of it. So I got the cheapest smartphone they had. I didn't WANT a smart phone because all I ever use my phone for is phone calls and texting. I did email and kept grocery lists on my old phone too, but I didn't NEED that.

On Saturday however, I discovered the app that my phone was designed for. I was making my grocery list and I was going to put it into my phone when I thought, "I bet they have an app for this kind of thing". I ran a search for a grocery list app and my life was forever changed. Not only could this app keep my grocery list for me, but I could inventory my whole pantry and keep track of everything in there. And to make it easier, it had a barcode scanner so I didn't have to type it all in.

An hour later, Andrew came into the kitchen to find all our food on the kitchen floor and his wife in the midst of it all, phone in hand, happily scanning barcodes.

At least now when I go to the store I'll KNOW when I'm out of flour so I can stop with the "3 open bags of flour" deal. =P

Date Night(s)!

Andrew and I have been trying to have regular date nights lately. For January...we pretty much failed. We went out one weekend, but other than that we just lounged around most weekends and watched TV. I kinda count it as date night because we've been specifically planning to watch TV together. We're in the middle of a show called "Fringe". It's actually really gross (people's faces falling off and all that yummy stuff) and I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me. Plus it's a JJ Abrams show and if anyone knows anything about LOST, it's similar to that. I HATED LOST with a passion but I couldn't help watching it because I always had to know what was going to happen. JJ Abrams is evil like that.

Luckily, I don't hate Fringe with quite the same passion. And school has been so tiring lately and the weather is as cold as always that usually, come date night, sitting in a blanket glued to the TV just sounds wonderful.

The one time we did go out, we just went out to eat. That was the weekend of delicious food (and also the weekend I got sick but the two are mutually exclusive...I think.) We went to Black Sheep Cafe and oh my goodness was that delicious! We have made plans to go back and soon. It's a place with kind of a soutwestern flair to it. The family that owns it is Native American and so they have Navajo tacos and some other stuff like enchiladas and chimichangas. That's not important. What is important is that the Navajo tacos were easily the most amazing thing I have ever eaten in my life. The most perfect frybread and the most perfect blend of spices and flavors. I could eat that Navajo taco every day and never get sick of it. We wanted to try their cactus pear lemonade but because it is hand squeezed daily, they have a limited supply and we missed it by literally 2 seconds. More reasons to go back. That and the habanero orange creme brulee which we didn't try because we were full.

Saturday we went to a pizza place called Terra Mia, right by the University mall. It was highly recommended by my boss who was a mission president in Italy. We went and ordered two pizzas and it was easily the best pizza I've ever had. That's all I'm going to say about food. I hadn't originally intended to talk about that...but it was wonderful so I had to.

Anyhow, for date nights, February is shaping up to be a better month. We started off with a bang by going to see the Phantom of the Opera at BYU. I made a goal to go to more live shows because live theater beats everything (except maybe that navajo taco...) and so when I found out BYU was performing Phantom of the Opera I knew I HAD to see it. I stood in line for about half an hour and barely got tickets but I got them (back in November). It was the last showing of the play and it was a Saturday night so the tickets were more expensive than the other shows but it was worth every penny (plus it's BYU so it's not like they were THAT expensive...not like when I wanted to go see Wicked and tickets were 165 for the cheap seats...).

The play was AMAZING. As soon as the overture started, I got goosebumps everywhere. You could literally feel the pipe organ in your chest. It was awesome. There's really not much else I can say about it except that it was awesome. I forgot my camera but I took some pictures with my phone. Unfortunately my phone is being stupid and I can't seem to upload them to my computer so maybe you'll see pictures, maybe you won't. They're not THAT exciting anyhow.

After the play, we were going to go out for root beer floats but the play got out too late so we decided to make our own. I forgot that it was Super Bowl weekend. There was not a bottle of root beer to be found in the whole state of Utah. That's an exaggeration, they had some at Macey's...but it was nearly gone and it WAS completely gone at Smith's. There was only one bottle of diet root beer left at Smith's. Lot's of days, I am sad that I live in Mormon-ville. This was one of them. =P

Oh, the pictures worked. Here you go. :)

I feel like a dork.

I mentioned before that finances are finally looking up. In fact, we actually have a little bit of surplus to work with and so the other day at Costco, I did something I never do. I made an impulse purchase. As soon as I even began contemplating it, Andrew threw it into the cart before I could change my mind. It was only 20 dollars, so I never did end up changing my mind. I never buy things for myself so Andrew took full advantage of it.

