Husband

Life has been incredibly hectic lately. Working too much, trying to stay on top of a semi-clean house, keep a social life with a 6 month old and our marriage afloat. It's exhausting! And it's summer which means that people are constantly pulling us in different directions to do stuff. We enjoy having friends and hanging out  but sometimes I long to sit at home as a family. 

Last night just that happened. I was too exhausted to realize it at the time, but it was a glorious night! After a very packed weekend, we ended our day with grocery shopping and cereal for dinner. It was 8pm. Which is actually early for dinner these days. We put Hailey in her exersaucer jumper and sat down on the couch together. The movie "Salt" was just starting and looked good to me. Johnny said it looked interesting and asked if I minded watching it. Big sigh of relief! We unwind with totally different types of TV. I like trashy drama and he likes science shows. Rarely do we find something to both enjoy. The movie was pretty good and we got Hailey in bed by 8:45. She's going to bed earlier and earlier which means we have to cram everything in earlier and earlier. But it also gives us baby-free time which is both happy and sad. So we paused the movie, got her in bed and then went back down to the couch. We resume our pre-baby positions: Johnny sitting on the end of the couch with the remote and me laying across the rest of the couch with my feet across his lap. We don't assume any positions that give us lightning fast ease to get up and tend to the baby. We just relax. Again, it was glorious. The movie was pretty good. I didn't really matter, it could have been terriible but being there so carefree was so needed. I didn't even realize it until today when I keep thinking about writing Johnny a letter for his birthday. It's coming up on Friday and we're so busy trying to make everything run on a daily basis and there is always something to be stressed out about so I sometimes forget how much I love him and how great he is. 

I assume that no one reads this so I guess that I will start here. 

Dear Johnny,
I feel like life is always so hectic and when I feel like I want to sit down and tell you how much I love and appreciate you, it's always a time that we should be doing something else or you'll question where it's coming from because you're down about something or I've done something wrong. Well right now nothing has happened I've just been thinking a lot about how much I appreciate you. Everytime you interact with Hailey I cannot imagine a better father for her. Your unconditional love for her is something I admire about you. When she hurts, you hurt. When she smiles, your whole face lights up. The thought of how your love and devotion to her is going to transform her into a loving person as she grows up is mind blowing. I am very jealous of her that her daddy thinks the world of her and would do anything to protect and support her. With your love and support she can honestly get anywhere she wants in life. Her success has no boundaries.

I should not be surprised by this trait in you. Lexie was sick in the beginning of our relationship but you loved and supported me while she got better. You've always shown such a pure love for Lexie even now that we have Hailey and Lexie seems to be in the way often. You still prioritize loving her. It's incredible to me.

I am so proud of who you've become since we've met. You were always kind, fun, ambitious, smart and loving. Since we've been together you've finished college, allowed us to buy a house, get married, go on two amazing vacations, have a baby, pay off debts and buy a new car. You provide me with an emotional and financial security that never existed before. I'm so proud of you for getting away from a job you hated and taking a chance. It didn't pan out but you made the best of it and kept being persistent until you got what you wanted. I admire your persistence. You are content with what we have but are always striving to be more. You want to continue school to align yourself for a better job. You want better for our family but still appreciate what we have. You want to better yourself but you never make me feel like I'm not good enough. You are the perfect partner for me. You are truly my better half.

I love you for a million reasons but one of the first and biggest is that you cherish me and my feelings. You always try to understand me even when I don't make sense. You're so quick to love and to forgive when I'm being a pain. As life changes and we face new things together, my sense of security is never lost. I know that me, Hailey and Lexie will always be safe and loved because of you. I know that Hailey will grow up to be an amazing person because of you. For your birthday, I wish I could give you something to symbolize how much you give me every day and how much I appreciate you for it. There is nothing I can buy or enough words to express how much I love you and appreciate you every single day. Thank you so much and I love you.

Best. Mom/Grandma/Mother-in-law. Ever!

