One very tired BJ and Rochelle

This week thus far has been a doozie. On Monday, I worked for 10 hours. On Tuesday I worked for 16 hours, and today, 7. I'm still recovering from yesterday. Rochelle on the other hand has had to deal with my absence. And now that my schedule is going back to normal, she gets to go to the hospital tomorrow for 12 and a half hours. We decided that this probably wasn't the best way to spend my birthday, and so we are going to celebrate on Friday instead. That way, we can have a little more time together, and a little more flexibility to do what we want. One thing about working for a web site company is that when they decide to update their online software, they nearly always need to do large updates at night when the least amount of people are using it. Therefore, we stay up quite late to work on it. I worked until 2 am, while some of my collegues stayed up until 4 and 6. Quite the day. I do alright staying up late. I can work well into the night, but doing so works on me for the next couple of days. Rochelle stayed up late last night waiting for me and so she is tired too. However we were able to sleep in this morning which was nice.

Conference is coming up. This is the traditional time for Rochelle and I to go take pictures of the fall leaves. It is a beautiful season. I love how the mountains turn red. And if you watch the sunset in the evening, the mountians look like they are on fire. Rochelle's red hair does well in pictures with those surroundings. Her coloring fits right in. I think Saturday or Sunday we are going to go do that. I'm not sure which day, but at would be fun. I think Mom and Dad are taking me out to lunch on Saturday for my birthday so it may be Sunday that we go. Or maybe we'll just have to go on Monday. We'll see.
BJ

A cornucopia of wonderful things

This has got to be one of my favorite words. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. I started to sing it to the tune of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I think the latter is one syllable longer than the former. What does it mean? Well, ironically enough… it means "the fear of long words". I can just imagine some poor soul being told he has Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. It would be a nightmare experience for anybody with the phobia. I think it’s hilarious. Well, back to normal life. Rochelle and I have been released from our former calling of Gospel Doctrine teachers. We really enjoyed that calling, and are sad to let it go, but that’s life in student wards. The plus side is that most callings that you don’t enjoy likewise don’t stay around very long. Now we have the calling of institute representatives. What does that mean? We don’t fully know, but likely little more than just going to institute and making announcements in our ward. It’s a calling that I have had before, and it was never my favorite calling, but if the Lord wants us there, there we will be. I have always loved teaching, and so it was sad to say goodbye to that calling. Especially considering that we just bought some chalk and an eraser to have for ourselves so we no longer have to rely on the unreliable ward librarians for that. Oh well. Such is life. I’m sure we will be teachers again some day. However, it is entirely possible that we may never have the opportunity to teach together like we did the past year. That was a singular experience, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. Rochelle, and I made a great team, even if I do say so myself. Yesterday we went on a bit of a shopping splurge. I went to the grocery store, and saw some "decorative gourds". I brought them home, and Rochelle looked at me and wondered what they were. When I explained that they were for decoration, she decided that she needed to arrange them. She tried to do so with the bowls that we have, but they were wholly insufficient. So we went out and bought ourselves a cornucopia. I’ve always wanted a cornucopia. Yes, I know I’m a bit odd, but I always thought that they were the essence of fall and Thanksgiving time. But we didn’t stop with the cornucopia. We also bought some plastic fruit and veggies to go with the decorative gourds that we already had. And then we bought a pretty candle, candle holder, and potpourri to go with the decorations so that our unsmelly decorations might have a more pleasant smell to go with them. The result is a very decorative center piece for our table that makes the apartment smell nice. We also bought a berry wreath for our front door. I have to say, I love the seasons. I even bought a spaghetti squash yesterday, and cooked it. I think I under cooked it unfortunately, and so it wasn’t quite as good as we had hoped it would be. Rochelle isn’t big on new foods and so she only had a bite or two, but I had a small serving of it and it wasn’t bad. Just a little too crunchy. I’ll probably try it again some day… but I’ll give Rochelle a little time before I try to feed it to her a second time. I also bought a lot of fruits and veggies for our snacking on. It’s amazing all the variety of foods that are available in the fall. I love it. Fall didn’t used to be a favorite season of mine, because it meant that winter was coming on, and that the summer was over. But I think I’m starting to appreciate it a lot more now. All of the foods, all of the colors in the mountains, the crisp air... this is a nice season. It seems that there is a bright side to everything if you are looking for it.

BJ

I'm Ba-aack!

