Sunday, December 26, 2010

This Christmas


This being my first Christmas home from my mission as well as my first Christmas was Sean, I was really bummed this week when I found out that Sean was scheduled to work Christmas Eve, but for his sake it ended up working out well because I ended up spending the whole day cooking Christmas Eve dinner while everyone finished up last minute things like wrapping presents, even going shopping, and I think Melissa ran to the grocery store like 4 times to get stuff we had forgot. Luckily it's only a 3 minute drive. Everything turned out well. I was exhausted. I made orange rolls, raspberry jello crunch, sweet potatoes, a dark chocolate cheesecake, wassil, mashed potatoes, broccoli and carrots and helped my dad with a turkey. Whew. It was crazy. And it all turned out delicious. And I have no idea what Sean would have done while I was doing all of that, so I guess it was good he was busy.
Christmas morning was really fun! Sean and I happened to be the first ones to get up and when we did we immediately ran down to the basement to tackle awake all the rest of my siblings. He tackled and I took pictures. My favorite ones are of McKayla--so candid. Our first Christmas together was a blast. We had a good time opening presents, watching movies, and relaxing. I'm really glad we decided to spend Christmas with my family so that I was able to still make it fun for everyone by helping making yummy food, shopping, and wrapping the gifts. My mom is doing okay. She finished another treatment of radiation recently. I'm not totally sure if that's whats caused her ravishing appetite, but she literally wants to eat everything in sight---especially if it's sweet. My grandma has hid every box of treats neighbors have brought because it would all be gone in a day if my mom could get her hands on it. haha. Not surprisingly, it's hard to see her this way. Especially during Christmas when in the past it's her time to shine with all of her wonderful homemaking skills. But I'm happy she's doing okay, that she's not in pain, and that she was able to have a good time with all of us. It was a wonderful day!
PS: How does McKayla manage to make the best facial expressions? Geez...
Hope ya'll had a great holiday!!

McKayla's Purse


During Thanksgiving Sean's brother and sister-in-law came to stay with us. His sister-in-law, Chanda, showed me these adorable 'rag-quilt purses' online and told me she wanted to try to make one for her sister. We tried that weekend, but my mom's sewing machine was giving us more grief than it was probably worth. I told Melissa and McKayla about them and McKayla was really excited about the idea of me making one for her for Christmas. Finally the week before Christmas I decided to go buy the fabric (cost me a total of $12) and last Monday night I started sewing. It was magical--the sewing machine worked the whole time and by Wednesday night I was wrapping a cute little purse with a even a zipper and a cute flower on it. It was a really fun project--probably one of the coolest things I've ever sewn-- and I was really excited for McKayla to see it! Luckily, she really loved it! :)

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

My Future Life

Hello. So I have a few updates! I got a job! Not the job you're thinking! It's not the one at the Chamber of Commerce. It's working for a place in Alpine called the Business Planning Company. I had my second interview with them yesterday, and they hired me on the spot--which was quite a shock. Since last Friday I've been waiting and waiting to hear from the Chamber of Commerce to find out if they made a decision. Finally I got a hold of them yesterday, only to find out that yes, they had made a decision, but it wasn't me. Sad day. After 4 days, obviously my odds weren't looking good, but it was still disappointing, and I may have shed a tear. Ironically, I got a hold of them on my way to interview at this company in Alpine. So I had to buck up, move on, and put a big smile on my face, even though I was really disappointed. Anyways, they asked me to work for them! I start Friday! I'm excited. Although this job is no where near my dream job after getting my English degree, I still have a good feeling about it. I feel like being hired there to work at a place so close to my family is sort of part of God's plan for my future. I was getting really excited about the prospect of possibly working a job that was perfect for my degree, but I think that God has something else in mind. He's found a way for me to be able to make money as well as be a lot closer to my family so that I can be of more help. Because honestly, there aren't many places to work in Alpine other than Dr offices or Kohlers, so the likelihood of that happening is pretty low. I have a good feeling that there is a specific reason for me to work in this location, and I guess that will have to make up for my disappointment over not working a job where I will be doing a lot of writing and editing. But, I have a job. I will have a paycheck. Sean and I won't starve. And I'll be close to my family. All in all, it's definitely a blessing.

