Just What I Needed!

Oh man, let me say today is JUST what I needed! It's been a rough couple of weeks for me lately, starting with this post. I was stressing out over what the results from the ultrasound would end up being. I was angry over what my taxes were saying. Let's also not forget that feeling so unproductive at work is one of the worst feelings for me. I was just so unhappy and ready for that day to be over with. Thankfully my luck started to shift a little the next day and I was able to schedule the MRI for that afternoon. It wasn't the most fun I've ever had, especially having a full bladder and they seem to know JUST how to push on the wrong spots, but I knew it was necessary.

Everything after that seemed to make me so emotional, but to the extreme. If anything even a little sad happened I'd be bawling my eyes out, if a tiny bit of good news came my way I'd be so over-the-moon happy I'd tear up, if one little thing irritated me I'd get ridiculously angry with rage. It was draining to say the least. I wanted to blog about it to get it out of me, but I really didn't want to continue the negative posts back to back.

Then I finally made it to my dress fitting where I got good news: my dress fits me perfectly! The only thing they had to do was remove a few little things, add one small thing, and then add the bustle. No hemming, no taking it in, nothing. It was just what I needed! Things got a little more calm and happy and I started to feel like it would settle down. The good news continued when I found out on Tuesday that everything looks normal and I had no reason to worry about what was happening to me and it sounds like I shouldn't have problems having kids. That was a big relief, can't even begin to tell you! Later that night, however, the boom hit: I got a call from my mom saying there's a slight chance her and my stepdad will be moving to Tennessee. Now I'm a big momma's girl, I used to visit her every weekend when we lived close to her and then when we moved to Utah County I didn't get to see her quite that much and it was definitely an adjustment. I mean we went from each weekend to like once a month-and that was mostly just because of holidays. I didn't like it, but I was so happy to be in our own place I just figured I'd work on it a little more as time went on. Wednesday was frustrating because I didn't have my friends at work around me to talk about what was going on and how I could deal with it best. I had one I talked to and that helped, but I felt like I needed all of them to help me. After dealing with a SUPER stresfful work day, I figured it wasn't official yet and we could see what would happen and deal with it then. Today, however, she made it official that they will definitely be moving but she doesn't know when yet. I can't tell you how depressed I was-I don't like knowing now it won't even be once a month that I see her. I cried a million and a half times before lunch time. I guess I should mention I can be away from my parents, I don't have a problem with that, but I kept thinking "what about when I am pregnant? They won't be around to feel the baby move or kick. She won't be able to come to my ultrasounds and hear a heartbeat!" I don't like knowing my mom won't be around for all the new stuff.

As today went on, though, I realized this is SUCH a good opportunity for my step dad (they are moving because he's getting a promotion to his company's corporate office) and one I think he really deserves and could use! It's such an exciting adventure for both of them and, in all honesty, if Larry had to move to another state for his job, I wouldn't even second guess my decision to move with him! I realized I can go visit her as much as I need, flights aren't too expensive and driving would make a fun road trip with Larry, plus it gives me a chance to see more states. It's not the end of the world and in this day and age I can always share ultrasound pictures and heartbeat recordings (or ANY news even) with them through modern technology or take it all with me when I go visit or we can Skype and Facebook message each other. It's not ideal, but it'll be fine-I just hope they can at least wait to move till after June so they don't have to fly in a million times before the wedding! Fingers crossed on that one. This all may not sound worthy of the title but I got most my work friends back to talk to them about what was going on and there was also something else that made today really good, but I can't really say yet as it's not official (it's NOT pregnancy though!). Once I do know I can scream it from the top of a mountain! So here goes to trying to make the rest of this year great!

My Down Right Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

So I really, really try not to post anything negative on the blog. Not necessarily because I want to fake being happy or anything, but because this is for my memories and I don't want to look back on only bad ones or think "why did I whine so much?!" when re-reading any posts, but today SUCKED! I thought it was a good day, I mean work seemed like it was just the same so it didn't feel any different or like it might be bad...but it was! I feel like I just need to vent a little. I mean there is a great chance I'll probably end up deleting this post later when all this cools down, but I need to get it out of me now!

