Christmas Tourettes

I have a problem. I have a big mouth! I haven't ruined Christmas for quite a few years, so that is good. I love Christmas, and I love knowing secrets. I get so excited about what people are getting and how much they will love it that sometimes I feel compelled to tell them. Usually it isn't on purpose. ...I have been known to trade information though.... This year I think I know what almost everyone is getting for each other. :) I don't know why people tell me...but I am trying to keep my mouth shut! :)

I was talking with my mom the other day about something completely unrelated to Christmas. I caught myself...but almost just blurted out what she was going to get from my dad. Crazy I know!

So the moral of this story... I don't know... I just thought I would share :)

Oh I am a terrible blogger....

So things have been going well. I am moving out tomorrow! Yey! I feel like a big kid again! :) Not that living at home has been bad. but there is just something about living on your own that makes you feel so much more independant. With moving I am moving to a new branch. That will be good. I am a little sad to leave the Pitt. :) I have had some good times and there are good people that I will miss. Good thing they are still here... One thing about moving that drives me crazy is that you find out how much stuff you have. I have tons of random things. I don't know how I end up with all that stuff. I am in major purge mode though...I think I have been watching hoarders enough that it has scared me into at least having a desire for organization. I am super excited to put up my christmas tree. Last year I bought one from goodwill (classy!) and have lime green and bright pink ornaments for it. I love it! :)

Family Photo Shoot

Family Pictures!!! My lovely friend Alicia Jones is fantastic! Check out the beautiful pics :)

Hello...tap...tap...is this thing on?

So I have come to an understanding that I am a terrible texter. One might think that it would stop me from texting all the time...but it doesn't. Am I the only person who is misunderstood about 80% of the time that I send a message out? Is it because I text what I would say?

I don't know...anyway life has been good. I have been busy working. We just got finished with our assessment by the department of energy. It went well but I am glad that it is over.
It is finally starting to look like summer around here...Hopefully it sticks around :)

So the big thing that has happened reciently is that I bought a new car. Not just a new one but a brand spanking new one :D it is a 2010 Toyota Yaris. It had 10 miles when I bought it. I love it a little bit. It kind of reminds me of an oompa loompa (short and fat and cute :) His name is Marvin.

This last couple of weeks has been graduation for my little brother. That has been interesting. (I don't say that sarcastically either) It is strange to look at these kids and see what I felt when I was graduating. I thought it was such a huge accomplishment, that I had "made it" so far. I just wanted to tell all of them that graduation is mearly a blip on the radar of exciting things that have happened in my life. It is also amazing how long it has been. I graduated 8 years ago. Sometimes when I think about that I get a little bummed. If my 18 year old self saw me today I am pretty sure she would say...What the heck?!? I wouldn't blame her either. Life has taken some different routes than anticipated. I can't change that. What I can do, however, is roll with it. Take the good and the bad and learn from it and come out a better person in the end. I also have to not let myself off too easy. I need to continue to progress and take charge of my life. If life is happening around me I am not living it, I am just the result of consequence and chance. I am starting to realize that although my life is not what I thought it would be like by now I still have opportunities to be awesome. I might not be married with kids (yes...that is where I thought I would be by now) but I still have plenty of opportunities to change the world. There are so many people that need help. There are so many people that are looking for a friend. I can do that. I can "save the world" just differently than I first planned.

Ok...so.... sorry about this post. It felt good to write it out...I hope that I am not the only person that has felt this way. I am pretty sure that I am not :)

So Tired...

Do you ever have those weeks/days where you just don't sleep enough? I am currently in one of those blasted cycles. This week it started with Lost. I have quite a love/hate relationship with Lost. I feel like we have had a good devoted relationship...however now things are getting a little rocky....It is like Lost is distancing itself so that the end doesn't hurt so bad when it is gone. I am not too appreciative of this. So I stay up Tuesday nights so that I can spend some time with Lost...and every time Lost leaves me with a feeling of emptiness and wanting more. I don't know if that is a normal feeling or what. But the point of that story was that I have been staying up too late on Tuesday nights. So Wednesday morning I am always exhausted...then Wednesday night I always feel like I can stay up later because Thursday is my last day of work before the weekend so I can be tired. This is silly I realize but I generally still rationalize my behaviors every single week. Last night it was the allure of digitizing my vinyl...I am easily distracted. When my alarm went off this morning at 4:45 I wanted to die. At least those are legitimate excuses...the worst is when I stay up late on Facebook...I super hate when I do this. But without fail, if I log on after I am already in bed I will not go to sleep before 11:00pm. I don't know why...It is useless I know but I always get hooked. That and once people see that I am online they tend to chat..or I tend to chat...then that usually leads to oh I am going to get off of the computer so you should text me. I can't even tell you how many times I have fallen asleep during a text conversation or said something stupid because I was half asleep. Anyway. maybe I can cure myself of this silliness. But I doubt it. :)

Hello Seattle!