I bought Cranford and Return to Cranford on DVD. I borrowed them from the library once and they were wonderful. I think I wrote about them before. Anyhow, they've been on my Amazon wishlist for a while and they are 40 dollars on Amazon so I was getting it for half price! However, I'm in school and in addition to trying to save money by denying myself impulse buys, I typically try not to buy things that would distract me from my homework (ie. books and movies and even worse, movies based on books).

So I did what any responsible adult would do, and I immediately sent the DVDs up to Seattle to my mother-in-law. I knew she would love them, and I can pick them up over the summer when we go visit. The plan was perfect.

The only snag in the plan is that right now, I'm laying in bed with the flu and I'm totally bored. *sniff* I feel like a total dork now. Ah well, North and South is on Netflix streaming. I will watch that.

Speaking of North and South, I was at Costco again the other day and right next to the Cranford DVDs they had the entire Elizabeth Gaskell collection: North and South, Cranford, and Wives and Daughters. For only 21 dollars! This is why impulse buys are bad, folks. There is ALWAYS something better.

Oh well. Wives and Daughters is on Netflix streaming too...

And in case you're wondering, yes I have homework I could do. I do believe however, that were I to do Statistics in my current state of frailty, it would induce another wave of nausea. I'm trying to protect myself here. =P

3 Day Weekend and a Chance to Relax

Ok, things have settled down. I actually got all my homework done and just in time to finish my TV show on Amazon Prime before the trial ran out. I started watching a show called "London Hospital". It's absolutely fascinating and if you ever get the chance to watch it I would highly recommend it. You can watch it on YouTube I think but since the episodes are split up sometimes it's hard to find the next section you need. The show also goes by the title "Casualty 1906, 1907, or 1909" (depending on which season you're watching).

The show is about the London Hospital in the early 1900's during the advent of many of the medical procedures we have today. Things like X-ray and spinal anesthesia. I'm telling you, absolutely fascinating. The hospital kept really good records of all the cases and the nurses also kept detailed diaries. In fact, after the show was over I ran a few google searches and found out additional information about the characters and the cases in the show. All the episodes are taken from these records and they're really accurate. I totally want to buy the show in DVD but it's a region 2 DVD so it won't play on an American player.

Anyhow, it's a REALLY good show and I highly recommend it if you get the chance.

Moving on, school looks like it's going to be a beast. I might as well admit now that I've officially changed my major to Geography otherwise the rest of this won't make much sense. You're probably all rolling your eyes because I changed my major AGAIN but I really really love it. I actually took all geography classes last semester as well (except for writing). This semester I have a Global Information Systems (GIS) class which is ABSOLUTELY fascinating. I get to make maps all day. :) It's really hard, but really fun. It keeps me on campus late some nights because I have to do all the work on the computer and the software is really expensive so I'm not about to buy it so I can work at home. =P

 In Climates and Weather, I'm going to have to do a group research paper which scares me, but since I spend all my time lately reading weather blogs (when I'm not watching London Hospital) for fun, at least I know I'll be interested in the research. =P

Statistics is the class that takes up all my time and I can't say that I like that class one bit. It's terrible and pretty much the cause of all my stress. The homework takes me forever and the textbook looks like it was written in 1970 before they even TRIED to make textbooks interesting to read. I can see how the class is relevant to Geography, but it's still dang hard. And the teacher has a really backwards way of teaching in which we do the homework BEFORE the lecture. Every class period I come out feeling like "gee, if I had had a lecture before the homework, it might not have taken me 4 hours".

My last class is Geography and World affairs. It's a general credit for the whole university so there are a lot of freshman in that class. Given that, I don't imagine that it will be that terribly difficult. So far, it's just been a review of my Human Geography class last semester, so not only do I feel super smart in that class, it's super easy.

Oh...and also I'm taking bowling. I think I might have mentioned that. I bowled a 140 (or something, Andrew tells me it was a 150 or 160 but I can't remember). Now I'm back to normal and barely breaking 100 if I'm lucky. But it's really fun and I'm taking the class with Andrew so it's even better. :)

This semester is going to be really busy but so far I'm doing ok staying on top of things. The house gets messy and I don't clean it but once a week, which makes things hard because the apartment is really small and crowded when it's messy, but I'm better at relaxing about that. Finances are finally on the upswing so I don't have to stress about that so much, and despite all my homework I'm finding time to make dinner at home again which is nice. Now we just have to go grocery shopping because Andrew doesn't get home til 8 during the week at which point the temps are barely above zero and we don't want to go back outside to go grocery shopping. =P Now that it's Saturday and it's a whole 9 degrees outside we can go! =P

And I'm a month into my Zoloft and it's working really really well. I don't get as stressed and I don't cry over every stupid thing. It's fantastic to be normal again. :)

Well, time to go grocery shopping!

