Our House

So, here are the pictures I've been promising. To see what our house looked like before, see our post called "It's Official" from July.

Here is our new red (or rust) wall in our bedroom. The other walls are now a light taupe. They were originally supposed to be a sage color, but the sage was too dark and everything ended up looking like Christmas, so we decided to settle with a light brown.

Here is my new piano! We bought it from Emma and Kendall because they needed to sell it to move. It was made in 1908, so it's almost 100 years old. It's so nice to have my own piano. Now, I just need my piano books...

These are some pictures of our front room. We're hoping to get our couches to match someday soon...hopefully with slip covers or something. But look at our new wood floors!


Here's a picture of our kitchen. The walls in here are the same color as those in our room. We haven't done much else except put out all of our stuff, paint the walls, and put in the ceiling fan. Eventually we'd like to stain the cabinets a darker color.

This is our office. Again, we put in the wood floors. Shane gets to decorate this room with all the Peru souvenirs he can.


Here is a shot of our hallway. I just wanted to show my wood floors again...

That's it for now. We did put in our winter lawn last week and Shane has been changing our front yard, so we'll put pictures up when they're done.

Halfway there...(and why I hate LAX)

So, I actually took the pictures I promised on Saturday. The house was nice and clean right before Emma and Kendall showed up so I quickly took some. But, because of the craziness of that day and the fact that I had to head to LA on Sunday, they aren't uploaded. I'll upload them on Saturday when I get home... We did have a fun day Saturday. Emma and Kendall came over with their kids, then Piper and Matt and their kids, then Michael and Karla Roush (Shane's friend from when he was younger). Then, when everyone was leaving after the ASU game, Tom and Ashely, and some other friends showed up at 11!! It was quite a long day, but it was good to spend time with some friends...

In other news, I officially hate LAX. Every flight I've flown into LAX in the last month has been delayed at least an hour and every flight out has been delayed about 30 minutes.

My flight this week was delayed 2 hours, but I was afraid to leave the airport to eat some good pizza at the Guthries because one of the Delta workers told me that they could bump the time up at any time if something changed. So, since I'm a stress case I decided Shane would have a much more enjoyable time if I wasn't there checking on my flight every five minutes. Luckily, I had Jack Bauer to keep me company :). I watched two whole episodes in the airport and one on the plane.

Now, that's not all... Every time we landed in LA we had to wait for at least 20 minutes (sometimes 45) for an open gate!! Then once I got my bags, I had to wait at least 30 minutes to get a taxi.

Anyway, my flight out of Phoenix at 6:30 on Sunday didn't leave until 8:30, and I didn't get to my hotel until 11:30. Basically, a trip that should take a little more than 2.5 hours (from taking off to getting to the hotel) ended up taking a lot longer...

That's just my venting for now. I'll post the pictures this weekend!

Still no pictures.

If you didn't know this about me by now, you've probably learned that I take a while to accomplish things. I just sent a thank you note to my parents this week for our graduation gifts. How sad is that?? I'm trying to get better...I think I just have a problem with prioritizing.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is to again promise that the pictures are coming. We'll see how that goes. We're having a few people over tomorrow afternoon so there's my motivation for cleaning!! Now I just have to remember to take the pictures. After reading what I just wrote, it sounds like we never clean our house. This is not true. Although my cleaning skills and routines don't match those of my mother, I think I do alright...

Because I can't give the pictures I promised, I guess I'll just give an update on life.

First, I have officially worked my first over 12-hour work day. It was quite an experience leaving for work at 7:30 and not getting home until 9 last night. We had things we had to get done by today so we worked really really late. Surprisingly, the time went by quickly because we were so busy. I was so busy again today that I didn't realize I hadn't eaten lunch until 3:00 and by then I didn't care. Luckily I got to come home at about 5:30 today because I got everything done.

Second, we went out to eat, just the two of us, for the first time in a while. When I got home tonight I was quite hungry but I really didn't feel like cooking. I asked Shane to make some dinner...and next thing I knew we were deciding on what restaurant to go to. I like it when Shane cooks! We went to Uncle Sam's. For all of you non-Arizonians (or non-North Phoenixers for that matter) Shane says it's like the Hire's for their area. We had fried zucchini and cheesesteak sandwiches. Healthy, huh?

Lucky for Shane, the Diamondbacks have been able to fill the void in his life created by my work schedule. It seems like there's always a game to watch. As I write this, he's hoping the dbacks will pull ahead...

Shane's liking his new job. His boss got back in town this week so he's had more work to do. He mentioned that he'll have a project to work on next week so that's exciting for him. In other news, whenever his boss discusses the future, he mentions "you three" meaning Shane, the girl he's replacing while she's having her baby, and this other guy. This means they are serious about keeping him on even after the girl comes back from having her baby. As you can see, I haven't had the opportunity to learn the names of Shane's coworkers. I just know them by certain attributes right now.