Today Johnny has a job interview with the county. It's a job that he applied for over 6 months ago and had a good first interview and then did testing and I believe another interview. It seemed promising  but then the process stopped and apparently now it's back open. Johnny's mom Patty is incredibly gracious all of the time. She's so loving and patient and kind and loves Hailey in a way that you would dream of. She's always super excited to see her and hold her and she's always willing to step in when Hailey is crying and needs to be burped. She buys her sweet gifts and adorable outfits whenever she goes shopping. She just loves her and it's hard to describe because it's so incredible. She also loves her kids in this incredible way and would do anything for them. Back to Johnny's job interview... Patty wants so bad for Johnny to be happy and have this job. She was on a walk with her dogs yesterday evening and stopped by our house. She had found a four leafed clover along the route and brought it to Johnny for good luck! Who does that? It's so amazing and I am so lucky to seriously have the best mother-in-law imaginable and an even more incredible grandma for our little Hailey!

WFF 2011

In April of this year I was given an amazing opportunity by my former employer to attend a Womens Leadership Conference in Orlando. I went with a co-worker who I admire, BJ. She is very sweet and has always been encouraging of me both personally and professionally. It was great to have her at the conference with me to share notes and talk about how each talk may specifically relate to us or our jobs. I had every intention of reviewing the notes I took and implementing the good ideas into my life and work but I got distracted and so I am finally making it priority so in my new job I can be as effective as possible.


There were a lot of great speakers. The rest of this post will probably be scattered but I'll try to organize as I go through my notes. 


Dr. Bertice Berry: A very hilarious and encouraging speaker. Dr. Berry is a sociologist and author with a very sad life story that she willingly shared. I wrote down a lot of quotes of hers.
-"Our purpose is to feed and to lead... be the change you wish to see"
-"Clean your filter" in regards to a dryer filter, you have to keep it clean or it causes damage. Same with the people you have in your life. "You can't go through life holding somebody else's stuff"
-"Love is not what you get but what you give"
-"Success is not what we have but what we leave behind"
-Being professional doesn't mean being tough but being smart with a heart.
-"When you walk with purpose, you collide with destiny"
-Be constantly learning new things and things we know nothing about.
-Learn from one another.
-The gap between knowledge and wisdom is what we can teach. You're not competent from what you know, but rather what you can teach.
-"When women do well, the world does well"
-You can teach skills but you can't give someone passion or purpose. When someone has it, use it!
-Gratitude is the foundation for all virtues
-"You have friends who do the work and friends who dress up and attend the party. Have both but don't confuse them"


David Rabiner: Gave a talk titled "Mastering the art of influence".
-There are two reasons people say yes. 
1. They have to (management environment). This is the biggest mistake new managers make. Creates resentment.
2. They want to (leadership environment). People will do what you ask. They will do more and they will appreciate you.
-Influence is the understanding that the stimulus creates the response.
-Negativity is the single biggest problem in the workplace. People get fired for being late but often negativity goes undealt with.
-Constantly be working on something. The moment you feel you don't need to learn anything is the moment you become average.
-Take time to fix the qualities you're bad at. Disqualifying characteristics make the good ones not matter. Ex. John Edwards.
-What do you want people to say about your at your retirement party? Start showing it now.
-"Stress is the absence of control"
-Measure your happiness and success on what you put in, not the outcome.
-Make it a point to exert the qualities you like and want whether or not they work. Make qualities values!
-Arnold Palmer story: Still practices for hours on a putt. You don't make it in the PGA to have time to practice, you make time to practice so you belong in the PGA.
-1. Be great in your current career. Build competencies. 2. Have a plan. 3. Have a voice. Be an advocate for yourself.




I will post more later. I realize how much I learned and valued the conference as I'm going through my notes. More later... 

To do list!

Thursday was my last day at Oregon Spice! I will write a separate blog post about all of the changes in our lives later. 

For now, I am embracing unemployed life! I got my first job at 17 at Jamba Juice. I worked as an office assistant for my mom's company before that but as far as continuation of employment, I got my Jamba Juice job 1 week after my 17th birthday. It was an awesome job! And it triggered a sense of work ethic, responsibility, freedom and accomplishment that I loved. I continuously had jobs, sometimes two, all through college and then landed my first "grown up" job a few weeks before I graduated college. The job was at Oregon Spice Company and I was to start the Monday after finals. I reluctantly did not take a break.