Moving on... I got quite of bit of work done last night for my finals, which was awesome! But sadly, today I woke up with a sore throat, stuffy nose, and plugged up ears. Sean has had a sore throat and a cough for like a week and a half, so I guess it was only a matter of time. Bummer. However, this photo opportunity made me laugh really hard this morning: today was supposed to be Sean's day off and was supposed to be a day to lounge, but someone just asked him to work for them tonight, so he's gonna do it for overtime. But anyways, when we got up he put on my sweatpants and then decided to make his gettup more odd my putting on my robe. I'm wearning his PJ pants though cuz he took my pants... but I love this picture! I put it on his facebook for like 5 minutes for fun and laughed the whole time! He made me take it off when he realized I was totally serious! haha! This is definitely one of those weird newlywed photos. :)

My final topic: Christmas! I'm getting super excited! Because my mom can't really go shopping I've been able to help with a lot of the Christmas gift ideas for my siblings which is SO fun! I don't know why, but I love thinking of things to give people, especially my siblings! I feel like Santa or something! Melissa and I are going to go shopping for a few more things this week! I can't wait til I have a few little kids that are just elated my the magic of Christmas time. We're gonna have too much fun! Anyways, I'm also really excited to spend Christmas with Sean. Its our first Christmas together and I'm so excited to just hang around the house, make treats, listen to music, and enjoy family time. It's gonna be great!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Goldfish


So at my cousin Brittney's Christmas party I wound up with 4 goldfish during our White Elephant gift exchange. I was pretty excited! I have had many fish in my day. Although, I have particularly bad luck with Goldfish, so we'll see how long these puppies last! :) There are too bigger ones and two littler ones. I separated them into two tanks because I immediately noticed that the big ones eat all the food faster and the little ones don't get anything. Hopefully this is my first step for pet survival. I'm excited about them though. They're cute! Hopefully they make it til Christmas!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

LAUGH OUT LOUD



Today was good for a few reasons: I turned in a 10 page research paper (glad that's over!), I had a second interview with the job at the Utah Chamber of Commerce and it went really well--I find out Friday, I got to cook a yummy dinner for Scott and Candice (Sean's brother and his wife), and then they let us come as guests to Scott's work Christmas party where Brian Reegan was featured as the entertainment for the night! It was such a treat! I laughed so hard at one point I shed a tear! He is absolutely hilarious! How do comedians do it? They talk about the most ordinary things and turn it into something that causes you to roll-on-the-floor laughing. That's part of the humor--usually they are talking about stuff that almost any human can relate to, therefore we laugh. It was definitely a great show. I've seen two of his DVDs and heard one of his CDs but seeing him live blew both of those completely out of the park. He even messed up his own joke at one point, called attention to it, and got a huge laugh from the crowd over his own embarassment. haha. That's comedy!



Recently that's my preference for movies as well. If something isn't gonna make me laugh outloud, then why bother. I'm just in this phase where I'm not interested in mind-twister movies, nor adventures, and not even chick-flicks. Maybe that last one is a symptom of being married... I don't know. Anyways, I just wanna be entertained. If you make me laugh, you succeed. It was worth my money. If not, well, I'll just say it was a well-done film, in a sophisticated tone. I used to be into stuff that made me think about the meaning of life, and analyze everything in abstract ways. I'm much more simple now for some reason. I not exactly sure why. But I think it might be because the older I get the more I realize I still have so far to go, and I'm not gonna figure life out anytime soon just by thinking about it.


Saturday, December 4, 2010

Less Than Par




So I'm not really sure what the theme of this post is gonna be...is it necessary to have a theme, really? My journal doesn't have themes. Which makes sense because days don't really have themes...so I guess my post is just mere reflection.

This has been a tough week. The fact that mine and Sean's room was a crazy explosion says enough about it because in the time we've been married so far I've never let it get that bad and not cared. Not caring about it was probably the biggest indicator that I was bummed out and burnt out. The day before Thanksgiving we found out that my mom had another tumor. It's a lot smaller than the first one, but it's also in a lot worse of a place. They were planning to do some really specialized radation, but then this week we found out that the MRI revealed even more, basically showing that there are probably lots of little pockets of cancer cells all throughout her brain that are interconnected and growing. Put simply, it's starting to take over. Not only was this devastating, it's just not what I expected. In August, my mom's MRI scan was completely clean. No growth. From day one of this unexpected and rigorous adventure for my mom, I always thought that she would have the best case scenario of everything--given the already crummy circumstances. But, this news definitely contradicted my mental expectations.
I just miss her. I miss her so bad it hurts. She's lost most memory and cognitive function all together, which implies struggle to do any everyday task. I feel like it's been sooo long since I've been around her as I really remember, because I only had about 3 months with her after my mission before she had her first surgery. And on top of that during those 3 months I was a little distracted dating and falling in love with Sean... so, take that for what it's worth.

The devastation of the whole thing makes me a little crazy sometimes. Some days are worse than others. It's hard for me to be at home because psychologically it's a constant reminder of the situation--and maybe it's in my nature to try to run away from my problems at first. It seems like I was a lot stronger of a person before I was a missionary. I grabbed the bull by the horns. But maybe that was only in my head, or maybe my trials were a lot easier... On the mission hard things were so hard because you had no option but to stick it out, even though every natural instinct was telling me to get out of it as soon as possible. It was a painful battle on those particularly hard days. And maybe this is sort of like that. I don't know really...