I don't have any funny stories to share this week. Maybe I'm just too tired to think of them, so if I do, I'll be sure to post them.

There isn't much else to tell right now. Oh, we did get cornered in our new ward... In between meetings the other week, a member of the bishopric stopped to say hi to me. This wasn't so unusual, except he showed quite an interest in how life was going and how work was going. Then I noticed that he was hovering and watching Shane talking to someone. As soon as Shane finished he put his hands on both of our shoulders and again asked how we were doing.... That's when we knew we'd been caught. We're speaking next Sunday. This should be an adventure! We made it 2 years in our BYU ward without having to speak at all, but we only lasted 4 months here. Oh well, it'll be good for us I guess. I'll let you know how that goes.

I'm leaving for LA (again) on Sunday for a little bit more training. It'll be nice to understand the theory behind what I've been doing for the last two weeks. Shane gets another week as a bachelor. Hopefully there'll be some more games for him to watch while I'm gone.

I realize I write a novel every time I write, but I've decided you all enjoy reading this. I mean, who wouldn't? I figure if I only write once a week, I should make it worth my time. So, I hope you enjoyed this and I'll try and take the pictures tomorrow!!

Stories from my life...

So, I decided our home wasn't clean enough to take pictures just yet, but I'll get those taken this weekend (hopefully) so I can get them posted. I started my first week of real work today. I've been working 8-10 hours a day and I'm learning fast because I've kind of been forced to. The girl I was supposed to be learning from has been out sick since Monday so I've had to step up and figure out how to do the work. It's been fun actually getting started, but it's been a hard adjustment after my long summer of absolutely nothing.

Now, on to my stories... I figured I'd share with you some of the funnier moments of my life in the last week. They aren't so funny for me, but I try to laugh to make them easier to deal with.

The first one isn't really a story, but more a problem. We can't find our iron. Seriously, how do you lose your iron?? I went to iron some clothes last night after doing laundry (I actually got off work at 4 yesterday so I had a few more hours to get things done around the house) but I could not find it. I looked everywhere that made sense...the laundry closet, the hall closet, the closet where we're piling everything we haven't put away yet, the shelves in the garage. I've looked in every logical place but I still can't find it. I'm sure I'll find it as we finish unpacking, but until then we'll just have some very wrinkly clothes.

Next, I planned everything carefully for my first day on a client (Monday). I packed a lunch the night before, I laid out my clothes, and I packed up my computer bag. I know, I know, it sounds a little excessive but I just wanted everything to go smoothly. I swear I had thought of everything and I had gone over the list in my mind. Well, as soon as I got to the client in the morning I realized I didn't have my wallet (that's a big one) or any form of paper to take notes on (and I'm supposed to do client interviews and stuff like that). Luckily, the people I were working with were very understanding and were able to compensate for the paper and I ended up not needing my wallet, but I was just shocked at how I could forget such a big thing when I worked so hard to be prepared.

Okay, this last story is a little funnier (at least probably for you). So yesterday I wasn't assigned on a client so I went downtown to the E&Y office to spend my day catching up on smaller personal items (like goal setting and expense reports) and doing training classes. Well, we have to pay to park downtown and the garage only takes cash. I actually thought that morning that I needed to grab some cash from our secret stash because I don't carry cash because I spend it too easily. Well, I ended up leaving without the cash and realized as soon as I got to work that I'd have to find some somewhere. One of my very nice coworkers offered to lend me some but since we don't see each other much I was afraid I'd forget that I owed it to him and never pay him back. I looked up the closest ATM and discovered that there was a Wells Fargo on the same block. I ended up working through lunch so instead of a lunch break, I took a bank break with another coworker who needed to go as well. When we got to the bank she went inside to make a deposit and I walked to the ATM. I slid my card in, as usual, and then looked at the screen. Now I swear this part happened in slow motion--as my fingers released the card into the machine, I realized that the screen said (in red letters I might add) "OUT OF ORDER". As I read this, I tried to pull my card out, but the machine pulled it in. I waited for a minute to see if it would come back out on its own, but it didn't. I hurried into the bank and up to the counter. The manager heard me explaining my problem to the girl at the desk and headed over. He said they didn't have control over the machine and that all cards taken into it while it was out of order would be shredded when the machine was serviced. So, they had to issue me a temporary card and are now sending me a new ATM card. I was so embarrassed until I realized that another man at the counter had done the exact same thing just before me and was going through the same process... Moral of the story: read the screen before you put your card in!!

Well, those are my stories. I hope you enjoyed them... I'll get the pictures up as soon as I can, but until then enjoy a laugh at my expense!!