Lets say I should've had a big clue today was going to be bad when I woke up and was literally disappointed to realize it wasn't Friday today, it was still Thursday. I still had 2 whole work days to get through before I get to go to my dress fitting-which I've been looking forward to all week!

Then it went a little more down hill when I realized I only got ONE thing done at work today. we have a lot of tasks for a Thursday because it's supposed to be a little easier, but we had SO many checks to scan that it's literally all we did (minus a meeting in the middle of the day) ALL day long! I felt so unaccomplished and very anti-productive! I didn't eat healthy, I haven't worked out since our lovely run on Sunday, I just didn't do anything good. I thought there was some good news when I found out one of my last tax forms I needed to file would be available to print off today so I thought "yay! I'll be able to file my taxes early and see what I'm getting back tonight!" Which made me super happy because we decided my taxes would pay for our honeymoon so I was happy to get a chance to book it soon! Fat chance that was-HA!

At one point I had to go to the bathroom and noticed something I thought was worrisome (I'll save anyone reading this from my TMI moment, but know that it was an abnormality that worried me) so as soon as I got back to my desk I called my Dr. to leave the nurse a message. Once she called me back and I explained what happened she mentioned I needed to get an Ultrasound/MRI done on my uterus...okay back story here: back in 2005 I passed out at work and had to have an MRI done on my brain to see what happened, long story short they found a cyst on my brain and I needed to go back the following year to see if it was growing or anything, so that means in 2006 I had another MRI done on my brain. Then in 2011 I started seeing a urologist and he did a scope in my uterus and thought he saw a growth (I'm pretty sure his exact words were "hmm...that doesn't look good, we need to get a more in depth look at that" Um...not what you want to hear!) so he sent me to another hospital to have an MRI done on my uterus. Now, 2 years later, I need to do it again?! I just wish my body would cooperate like normal! The uterus scares the daylights out of me because I worry it is an indicator I can't have kids (or at least get pregnant), I don't even like to think of that happening or being a possibility to consider!

I was so frustrated with hearing this and finding a hospital to do the imaging (which I HAVE to get done by Tuesday or else I have to wait 2 weeks!) was harder than it should have been, so by the time I got home I just kept crying over being so frustrated and irrationally afraid. I mean, I'm sure I'm fine, but what if I'm not? I really don't want to plan this whole wedding knowing something is wrong with me! I don't want to see people around me happy and living like nothing is wrong when I know there is. Just ugh!

Then to top it all off, I go to file my taxes and some things I didn't have the right tax forms so I had to guess and it showed I wasn't getting NEARLY what I was expecting back, not even 1/4 of what I got back last year. I decided not to officially file and I'm going to work on getting the exact forms I need and I'm going to try H&R Block again to see if they can help me more. I don't know what I'll do if I can't get what I need to at least book our honeymoon...that was my saving grace today and now it's gone!

Yeah...today S.U.C.K.E.D!!! Can it be Saturday so I can see my wedding dress already?! Please let tomorrow be a little better!

I have the best job

So I don't know why it's taken me so long to mention this story, but my company is just about the best company to work for ever! I mean within a week of me starting I got to take Larry with me go see Avengers with everyone who worked there-they rented out a theater at Jordan Commons AND gave us all $25 gift cards for drinks, candy, food, or whatever! That was kind of my first clue this job was going to rock. There has been talk about what sort of fun, even bigger stuff they'll be doing this year (to celebrate another successful year), plus we also get a Lagoon day during the summer, a Christmas party in the winter, and free lunches during busy season! I mean I thought I was in awe with all of that, but then one morning HR comes around and hands out these to everyone:

 

 



