Hello?

This poor neglected little blog. I write and write and write all week long and this little fabulous blog gets no lovin'. But I figure I'll grace it with an appearance.

Since the last time I wrote, I've moved. I moved to be closer to work. And then work moved. I now have a commute, taking I-15 and everything. Fancy. My new apartment is great. It's a basement and there's lot of space and I have my own room and I share a bathroom with one other person and fridge with one other person and there are just 4 of us and I hardly see my roommates, so it's quiet. My new work office is pretty great too. It's big and bright. I think that's my favorite part—there's tons of natural light and big windows plus good lighting too. I have a smaller cubicle and I miss some of the people I used to sit closer to, but I guess it's okay.

Work is still decent. I'm pretty much sick of writing about handbags, dogs, cats, horses, and garden decor. I've been working more with helping with SMBs—small already existing businesses looking to start or change a website. That gives a lot more variety than the ecommerce sites I do regularly. I had several phone interviews to get information to write about this week. Some of them were helpful, some not so much, but hopefully we'll get better at this.

What else is new? I got a car. It's not new new, but it's new to me and that's pretty cool. Literally cool actually, because it has AC. Gotta love that. And a CD player. Such luxury. Makes that commute a lot nicer.

I just barely got a calling in my new ward. Sacrament meeting chorister. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. I subbed in that capacity my 3rd week there, but it's taken a while for them to call me. I was a bit surprised it took so long because they jumped on everything else: I prayed week 1, spoke week 2, and led the music week 3. So it took till month 3 for a calling? Whatevs.

This summer has been full of family, which is pretty cool. My extended fam came for my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, so I spent a bunch of time with them then, my parents have been down a couple times, I got to go home for Memorial Day weekend and the 4th of July and I'm going again in August.

I've also spent a fair amount of time scrapbooking, watching all seasons of Gilmore Girls, and most recently watching all the Harry Potter movies. SOOO GOOD. And speaking of which, my roommate's ready to watch the last one, so I'll say cheerio! Be fabulous.

Being a Working Girl

Sup.

Soooo....it's been a while since I blogged. That's pretty much because I didn't have anything exciting to blog about for a while, and then I got a job. And when I got that job, I didn't want to blog because I was writing all day.

But it's Saturday today so let me tell you about my job!

I got a job with Marketecture, a company which makes it easy to make and market your own website. They've created a website builder that is pretty simple to use and has everything you could want, which most similar types of things only have parts of: like e-commerce from one place, marketing from another, but with Marketecture it's everything rolled into one. Anyway, you can either buy the builder to create your own website, or you can say "here, make me a website," and that's where I come in. For people who want us to create site for them, I write the content. So the "welcome to our website, we sell this and this and this" stuff, then descriptions of the categories of stuff they want to sell, and then we do a blog post for them of about 500 words to get them started. It's pretty fun. Sometimes after writing all day I feel pretty dead but I sure learn a lot of random stuff.

Some of the things I've written about: camping gear (repeatedly), grills, outdoor fountains, outdoor furniture, cat supplies, pet carriers, home brewing kits, coffee makers, garden tractors, leather jackets, motorcycle stereos, horse supplies, play kitchens, toddler toys, pink products, all made in the USA products, sand blasters, pilot clothing, and more. Yep. I know all sorts of random things now.

Work is good. I like the company a lot. And I get free drinks and pebbled ice and oatmeal or Ramen as much as I want. And I work with a bunch of nerds so that's pretty fun. Sometimes we have nerf gun fights. So it's pretty great! I'm loving working there.

New Year Updates

I've wanted to blog a number of times. I have a bunch of things to blog about, but I needed pictures...and my computer isn't reading my camera card. So frustrating! So tonight I'm just gonna write a little update and we'll figure out the picture thing later.

I graduated! My diploma came in the mail today so now it's real! Now I just need a job.

I've been looking for jobs...loads of fun I tell you what. I've interviewed for two and got a call about another interview today. I tried to call back but he never answered, so I'll try again tomorrow. So far the jobs I haven't gotten I've been glad to not get. So the search continues.

I've been going to the gym and working out at home more often and it's been awesome.

I read David Copperfield. Really good. Really long. But really good.

I've been making a bunch of cards and am working to get an Etsy shop up and running (the camera card thing is being an issue with that) so I'll post again when that's going.

*I posted this on 1/23/13 but somehow it didn't stay posted...not sure what's up with that.