Hiatus

I'm not going to be blogging much this semester. At least that's what I'm telling myself. School has only been in session for a week and I'm already feeling way behind. And this is AFTER I did homework all weekend. How does that even work?! And it's not like these are upper level classes either, they're core classes!

Sheesh. Really I got on here to rant about that more than I did to tell you I'm leaving for a bit. Now that my rant is over, I'll go away. It wasn't much of a rant anyhow...the rant about my kitchen-aid and apartment 8 was longer. =P

A Story of Christmas Break and Mold in my Kitchen-aid?

Well, school has started again. Today it was 20 degrees out which was nice for my walk to school. It's been well below 10 degrees for going on a week now.

My Christmas break wasn't terribly exciting. I already mentioned Christmas and the getting sick part. After Christmas it was mostly filled with trips to IKEA to buy new shelves on which to store the presents I got for Christmas. We still have homeless gifts under the tree, I never got around to cleaning up the house and giving stuff to DI like I had planned so there is no room for them right now.

I did clean the kitchen on Saturday. I really cleaned it. I finally got all the sticky grease off the bottles that sit by the stove and I managed to find room in the cupboard for Andrew's mocktail glasses that are usually sitting out on the counter getting dusty. When I was done there was a LOT more counter space in the kitchen. This space was supplemented by the empty space that my kitchen-aid normally would occupy. Where was my kitchen-aid? Growing mold apparently.

At the beginning of the break, I let my brother-in-law borrow my kitchen-aid so he could make cookies. He left for Seattle and left the house key with us so we could go pick it up later. When we went to pick it up, it wasn't on the counter. We checked in the cupboards and under his bed but it wasn't there. Kitchen-aids are kinda big so they aren't likely candidates for just "going missing".

After calling my brother-in-law and waiting for him to contact all his roommates, it turns out that one of his roommates lent my kitchen-aid to an apartment of girls. Not just any apartment of girls either, Apartment 8. I've heard enough stories about apartment 8 from my brother-in-law to have caused me to come up with the motto: "Don't date Apartment 8!" These are the kind of girls that give all other girls bad names. As my brother-in-law puts it, "They're good looking, and they know it". (After this fiasco, I'm convinced that that is all they know).

Well, that effectively left me without a kitchen-aid all break because everyone was out of town in Apartment 8. I finally got my kitchen-aid back on Sunday night after they brought it back to my brother-in-law's apartment. In their defense they were sorry about the whole thing, but I'm still not impressed. What girl in her proper mind goes to a BOY'S apartment and sees a kitchen-aid and thinks it belongs there!? I've been in boys' apartments, you're lucky if they have two frying pans and my brother-in-laws apartment most certainly does not have 2 frying pans. His apartment probably doesn't even know what a kitchen-aid IS.

But the blame isn't wholly Apartment 8's. No, it lies well with the roommate that lent it out. Who lends out something that isn't theirs!?! Like I said, he probably didn't even know WHAT a kitchen-aid was...but still! Oy! Boys....

Anyhow, I got my kitchen-aid back and everything was back as it should have been. Except that there was flour and stickiness all over it. I could barely pull the bowl out because it was effectively glued to the base. And when I did pull the bowl out, I took the cover off and was met with half an inch of standing water and mold! Well, at least they tried to wash the bowl...but they put it away wet? Judging by the standing water it would seem that they didn't even try to dry it. And the flour and stickiness all over the base? What kind of an apartment do they live in that they don't know how to clean!?

I stick by my motto: "Don't Date Apartment 8".

Sadly though, you know some poor suckers will date and eventually marry them. Mercy be to their souls, I just hope that one of those poor suckers is not my brother-in-law.

And even more sadly, that is the most exciting thing that happened to me all break. Minus the blizzard driving on Christmas Eve.

Also, despite what it may look like, I don't hold any grudges. Since my kitchen-aid is in fine working order, it's all a very amusing story. Had they broken it, this post would have been written in all caps and probably never be published because it would have signaled intent during the murder proceedings. =P