I love my Seanyboy. Somehow he is the one person that I can share all my thoughts and feelings with and not feel guarded, or like I'm going to be thought of differently because of what I say. I guess that's why we're married because I think he feels the same way.

The other slight bummer that happened this week was with my interview described in my previous post. The hype of potentially getting hired quickly faded immediately when I called on Friday and he told me that he would call me about second interviews in the middle of next week. So now I have to wait. Bummer. I also got denied by another company yesterday--I interviewed with them Tuesday before Thanksgiving... so that's over. But, the right one will be the right one. Maybe I just haven't found it yet, or maybe I have and they're still trying to decide. We'll see. I'm hopeful. Although Murphy's Law contradicts the following statement, but I don't think ALL things can TOTALLY go HORRIBLY wrong at once---however, a lot of things can definitely be less than par all at the same time. :) And after that they will just get better. Speaking of the mission again... when we would have something really diappointing happen, or someone really rude at a door I would always say, "We're being prepared for an awesome miracle." ... or something like that. I think that's true.

Final point of the day: I DON'T WANT TO DO MY HOMEWORK! Someone, or something, liberate me!! And that something is December 17th. My class official day as a student, and my first official day as a college graduate! I CAN'T WAIT! That's one thing I love about time. The thing you look forward to will inevitably come even if it seems totally out of reach. I think I'll leave it at that.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Last Minute Job Interview-- My Prayers Were Answered


Last night I got on CraigsList and KSL.com to apply for another round of jobs. This morning at 9am my phone rang. We were still totally in bed, and I was pretty much asleep but as soon as I saw the unknown number I perked up a bit hoping it was a call for an interview. And of course, I did the whole throat clearing and slightly higher pitched voice as I answered the phone trying to make it sound like I hadn't been sleeping less than a minute before. "This is Megan..." They had recieved my resume and wanted me to come in for an interview in about an hour and a half. at 10:30 I got to the Utah Chamber of Commerce office and was quickly invited in with the President for my interview. We chatted about my college experience during which I brought up wanting to be a teacher for a while and also wanting to attend law school for a while--of course I would bring that up because I was applying for a job as a paralegal, right? But the interview took an unexpected turn when he asked me if I had public relations experience. With a confused look on my face, I realized that I wasn't here for the job I thought I was and asked, "Isn't this for a job as a paralegal?" Nope. He pulled up the sheet with the job description on it, and I instantly recognized the description as one I had also applied for--it was the location that threw me off: there are lawyers that work in the same building. Awkward!! But, luckily we were able to nicely recover, because I had all the qualifications for this job as well, which mostly was writing and editing etc. Phew! He loved the fact that I had served a mission; Spanish was a plus.

Then eventually he commented how I was the first person they decided to interview. He picked up a stack of probably 20 resumes and told me that mine was the only one that stood out to him for some reason. Well, duh? It's cuz I prayed and asked God for help and for someone to be inspired to hire me. :) To be honest, I probably did look pretty shocked when he said that-- cuz I was! It turned out to be the best interview ever! He had a lot of confidence in me, asked me to meet with the girl I will hopefully replace, and told me he'd call tomorrow! If I get this job all my dreams will come true! Needless to say, I walked out of there pretty excited and talked Sean's ear off about how awesome this was! I just can't wait til tomorrow to see if it's really meant to work out! Hallelujah!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Job Search


So, I am currently looking for a job. I feel like that comment has a lot of implications because what you should be thinking is "That stinks" or maybe "Good Luck, ;)" (the winky face implies sarcasm). All we know is that it's a dark and scary world out there, and all I know is that I'm trying to become initiated into the 'grown-ups' club that involves professional clothing and hopefully a bi-weekly paycheck.


I'm hoping for a job that is sort of a mix between reception, writing, and marketing. Most of my experience is in writing, editing, and design, but I also have worked in customer service a few times, so I have a decent claim to fame. To me, the idea of actually liking your job seems kind of impossible--but I know I would love a job like the one listed above! In one of my classes this semester I took a test called the MBTI. It's basically a personality test that helps you know what careers would be beneficial for you based on your personal preferences. My second top choice was reception, administrative assistants, legal assistants, and editors. Ironic, eh? And about 15 of the top 20 types of jobs recommended were all within that genre. So I guess that's the support I have to my argument that I WILL like a job like that. :)


Sadly, Sean's faith in college degrees has begun to wane because of my lack of having people begging me to work for them. All I say is "Well, don't be an English major!"