Snowed In

When I was living in Utah, I always hoped to be snowed in and have to stay home drinking hot chocolate and watching movies instead of go to work. My wish never came true in Utah. I may have had a hard time getting out of the parking lot at times, but I always made it. Today, in North Carolina, we are snowed in. I'm not sure how many inches of snow/ice we got, but it really doesn't look like much. But when we went to the car to take a quick trip to the grocery store and return a red box movie, we couldn't get the car to roll over a small patch of ice/snow behind the back tires. After spinning the tires for a while, we gave up and came back inside. Turns out being snowed in is a little bit boring. We don't have any good movies to watch and I feel lazy not leaving the house all day. Church has already been cancelled for tomorrow, so we won't be leaving the house tomorrow either.

I thought people were crazy for stocking up at the grocery store the other day, but now I'm glad I did some extra shopping this week!

Never catch a falling cactus

While Jared was kindly propagating an aloe plant for me today, he accidentally knocked a potted cactus off the windowsill. Reflexes kicked in and he reached out to catch it. Dang reflexes. His thumb was covered with cactus needles. Those suckers were long and went in deep - some even under his fingernail. Poor guy. It reminded me of the dog on Homeward Bound that gets a faceful of porcupine quills.

Christmas Blessings

We had a great Christmas holiday and I feel so blessed. We flew out to Salt Lake for a couple of days and then headed up to Idaho to spend a week with Jared's parents. I feel blessed that I was able to take 7 days off work even though I just started in November. I feel blessed that there were no delays or complications on our flight out to Utah (although Jared and I did have to run full speed through the airport to catch our flight as they were announcing "last call" for boarding). I feel blessed that we were able to see several friends and family members, go skiing/snowboarding, and have a merry time. I feel blessed by the generosity of others. I feel especially blessed that a bird hit the plane we were supposed to fly home on and there was a convenient and remarkable delay that allowed us to spend a night in Dallas with my family, whom I did not plan on seeing over the holidays. Of course I feel blessed for the gifts I received, too, but most importantly, I'm grateful for the gifts of life, health, marriage, family, and the Savior.

I hope all of you had an equally Merry Christmas.

No Grinches Here

Sometimes I feel like Thanksgiving and Christmas come and go so fast, I forget to pause and enjoy it. There's all this anticipation for Christmas Day and then - poof! - it's over before you know it.

That is why I like to start listening to Christmas music in November. The more you get to celebrate Christmas, the better! I don't get the nonsense behind waiting for a certain date to pass before it's acceptable to start celebrating. Ridiculous! Also, since there's no such thing as Thanksgiving music, I'm a fan of letting the Thanksgiving holiday share Christmas' music. Which is why I sometimes (like this year) start listening to holiday music in October. It gets the Thanksgiving spirit flowing! And anyone who says otherwise is a grinch! ;)

Speaking of Thanksgiving, we spent this year in Miami with some of Jared's family, which was great. The only picture we have to show for it is this one, in which I look completely ridiculous. Enjoy.

We don't have a Christmas tree this year (we'll be out of town anyway), but we went shopping today and got a poinsettia and some awesome elf stockings for our mantle. Our first Christmas decorations! Speaking of elves, I have a little elf in the kitchen today making sweet treats like peppermint patties, chocolate-cinnamon-chili ice cream, and roasted banana ice cream. I love that elf.

My elf friend at my apartment about 4 years ago. I still can't believe that the man I'm married to now is the same goofy guy that used to come visit wearing spandex and thermals.

Week one

My first week of work has come and gone. Turns out I am not used to actually doing something every day. Or waking up at 5:45 AM. I've been pooped this week. But at the same time, it feels so good to be doing something! My week was filled with orientation, reading stacks of policy and procedure manuals, and trying to navigate the labyrinth halls of the hospital. I can now successfully find my way from the bus stop to my office. And from my office to the bathroom. That's about it. I've got a lot of orienteering to do. I feel like a freshman in high school all over again. Give me a few weeks (or months?) and I'm sure I'll be used to it, but right now, that place is BIG.

Speaking of the bus stop, the hospital is so large and has such limited parking, that pretty much all employees have to park at a park & ride and take the city bus to the hospital. It sounded like a huge hassle and sucker-of-time at first (especially since I have a 30 minute commute just to get to the park and ride), but it's not that bad. It's about an hour total (my drive + bus ride), but riding the bus at least saves me from having to drive through the awful campus traffic myself. Did I mention it's a university hospital I'm working at? It is. University traffic + hospital traffic = incredible congestion.

Since I've been doing boring orientation stuff all week, it's hard to tell just yet what the job is going to be like. But I'm pretty sure I'll like it. I'll be working primarily on the adolescent psych unit and the eating disorders unit. I'm excited to learn to practice recreation therapy in a hospital setting.

Hooray for jobs!!!!!!!

Graveyard frights

Turns out Jared's blinking red bike light is perfect for jack-o-lanterns.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Good vibes are in the air

I want you all to know something...

Dreams come true. Prayers are answered.

I got a job!

Not just a job, but the job. The job I have been trying to get for over a month. The job that I thought eluded me when my first interview seemed to go horribly wrong. The job for which I endured an all-day interview. The job that is actually in my field and pays more than minimum wage (take that, Staples!).

As of yesterday, I am now officially licensed to practice as a recreational therapist in the state of North Carolina. (That is an answer to prayers, too. NC is picky and initially gave me grief about my transcript, saying I didn't meet the educational requirements to be licensed. Psshh, I showed them.)

So I start on Monday. I'll be working in the adolescent psych unit of a large hospital. With a large, respected, and well-established recreation therapy department. Which is awesome in nearly all regards. Only problem is, with my measly 2 years of experience, I feel like a kindergartener that just enrolled in college - it's amazing that I got in, but holy cow, now that I'm in, I'm scared.

.............................

In other news, Jared and I went camping last week. We got lost on the way there and didn't arrive at the trail head till well after sunset. But not to fear, we had 2 headlamps. When both lights started to fail and it started to rain and we still hadn't found the campsite, we decided to just stop right where we were and set up camp there. But we talked ourselves into looking just a few minutes longer and thankfully, we found it. Which was good because there was a firepit and building a fire just makes me feel better.