Entertainment at work

I should have included this in my end of the world post probably. It was my last day of work, and these pictures go along with that. So we go through a lot of staples at work. We pull them out of documents before scanning them. I always had wanted to save them for a while and see how many we had and use them for something, but I hadn't done it. Well this last semester, I decided to change that. So we collected staples all semester. The cup in this picture is where we collected them. That cup was pretty heavy. The cool thing about collected staples is you can pull them up by grabbing a few on top and lift and the whole thing comes up. And you think the cup's just about too full, but then the staples just keep pushing together and there's more room. Anyway, we decided to make a staple ornament for our supervisor for Christmas. So I got the very last clear ornament from Michael's (seriously, shelves completely empty except for this one ornament!) and we filled it with staples! That was a bit of a challenge. When it was getting full, you could only put them in a couple at a time and then try to shake them to the sides...especially since this was a square ornament, so you had to try to fill the corners! It was a bit of a challenge, but it was fun and it turned out pretty cool. :)

Also, on my last day, I experienced a first. I've stapled plenty of documents, got a staple stuck in my thumb once when trying to remove it, but never had I stapled my sleeve to something! I thought it was hilarious though. Had to take a picture. I think normally I roll my sleeves up but I hadn't that day. Sorry about the white boxes over the picture, I decided I should cover the documents since we do deal with confidential information.

Christmas Eve at Home

Merry Christmas Eve! It's been a great day! First of all, it snowed quite a bit and was quite lovely out. I love a white Christmas. I also love the movie and the song "White Christmas" too. So I was pretty thrilled. Dad was slightly less excited while he shoveled several times throughout the day. I would have helped, but I was busy helping Mom preparing our smorgasbord. But it was beautiful to see the snow falling. I should have gotten a better picture when it was snowing a little harder and the flakes were better, but this isn't bad. This is the view from our front door. 

This evening we had a special surprise when Santa showed up on our doorstep! He brought us a special treat before heading on his jolly way. He'll be back later tonight of course, but he wanted to see us awake too.

This evening we enjoyed our Swedish feast, followed by plenty of cookies and treats, reading Luke 2 and Matthew 2, and our yearly story of Babushka, during which we receive new PJs instead of a toy (the link leads to one version of the story that seems to best match the one we retell each year). Now we're watching The Polar Express and then off to bed! Merry Christmas!

Christmas lights & Caroling

One of my most favorite things about this time of year is Christmas lights. As a number of people could tell you, this year I've been quite vocal about that...every time I see Christmas lights, I say in a really excited voice, "Christmas lights!" And if there's several houses with Christmas lights, I repeat it a lot...yeah people love it and don't think I'm crazy at all! Okay, I'm mostly do this with only my sister in the car to avoid judgment. But I get super excited about Christmas lights. Especially white ones. I like colored ones too, but I tend to absolutely adore white ones, like icicle lights. The more lights the better. I just love them. When my friend invited me to go to Temple Square with him this year I was super excited. I absolutely adore the Lights at Temple Square. I was pretty much giddy. It's just so beautiful! The other night I drove around town and looked at lights for a while to get in the Christmas spirit. It made me so happy. I can't get enough of them.

This is a house in Houma, LA. Awesome, huh?

Another favorite thing about Christmas is our tradition of caroling. Our family goes every year with several other families in our neighborhood. For me it's a treasured tradition. We went tonight and had a really big and awesome group. Not to boast or anything, but we sounded fantastic. It's so fun because there's a lot of musical talent in our group and we harmonize really well. It was great fun going caroling. My family got a picture (minus Jord) after, while enjoying hot chocolate to warm up. Good times!

It's the end of my world as I know it...

So, the world didn't end today. We'll just have to wait for that I guess. But there are definitely changes in my life right now! Today ended my student employment at the bookstore. And 8 days ago I finished my undergraduate work. Super super weird. It honestly doesn't feel like it quite yet. I'll have moments of excitement and moments of panic, but it hasn't really set in that I'm not going back to school or my job after Christmas. I have to find a new job. I won't have homework. How weird is that?
Up to this point, I've had a pretty good idea of what I'd do with my life...I'd get an education and go on a mission. Hopefully get married sometime too. That part obviously hasn't come to fruition yet. I definitely planned on figuring out what I wanted to do with my life while in college. Sometimes that doesn't happen, apparently. Even when you pick a major because you have to in order to keep your scholarship, that doesn't mean you've got it figured out. I probably could have studied a lot of different things and been quite content, but still not have figured out what to do after. I like a lot of things, I'm good at a lot of things, but I'm not passionate about many and I don't excel in much. So here I am, a college graduate, and I'm still on a quest to find out what I really do want to do. And you know what, it's okay. I'm not super worried about that. Yes, I need to find a job (quick!) and there's a lot up in the air, but it'll work out. Yep. Because the world didn't end today.