Couchless-ness

This is a picture of our living room which, as you can see, is couchless. Last Monday when we went to meet with Aaron's previous employer we found out that the couch we thought we would be receiving as payment was already gone. As it turned out Aaron's employer, Chris, was attempting to get out of his lease early without having to pay any penalty fees. So he offered his landlord anything that he had as payment, so when the landlord came by one of the things he chose to take for his payment was the very couch that we had our eye on. So since we couldn't have a couch we took 5 executive, leather office chairs. We decided to give one of them to Taber and Rebecca because Taber was so generous and was willing to help us move the couch (which turned out to be the chairs) back to our apartment with his truck. The other 4 we didn't really know what to do with until Aaron came up with this brilliant idea. We left 2 chairs intact and took the armrests and the backs off of the other 2 chairs. One serves as corner seating with a pillow for a backrest and the other as an ottoman for the remaining 2 chairs. It's definitely not as nice as a couch would have been but the overall goal of offering more seating has been accomplished and I suppose that at this stage of our lives it's okay for our apartment to look ghetto.

Behind The Times

Well there hasn't been much to blog about in the last few weeks. Our lives seem to have fallen into a fairly regular schedule consisting of work and homework. One thing I should mention is that Aaron lost his job 3 weeks ago. He worked for a telemarketing company on behalf of a resort in Park City, called Westgate Resort, calling qualified individuals to invite them to the resort to listen to a presentation about timeshares. Well 3 weeks ago the CEO of Westgate Resort flew into Park City and closed the timeshare division of that resort, all the employees lost their jobs etc. Aaron's company, CMS, had only one client, Westgate Resort. So obviously CMS no longer exists. The kicker about this whole thing is that Westgate Resort owes CMS around $20,000 and CMS owes us 3 weeks worth of pay. Aaron & I have met with and discussed the situation with the owner of CMS who assured us that we would be paid in some way. (That was 2 weeks ago.) After several phone calls Aaron was finally able to get in contact with his employer and let him know that we would be happy accepting some assets of the company as our payment. We are scheduled to meet with him tomorrow evening at 6:00. We are hoping that we can, if not money, get the couch from the office which is a brown, leather 3-seat couch. We're not even really sure if it will exactly fit in our apartment but it would certainly be nice to have some more seating available outside our current little love-seat.

Night Owls Never Get the Worm

Aaron is a night owl and I am not. I am neither a morning person or a night person as I enjoy going to bed "early" (compared to Aaron) and sleeping in late. However, some nights I vainly attempt to stay up with Aaron seeing as most of our time together each day occurs after both he and I return from work, which is sometimes as late as 10pm. Sometimes I am successful in convincing my dear husband to retire to bed "early" but most the time I end up falling asleep watching a movie or waiting for the night owl to settle down next to me. Inevitably the next thing that happens is I wake up at some unnatural hour to find Aaron still awake and in my stupor tell him to stop being ridiculous and go to sleep. Whether or not he goes to sleep at that time I do not know because I roll over and don't remember anything until the alarm. According to Aaron a lot happens while I am asleep, including the development of his new hobby, taking pictures of me while I am asleep. Apparently in this photo I'm praying for him to wake me up so we can both go to bed.

For All The Women

This week was eventful in many ways but the one event I would like to highlight is that I got my hair cut. I was not traumatized to lose my long locks, in fact I rather welcomed it, but I did have to get it cut twice. Aaron suggested that I get my hair cut because I'm sure he was tired of hearing me complain about how long it was and how I couldn't get it to do anything. Well on Tuesday we received a coupon in the mail for a haircut at Great Clips for only $6.99. I thought this is the perfect opportunity! I can get my hair cut and save some money! However...once at Great Clips the gal cutting my hair didn't get it completely wet, she just sprayed it with a spray bottle. This might work for other people but when my hair, at that length, gets wet it flips out fairly extremely. I also asked for some layers so that it didn't look like I had put a bowl on top of my head and then chopped off all the hair showing below the bowl this was another bad idea. Anyway once my hair cut was complete I was slightly dissatisfied with the layers but I figured that's what you get for a $10 haircut. I went home, showered and after straightening my hair out, because it was all flipped out from being sprayed, realized that the hair on the left side of my head was about a 1/2 an inch longer than the hair on the right side of my head. For all of those who may think I was overreacting this is my proof of how bad it looked. Aaron came home from work and said something to the effect of, while I like your hair short that looks like crap and you need to get that fixed. The next morning was spent on the internet looking for salons in the area and trying to find a place that could get me in on such short notice to fix my hair. Luckily I was able to find a salon about 2 min. from my job and my boss, Rusty, after seeing my hair, allowed me to take an extra 15 min. on my lunch break and get my hair cut, again. And so Lisa from Element Salon took me in like the helpless soul I was and fixed my hair most satisfactorily. I am now infinitely more pleased with my hair and the moral of the story is...If you are going to cut your hair short invest the money the FIRST time and pay someone who actually knows what they're doing.