Five intense years later, I had my last day and my new job does not start for a week so I am embracing one full week of unemployed life! I worked half a pay period and had some vacation days to cash out so luckily there is no financial loss from me taking a week off. However, I plan to spend my days catching up on projects I haven't had time for since we got the new house a year ago.

So far, my to-do list looks like:

-Clean/Put away all clothes (everything I own smells like spices)

-File all lose paper around our house

-Clean out spare room closet, move stuff to office closet

-Move new dresser upstairs into guest room

-Decorate and clean the office. Johnny's new job allows him to work from home so we're setting up a home office for him. I want it to be a good productive work environment that feels complete so he can concentrate on working and not what needs to be done around the house.

-Paint master bathroom wall/install new mirrors.

-Deep clean master bathroom

-Update blog posts. So much has been happening. Topics so far include: vacation, dad's hospital visit, new jobs, other changes.

Ok I'm off to find paper for our diploma frames so we can get them hung up in the new office!

First blog

I previously had a blog but it seemed like too much work. I would type knowing that no one read it but I still put too much effort into what I was trying to share. I want this time to be different. I want to share our life even if no one else reads it. Some day maybe someone will come across it and find something entertaining or helpful. You're welcome! :)


In all honestly, I don't expect anyone to care about what I have to say but it doesn't mean I don't want to offer stories to share anyway. 


My first story will be about my day... my brother, his wife, two young children and a few teenagers are road tripping to Disneyland this week. It's about 15 hours straight through but with that many people, probably at least 20! My brother is amazing and is training to become a firefighter right now and they don't have a lot of money. Ideally I'd love to be able to take care of him until he is able to get a full time job but that's not the case. I was talking with my sister about ways to help without costing a bunch of money and decided a box of road trip friendly food would be an excellent gift. We spent the day shopping at 4 different stores (I knew we could have gotten it all at Fred Meyer but my sister wanted to check out Cash & Carry, Walgreens and the Dollar Store as well). Shopping is exhausting for me so by the time we finally had all of our ingredients, snacks and crafts I was ready to be done with the day. But of course it was time to assemble. This is what we deemed road trip friendly:


***Chocolate chip cookies - our mom's rendition of the Tollhouse recipe, it's delicious! And perfectly chewy as to avoid crumbs.


***Rice Krispie Treats


***Cereal trail mix. This was quite the production. It contains Rice Chex, Cinnamon Oatmeal Squares, Granola, MnMs, Peanuts and Mini Marshmallows. My sister had to go back to the store for more ingredients because the initial cereal-to-other-goodies ratio was off. Now it's a perfect mix!


***Jerky. Teriyaki and Brown Sugar & Honey flavors. I'm jealous!


***Pringles. Chips aren't that healthy but pringles are perfect road trip food. They store easily, won't smash and aren't greasy! And the containers are perfect for using for small bits of trash afterwards!


***Carrots and Celery


***Peanut butter and squeeze strawberry jelly. They'll have to buy fresh bread but that's ok.


***A case of bottled water and little packets of sorted mixes to flavor water. Like lemonade, fruit punch, berry something. I don't see the problem with plain water but my sister insisted on this touch. 


We put everything into small individual sized snack baggies for optimum usage. I'm pretty confident they will love it!


We also made little craft kits for the kids. My niece is 5 and my nephew is almost 2. We got floaties for the pool (Cars and Spongebob for him, Princess for her), crayons, coloring books, and other crafty things that seemed age appropriate and not too annoying in the car! The idea came from a road trip we went on as kids. There were 4 of us and our mom was brave enough to load us into a small car and take us to San Francisco. We had our own containers with crayons, activity books and game boy games to keep ourselves entertained in the car. It was apparently effective enough that my sister and I both remembered and insisted on doing it for our niece and nephew. :)


Tomorrow my brother and his kids are coming over for their "surprise". I can't wait! 


See, I warned you that my life isn't that entertaining but you read anyway didn't you?! :)


Until next time, good night!