Life is good. It really is. I don't hate my job, I actually just got a raise :) I have started doing things with my friends instead of being a hermit and I found someone that can do my hair. (all of the important things in life right?) But for reals I am quite content with life right now. What has been happening as of late? Well...I have still been working a lot. Leaving my house at 5:45am and getting home at 5:45pm is not the funnest thing in the world. But it makes the weeks go fast so that I get to the good stuff...the weekend :) I love and super love having Friday off every week. It is soooo nice. This last weekend I was able to go over to Seattle with my friend Joanna. It was so much fun! We stayed with my old roommate Jamie. It was a blast to see her and hang out. Who knew that you could have so much fun just a short drive away. It did however remind me that I am getting old...I was/am still SOOOO tired. Friday and Saturday night we didn't get to bed till around 2am. That in and of itself should be fine but the problem is that I can't sleep in anymore :( I super love to sleep in. Seriously. It was one of my talents. But apparently that is in my past. I can't sleep in later than 7:30. Oh well...anyway... what I did while I was over there. We went to Pike Place Market. Honestly this is one of my favorite places in all of Seattle. We got a huge boquet of tulips and daffodils for Jamie for letting us stay at her place. They were amazing! Then we spent some time down on the Pier. We got the Seattle City Pass (Which BTW is awesome) so we took the harbor cruise. It was fun to play the tourist. After that we ate at the Crab Pot. I have always wanted to eat there but never really had anyone that wanted to go with me (or the $$ to shell out for it) So I decided that this was the trip I would do it. It was amazing. Plus what grown adult doesn't want to wear a big bib. After that we went to the Space Needle. We went around 9pm. It was fantastic! We were able to see the city all lit up and it wasn't too busy. We sat up there for a while visiting in the lounge. We stayed till they closed at 10. Then we went over to Alki Beach. It was beautiful. It was however a little freezing. So we didn't stay too long. The next stop was to see the troll (or Ogre) under the bridge. I have always wanted to see him because of his appearance in 10 things I hate about you. It was awesome! After that we decided to call it a night. The next morning we went and did a session at the Seattle Temple. It was cool to go through a session there because it was my first temple. After that we went over to Experience the Music Project and the Sci-Fi Museum. To be honest...I didn't care for EMP but I did like the Sci Fi Museum. I am pretty sure though that if I didn't have the CityPass I would have been mad that I "wasted" my money. After that we took another ride up the Space Needle to see the view in the daylight. Then it was off to the Pacific Science Center...man...that place is old! It smelled weird and was quite lame...but we saw an Imax movie about Mars...it was alright...kinda reminded me of my mission (Imax movies were everyone's favorite P-day activity) By that time Joanna and I were exhausted...so we went over to UW campus and met up with one of Joanna's friends and had some Thai food for dinner . It was delicious. After that we headed back over to Jamie's house to take a much needed nap! We hadn't quite decided what we wanted to do that night. We wanted to find a good Jazz club to go to but didn't want to spend a billion dollars. So we dolled up, bought a couple rockstars and headed back into the city. We went past the jazz club and saw that everyone coming in and out was dressed up much more than we were...so we decided to drive around and see what else we could do. It was quite fun to just drive around and people watch. :) After much contemplation (and several laps around downtown) we decided to go get dessert at the Hard Rock Cafe. After that we decided we should call it a night.The next morning we packed up and made it back for church in Kennewick. Phew...are you tired just reading it? I am! Anyway...It was fun. I loved it! I think I really needed it too!

So moral of this post. Seattle is fun, Life is good!