59 is so old!

I decided this week to partially copy Codee and reminisce a little about my dear old Dad and tell about the past week at the same time seeing as the highlights of this week were Dad's birthday and Saturday. I spent Dad's birthday at work where I promptly told all my coworkers what a sacred day it was because it was my father's 59th birthday, they wished him a happy birthday in correct homage to the day of days and I celebrated by buying a $9 pair of shoes...I just know Dad really would have wanted me to get them. In reality I was thinking about Dad and, while at work, appreciating the work ethic he played a big part in encouraging me to develop. Until I started working at jobs with coworkers, as opposed to working alone, I thought that everyone had a healthy work ethic. Now I appreciate being taught that it's easier to spend the time and do it right the first time instead of having to do it again. I also appreciate learning that "We work first, then play," if I had a dime for every time I've heard that one...anyway happy birthday Dad. The other highlight of the week was on Saturday. I wanted to invite people over for dinner, Aaron wanted to watch the BYU basketball game on TV at 8pm. So we compromised and invited people over for dinner that we thought might want to watch the game with us. At 7 our guests arrived who happened to be Taber and Rebecca Cope and Ray Whitcomb. Our menu was potato soup with bread bowls and for dessert lemon cupcakes with raspberry frosting. Don't be too impressed the cupcakes were from a mix we received as a wedding gift. I thought it mostly went well except that Aaron opened the oven before the cupcakes were done and they fell in at the center but nothing a little extra frosting can't fix. But, then as I was trying to get the cupcakes out of the pan I broke most of them in half. They still tasted the same but they didn't look very pretty, oh well life goes on and I've never been much of a baker anyway.

Ordinary, Plain & Simple, Typical Everyday...Life

Okay I know it's been a while but there hasn't been too much to report. Aaron has started a new semester and luckily his classes this semester don't seem quite as intense as last semester or at least he's getting ahead on some of his school work making his classes a little easier. As for me my promotion at work has finally taken effect despite some quibbles in December about whether or not I was actually going to get it or not. The good news with this promotion is that I know get about 30-35 hours a week and I got a $.75 raise bringing my hourly wage up to a whopping $8.25. However, this did eliminate the need for me to have two jobs so I resigned from working at GAP seeing as I only got about 5-7 hours a week there and leaving opened up my availability to work at Shoe Carnival in the mornings as well as the evenings. When I'm not working I have started taking MATH 110 online through BYU Independent Study to raise my GPA so that I can, hopefully, next fall attend BYU full-time. The time that Aaron and I have together is limited because I am normally at home while he is at school and while he is home I am at work. Therefore I have a lot of conversations with Burt who is a very good listener and also happens to be our fish as shown here.

The one thing I have enjoyed about not being in school at the moment is being able to read for pleasure again. When I'm in school and I have all the required textbook reading reading for pleasure doesn't exist because it's not pleasurable. However, in the absence from school I have resurrected a love for reading that has been buried since I graduated from high school. This gives me hope that I will be able to enjoy reading for the rest of my life once these college days have past.

"The Day" 2009

Christmas this year was simple. We were blessed to be together and blessed to be related to such wonderful family. Aaron and I stayed home all Christmas Day and enjoyed sleeping in before Christmas really "began" at around noon, ah the joys of life without children...This was my first Christmas away from CO and home so it took a bit of adjustment but I thoroughly enjoyed having a day without work or anything else but rest, relaxation and Aaron. As you can see in the picture on the left my gifts were placed on the left and Aaron's on the right. We give a hearty thanks to all of those who sent us packages that helped us know you were thinking of us and may we all live as Christ does until his next birthday.