EVERYTHING in this picture was provided to us: the juice, the parfait (with granola that I forgot to add in), and the trail mix bar. It was such a nice surprise and they mentioned it was just to help us stay energized and give us an extra boost in case we missed breakfast. Then a few days later they mentioned we hit a HUGE milestone for the company: we reached $1 Billion (yes BILLION) in assets under management, which was a goal for the end of January/beginning of February so we hit it earlier than expected. As an impromptu "party" they made cupcakes and handed out fun little bling-y necklaces; the cupcakes had a possible prize number underneath them and it wasn't any stinking candy prize either. They had things like Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, Gift cards to best buy and other places, and I'm pretty sure I saw a WII or something like that on the cart-I mean it was all pretty high end stuff! Then they said we'd be celebrating the following week with a real party. So as the week went on and we got antsy to see what they planned we were happy when we got to finally see this party they had planned and were surprised with this stuff:

 



 

The mini jazz band

Some decorations of the area

More decorations

They had a Mardi Gras themed area for us to eat, enjoy entertainment, have some candy. It was so much fun for a middle-of-the-day work party! We got some real southern food as another free lunch that was AMAZING, they had a mini jazz band play music, it really was a fun party! The decorations were awesome and they even had some fun masks for us to wear. Here is me and the girls with our masks:

Jhordan, me, Jeni, and Rachel (from L to R)

Overall I can say moving over to this company has been a great decision for me. I've never had so much fun or found friends as fast as I have at this job. We all have a lot of fun messing with each other every day and it really makes work not seem so time consuming or anything. Can't wait to see what the next year brings being here :)

I just feel like blogging

So I don't know what it is, but lately I've been moaning and groaning about wanting something to blog about. I love my blog, I love reading others blogs, I love blog stalking, and I even try to convince people who don't have a blog (or do, but don't seem to blog at all) to start! I've become obsessed, but I feel it has really gotten me to do stuff so I can see why I like it. It's been a whole 3 days since I've updated, and while nothing is really new, I just wanted to post.
So here's my nonsense post for tonight:

• I'm very frustrated with people who make resolutions that they are going to workout all year long, but we all know they won't, but they still take up our treadmills in our free fitness center in our neighborhood when Larry and I used to run together. I haven't run since before I got my PRK done in November and I got new running shoes for my birthday and I want to try them out, but I can't. I know these people will probably be gone next month because they couldn't keep up with it, but I want to run now! The fitness center is only open from 6 to 10 each day so we used to go Monday and Wednesday after I got home, but now Mondays I'm home late from work, Tuesdays I donate (so definitely no running after that), so that leaves the rest of the week, but someone is ALWAYS there! I never thought I'd miss running, but I do! I wanna go running already! I'm considering having us join a gym just so I can get some free running time! There's one down the street open 24/7/365, I may check it out this weekend.
• I'm now addicted to this new show called "I Shouldn't Be Alive." It's on Animal Planet (and Netflix!) and it's crazy scary. It's just about people who get put into life threatening situations. Most of the time it's because they did something dumb like leaving their cell phones behind or not telling anyone where they are going or not listening to warnings about weather or anything. But to see the extremes these people are put through and how long they can push their body when they are on the brink of death...it's crazy. Kind of scares me to go hiking up Kings Peak, but I know we won't make the same mistakes-we'll definitely let people know where we are going and we'll bring our phones and we won't go wandering off trails just for the fun of it! I have no intentions of every being on that show!
• I got to have a girl's night out with some work friends and let me tell you...I've never had so much fun with friends! It was so nice being out with the girls and being honest and we shared how we see each other and it was nice seeing how I come across to friends. It totally boosted my self esteem and I've never had so much fun with girls! We just went to dinner and walked around the mall a bit, but we laughed and joked and just had a blast. I was so excited to find a group of females I got along with so well without feeling insecure about myself or anything.
• I'm REALLY loving wedding planning right now! I can't even tell you. It's been so fun kind of seeing how ours will be brought together and figuring out what we're doing when and getting Larry involved and letting my family know. They have been so awesome with this whole thing and so supportive of our decisions and I love that I have such great, loving people around me. And I love that they all love Larry!
• Army life still kind of is hard. You just never know when they'll throw a curve ball at you! You think you've figured it out and WHAM! They surprise you with something completely new, unexpected, and something that's guaranteed to mess with your plans! We have our open house coming up in a couple weeks, we planned a trip to Wendover in mid-February, and Larry, obviously, has work during the week and then he suddenly gets this email that basically says from Jan 25th to Feb 25th he has two 2-week long drills, so he only has like one weekend guaranteed off and it isn't our Open House weekend OR the Wendover weekend so now we have to mess with all our plans and figure out a way around this. Plus, his work schedule is a little hard to get out of in the first 10 days of the month so his boss wasn't too pleased to hear the news...it just gets so complicated. They need more organization! I've said it a bazillion times and I'll keep saying it because it's just too hard being chaotic like it is!