An Ode to Roommates

Ok so as I write this I am super bummed that my girls aren't going to make it this weekend from the other side of the state for our roommate reunion. Luckily it will happen in the next month. :) They are great girls and I am super stoked to see them again! So with this roommate reunion I have been thinking a lot about my past roommates. Now I have had a lot of experience with roommates...53 different experiences that is. Yep that is right...From the time that I moved out when I was 18 till now I have lived with 53 different girls. Good news is that I have met some super awesome people in that group. Even better is that I have learned a lot from all of them. Now things weren't always rainbows and butterflies...actually all 53 could probably tell you that I have annoying habits (namely that I hate and I mean super hate doing dishes) But we had some good times too! Here are some of my favorite roommate moments. (In no particular order)

The Exercise Ball : Who knew that such a simple thing could be so fun! We had a big blue exercise ball that kicked around our apartment for months. One day someone decided that it would be a great idea to pick it up and run after someone and bounce off of them. We then learned that if you started at opposite ends of the room and ran full blast at each other that you could get a really good bounce and fly in opposite directions. It sounds kind of retarded but seriously...one day when you are bored give it a try you will love it. (throw in a gray DI "rat suit" and man it's a party)

Apartment 56: I can't narrow it down to just one experience here. We had some fun times... whether it be the ice cream fight (i shudder thinking about ice cream in my hair, ears...well pretty much everywhere) or singing that Jessica Simpson song at the top of our lungs or fatty mcfat fat night when the sofa broke. Or the massive water balloon fight across the knoll. Or all of our weird untalent show "talents". Man...those were some good times!

The Revolving Door House: Oh man... what was it like 12 roommates in 6 months...phew...yeah... The wicker wonder. (what 25 year old actually shares a room and in that shared room has a day bed with a "tundra" bed...oh wait! I did) Getting all dressed up and then chicken-ing out of the ward prom so we ended up going to macey's instead and playing with toys and making mega nachos and watching a movie. Ahhh...Good times.

The Living Room Fort/Grey's Anatomy Marathon: Cinnamon Tree round 2. We built this amazing fort that seriously took up our entire living room. It was deluxe accommodations with mattresses and everything. Then once we built it I traded in a bunch of my movies to buy the seasons of Grey's Anatomy from f.y.e and we spent a some days watching them in our fort and eating ice cream. Weird? Yes. Fun. Yes!

I know that there were many, many more fun times....anyone reading that wants to post some go ahead...I love it!

But what I really want to convey in this post is that I have learned so much from everyone that I have lived with. I was talking to one of my former roommates the other day and you know there are some people that are just your "gente" they get you. You get them. I love how you can call, chat, text or whatever and just pick up where you left off. I am forever grateful for all those girls that loved me in spite of my faults. Taught me how to live with people and get along with people that weren't raised in the sticks with all brothers...and more than anything gave me a chance to have "sisters" I love you girlies and miss you all!

Well at least everyone has given up hope of me ever being current with this :)

So I have been thinking that I should definitely write up a new post for my bloggy...thinking is good...actually writing is better I suppose. SO yeah, life is good. Work and church are going well. Those two things tend to take up most of my time. I have recently acquired a puppy. Now I know that everyone is kind of rolling their eyes thinking...oh man Jenny is a sucker for a puppy face...which I am. This puppy however found me not the other way around. Her name is Maggie and she is a Boxer. (Her full name is Maggie Fitzgerald, she is a boxer...get it? Name the movie that comes from) she is super cute. I have taught her how to sit. This next week we are going to work on stay. I have also decided that I am going to fix up the old apartment out behind the shop. It is going to be nice once it is done. :) I got a killer deal on a soaker tub at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I am pretty stoaked about it. I just need to finish getting the materials and then we can start on it. Work is going well. I am liking my new admin position. It is more challenging than the front desk was. Still though it lacks real use of my brain. But it provides the cashola for all of my projects and things. So for the time being it works.

So the past week or so I have been thinking a lot about my mission. I miss it alot. It seems like it was such a short time ago that I was there but then the reality of it sets in that I will have been home for 4 years in Septemeber. In mission time that is like eternity...I loved the experiences that I had and the people that I met. Today I am going to speak in church. It is on the gospel blessing families. As I pulled out my preach my gospel a wave of nostalgia hit me. I was thinking about the families that we taught on my mission and how much the gospel changed their lives. I think of Estella and Paco, Astrid and her family, the Familia Jara and Familia Zuniga. I love those families so much and am so grateful for the opportunity that I had to know them and love them. I miss waking up every day and not thinking about myself. I was able to spend every moment of every day thinking about those that I served and how I could help bring them closer to Christ. I miss it so much.

Phew...anyway...I have to wrap this up so that I can get the rest of my talk written. Hope everyone is enjoying the wonderful spring weather. Love Ya!