That's really all I got, but now I feel a little better knowing I got to blog again for absolutely no reason :) I can hear Larry yawning in his room so I guess it's bed time for us...good night y'all thanks for listening to my nonsense.

Five More Months Ya'll!

YAY! We've officially been engaged for the better part of a year and now we only have 5 more months until our wedding! It still feels forever away, but I'm getting more into the fun stuff now so I'm loving it!

Here's what we DO have done, or what's coming up that I absolutely know of:

• We have our officiant, a miss Sharon Vollett who has allowed Larry to have his "serious" vows and me to have my "fun" vows all in one. We picked them out forever ago and I forgot what they were, but she said that's how she likes it. She'll email them to us a week before the wedding and that way we can't memorize them and make it sound fake. I'm excited for that part!
• We have our newest photographer. Her name is Jena Wilson Vanderelburg. After hearing about Natalie (our old photographer, who did pass away back in November) and her illness we realized we needed to find someone new, the unfortunate part is now we NEEDED to stick to a budget because we had planned on her giving us photography and a little videography and while originally I didn't have any videography planned I loved the idea so now we needed to fit our new photography budget for both services. Jena V. did Jena and Skyler's engagements and Jena's bridals for their wedding and Jena STRONGLY recommended her. So I started looking through her pictures and loved her style! She was exactly what I wanted from the beginning!She ended up also having the perfect prices that we could find a videographer as well. I was so excited! She'll be doing my bridals on June 1st and then our wedding, of course. I'm so happy to find someone I love and who I get along with!
• That leads into finding our Videographer. After a lot of searching around I found two I really liked so I emailed both to get a little more information and found a guy with BD Rich Productions that I really liked. We got his contract all signed and the details all figured out and I'm really excited about that too! We'll get him for the whole day too! With Natalie we were only going to get a couple hours, which was just kind of whatever back then, but now I'm happy we'll have the whole day on video to look back on :)
• We have also decided on doing a fun photo booth. I've seen them at so many weddings and they are so fun and people seem to love them so after looking at our budget and what extra money we'll have I convinced Larry it works and so mom and I went to a Wedding Expo at Thanksgiving Point on Saturday and I found some really good people I'd like to look into and book.
• I have my dress, which is in and I will be doing my first fitting on the 26th, I'm so excited to see MY dress, the one I will be keeping and taking with me! I can't wait to put it back on and see how well it fits and just everything! I also have my shoes and jewelry and everything I need for under my dress as well.
• We switched our honeymoon spot because I found a better deal on a nicer place and we know what we want to book, but we're waiting for taxes so we can book the hotel and flight together. We've also got to figure out the exact dates we'll be going too, but it will be in Maui in June sometime and I'm so excited for us to go to Hawaii :)
• The one thing I'm super excited for is our Open House with Millennial Falls, they do this open house where we get to taste the food and see samples of things they have (like centerpieces, guest books, etc. etc.) and I'm excited to see what we'll like and not like for ours. That will be coming up in a few weeks and then we can make our appointment to go pick out all our stuff! That'll probably be when it feels real and be the funnest part!
• I have bought Larry's ring, but we all know he doesn't get it until the wedding day. Right now I have had to send it back to where I got it to get it properly sized, but at least he's seen it and loves it and I get to tease him with it ;)
• I have a few fun little crafts I'm working on now and some little details I'm working on pricing and figuring out what little details I want to add to our wedding day. On one project I have all the parts, we just need to put it all together, but I'm not sharing these as I don't want to have everyone expect it all-I want to throw in a few surprises.
• I've also been working this whole time on our song list. Mostly as background music for our reception, but we do have what I'm walking down the aisle to and our first dance song picked out. The rest is just for whatever because I'm not expecting a lot of dancing going on as I haven't seen any dancing at weddings in real life ever.

All that's left to do is working more on the projects and song list, getting Larry his "clothes", and picking out our stuff for our reception. I'm super stoked it's all coming together. Now to make these next 5 months pass by so we can be on our honeymoon :)

Mr. Hard Worker!

So I have to take a moment and brag about Larry for a bit. So long (LONG) story short: Larry started working for RxAmerica almost 6 years ago (in March). I don't know how many years ago, but at one point CVS (the pharmacy) took over that company, but there's still some stuff they need to take over and so Larry's department went from like 12 people to 5 (or something like that) and for the past year/year and a half there has been much talk about when Larry (and the rest of his team) will be out of their jobs. The dates are always changing, I think originally it was only supposed to be up until last December and then it got pushed back a few months, and then a few more and so on. They've offered what's left of his team a nice severance package if they stay until the end so that's really what Larry's doing now. He could stay on with CVS, but we'd have to talk moving to Arizona. While I don't mind the idea of moving, Larry, so far, will have nothing to do with it.
So anyways, onto my good news, bragging rights part: Larry came home earlier this week and mentioned that his boss wanted to talk to him. Apparently, Larry is so important to the company and his position they had him sign this agreement that he'd stay on through the end of the year guaranteed, now for every so many weeks he worked (if he wasn't fired or the company didn't go out of business before then) he'd get an extra weeks worth of pay on top of his severance package (which he did the math on and found out it'd be an extra 13 weeks of pay). Now if they were to take over and he were to lose his job like next month or anything he'd be guaranteed 12 weeks of pay regardless of when they did shut his department down! He also mentioned that if it went into next January there's a good chance they'd have him sign another one for next year.
This basically means, with everything ,if the company were to go through the end of the year and then take over he'd be guaranteed pay that should last him through June of next year! We're really hoping he has a few more years left in this company (at least until after he gets schooling done), but it's good to know he'll get a SUPER nice paycheck at the end if it did only go through this year! Not to mention he'd have plenty of time to find a new job that he'd like and get the same pay for. I'm so proud of him for working his butt off! He got this job at 18 with almost no college (he hadn't graduated by the time he applied-he had only gone through a couple semesters at ITT) AND he became manager at 19 after only like 6 months there! Everyone else he works with has like 10+ years on him-he's always joking that he can't believe they hired an 18-year-old fresh out of high school for this job!

So I just had to say: WAY TO GO BABE!

He's such an awesome worker and provider for this (albeit, small) family! Love him to death!

Bathroom Break interruptions

So I've been seeing this picture posted all over facebook from random parent friends I have:

And I kept thinking it was funny but kind of seemed familiar to me. So I go looking through my pictures on my camera one (really lazy) afternoon and see this picture:

I can't help but feel there was a strong resemblance haha. I thought it was so funny that every parent friend I had seemed to be posting the one with the kid's hand and here I had one with my kitty's hand. Apparently it's not just when you are a parent that you experience this sort of thing. I had to do a comparison picture on facebook/instagram because of how funny I thought it was:

I posted it on facebook and it got a few shares, but I wanted it to be known that I actually did have that picture on my phone and it was mine. Just a funny thing I had to share.

Resolutions Shmesolutions

So I've been thinking about resolutions I'd want to make this year for a little while now. I feel like I've made resolutions in the past to change myself or where I was, I've literally associated resolution to mean change (instead of just decision). Well since getting engaged and moving in our place I've suddenly felt so much better about where I am and what I'm doing. I've been doing things to better my life everyday. So I think this year I want to focus on what we have on our "pre-baby bucket list" and try and get more accomplished with that this year.

There is a couple things I would like to do that could fall under the resolutions area: I'd like be more affectionate towards Larry, He's one of those that will hug me randomly and sometimes I look at him and go what are you up to? (I would like to clarify, I don't do that all the time!) He can just sit and cuddle for hours on the couch, but I have to move around or multi task or just be doing something. I tell him I love him or how great he is or how much I love we're together, but I'd like to do more with my actions and not just rely on words telling him how much I care about him. He really is the greatest person!

The other thing I'd like to do is talk less about babies with Larry. He and I have a plan of when we'd like to start a family (I can tell you it's not by the end of this year) and since we've got some time I'd like to start less conversations with Larry with "well when we start to have kids.." or "this will be helpful for when we have a family." He's more about what we're doing now and I'm always looking our next step and I'd like to be more in the moment with him too. This year is about the wedding and going out and having fun.

So that's about all I've got for 2013, hopefully it goes how we'd like with less unfortunate surprises. I do see a great year for us though :) Hope everyone has a great 2013 too!

Our New Years Eve Celebration

OOH my first post of the new year! So this year I wanted to do something a little different for New Year's Eve because it was our first one in our new home. We normally go to my mom's and play card/board games while watching the ball drop and then sleep over. This year, however, mom lives too far away and has no spare bedrooms so I figure might as well start our own traditions. So here's what we ended up doing New Year's Eve:

I decided I want to "camp out" like a sleep over in the living room
Note: When you have a nice, big comfy bed, just because you lay
Down several comforters does NOT mean you have made a comfy
Faux bed. This idea will be tweaked for future NYE nights.

We played several rounds of Headbandz (a new favorite)
I think I won like 2 games and Larry won a bajillion! haha

We then played a longer game (than I'm used to,
At least) of Jenga. I won that one :)
I think this was while the ball dropped

We weren't ready for bed so we decided to play Life :)

Larry started of with $30K salary then moved up later to $70K
So I kicked his butt there. He had 2 job changes and 3 home changes.
(I was the teacher with the Victorian house)

Mine was the white car-full house!
Needless to say I won that game too haha.

We played Clue next. Larry won all three of that game too,
But we found a new way to play to make it last longer, so that was fun!
 (BTW: the cats NEVER like us playing without Them,
They are always eating players and playing with the dice)
 

But after we shooed them away they found places to relax and sleep.

Next we played a VERY VERY long game of Monopoly
This didn't end till about 4 AM when Larry got SUPER tired

 So after we played Monopoly and I NEARLY killed him in the beginning, we decided to just count our money after one of the turns and whoever had the most won because we were both pretty tired by then. We cleaned up the boards, I walked them back into the room and also wanted to grab a DVD to fall asleep to. While I was in there I heard this weird "Ouch" noise. It literally sounded like those old toys where you push the letter and a computerized robot-like voice says the letter. It wasn't an exclamation or loud, just a random ouch sound. I go out into the living room and Larry has his hand over his face, I asked if he was feeling sick (because he mentioned feeling light headed a little bit before we stopped playing) and he just said (very quietly and non-chalantly) "No, I think one of the cats scratched me though" so he lifts his hand and I see this:

I FREAKED out! I knew it was Oscar because he was running around all crazy like and baby girl doesn't normally stand on us in any way. So (after taking a quick picture for proof) I ran to grab a bunch of wet paper towels to help clean him off. The blood from his eye ran all the way behind his ear and it just soaked into the towels! Even though I was rubbing all over the cuts (one literally on the corner of his eye-LUCKY him! Then just one other on his cheek) he kept saying he couldn't feel anything, but I knew he'd be feeling it this morning!

I will say I slept like total crap in our made up bed, so I will be finding a way to add padding to it next year, and we only slept like 4 hours so I'm exhausted today! But I had a really fun time, Larry and I were having a blast with all our board games we could play and other than the big cuts and bleeding part at the end of the night, I think it was a successful first New Years Eve celebration together! (Side note: When Larry woke up he couldn't remember anything about getting cut or me cleaning it-I think that may be a good thing considering how bad it looked!)

So anyways, that was our fun celebration, hope everyone out there had a fun one too!

Oh and..

 

 

HAPPY 2013!!!