What a week! Where to begin?! I'll start with last Saturday... It all started out with me going to my Professional Rescuer CRP/AED class, which is required yearly for nursing students. BJ called me and said he was going to go test drive a car. To make a long story short, when I finished my class, we went and... bought the car! For those of you who haven't seen it, here is the picture of our new car! We decided not to get a Yaris... helped along by the complete lack of Yaris' to be had... and we got its cousin, the Scion xA. A similar car, but it has 4 doors, and looks a little different. But it still has good gas mileage, and it has a manual transmission. I had a manual in highschool, so I knew how to drive it, and BJ has had a little experience driving one (he learned on my car, on our honeymoon, and he had driven a few other people's cars) but in his own words, "I'm still learning!" Ha ha...! Actually he is improving really quickly. BJ's favorite thing about our new car is that it has "really cool" cupholder illumination. There are about 5 different colors, and there is a blue lamp that lights up the floor. As far as I can tell, there is no useful purpose for these features, but BJ insists that it is awesome, and I can't really disagree.
I had my first clinical at UVRMC this week. It was an 8-hour shift instead of the 12-hour shift it will be starting next week! Mostly we were just supposed to shaddow our nurse, but I got to help do/ watch some cool things. I decided I am going to have to find some more comfortable shoes if I dont want my feet to be in a world of pain after 5 hours.
The rest of my classes are (for the most part) on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I have a few other classes throughout the week, including the aerobics class I am taking with Marissa! I am really enjoying it. They give you a great cardio workout. At the end of class, if you are working it hard enough, you can hardly lift your arms. It's awesome, and most people work out really hard because everyone else can see them, and no one wants to look like a slacker!
Next week we are excited to celebrate BJ's birthday! You can ask him how old he is going to be! ;) Or maybe you should ask me, because he asks me too! We'll have to let you know how that goes/ what we decide to do. I can't write too much right now, because he will read this!
Today's just a normal Saturday- grocery shopping, filling up the tanks, cleaning, laundry, etc. Marissa has been kept pretty busy these last couple of days. She has already worked at 2 banquets, and she is putting in about 10 hours today at one of the banquets at the football game. Luckily, it has warmed up a bit from yesterday, although I don't know if she has to spend too much time outside.
Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the weekend, and we'll update soon!

Our Sabbatical

Rochelle is taking a sabbatical. Please forgive her absence. Unfortunately for you, BJ is not on sabbatical as well. ;-) As many of you may know, Rochelle and I are looking to get a new car. We are looking at the Toyota Yaris.Nobody has one for us to test drive, but we will probably go get one anyway. We will probably have to put $500 down on the car we want before the dealer even has it for us to look at. That’s how one goes about buying a Yaris right now. They don’t stay around very long. They get a shipment of them, and then they are gone within the next day or two. We like the Yaris because it is quite cheap, and it is quite frugal on the gas. We can expect around 40 mpg on the highway. We could probably make it to Rochelle’s house from our own on two tanks of gas. With gas prices going up, that’s something we’ll be grateful for. It will make road trips possible. Our current car we don’t trust enough to take on long trips without any help near by. And maybe in a year or so, we will have enough vacation time to go on a road trip. Now I know a Yaris is no car to go 4-wheeling in, but we would also like to go camping. We happened by a sporting goods store the other day, and they had a 3 man tent on sale that we bought. And thanks to Rochelle’s parents, we have also been endowed with sleeping bags. So we have the basic necessities for camping now. I’ve thought about going this fall. If we do, we’ll have to bundle up, because it will be cold up there, but it would be nice to get away from it all for a bit. Even for just a night would be fun. (Hopefully, in a new car!) Anyways, I think we’ve heard enough from me for the time being. I hope you all have had (or are having) a fabulous day.

Take care all,

BJ

The new world is here...

... and it is much like the old one. Now that I am graduated, I still don't seem to find a lot of time to do extra things. I seemed to be able to find more time to blog before, for example, than I do now. But that may change. As Rochelle gets more into her schooling, I may find that there is more time where I don't know what to do with myself. I think right now we are still catching up from the many things that have been going on. Just after I graduated, Rochelle's family came for a visit. They were here for over a week, and we spent most of our free time with them. We, of course, enjoyed their visit and were very happy to see them, but our "To do" list got quite long. And before they were even gone, my beloved grandparents (mother's side) came for a visit. They were only here for a little more than a weekend, and so I wanted to be with them as much as possible. I miss being able to see them for a week every summer like I used to when I was growing up. By the time they went home, Rochelle and I had about 3 weeks of laundry to do, and lots of little errands that had to get done. Since I am working every day until around 5:30, that’s when we start running our errands and doing laundry. And so I haven’t hardly sat down at this computer for quite a while, and therefore haven’t spent a moment checking email or blogging.

Briefly, (Rochelle just told me it was time to go to bed) work has been good lately. I have been doing odd things for them here and there. I have been useful for them, but not as useful as I’d like to be. But I am still just a new employee. It will take me time to get engrained into their processes. Something that I’m sure I’ll talk about more in future blogs.

Ah well, I guess I better go to bed. Have a good night all.

BJ

BJ is gwaduated

This was written to a few friends and family on the day I graduated, August 8th:

Hey All,
Some of you I just saw today, others of you I haven't heard from in a
while. I hope you are all doing well, and I thought I'd just drop a
note to let you know that today I graduated. Hurray! …Applause…
Thank you, thank you. Now I hope I didn't startle any of you too
much, but yes, it seems that I finally got there. I graduated in
Sociology with no official minor, but a slew of computer science
classes under my belt. (Computer Science doesn't offer any minors.)
Now where to from here? Well, for now, I go to work. I recently got
a new job with Property Solutions, as their one and only Quality
Assurance Engineer. Really, I can kinda have any title I want, and so
I have also thought of Director of Quality Assurance, or
Vice-President of Quality Assurance, but really I'm just directing
myself for now, so the titles are just that… titles. I started with
them two weeks ago, and I'm enjoying my time there. They are a new
business, less than 20 people, but they seem to be constantly hiring
so they seem to be growing right now. In a few years, when the time
is right, I will head back to school to get an MBA so I can have
another title under my belt. They like to have students with
experience, and so it really isn't feasible to go now. Kirk and Andy
(brothers in law) both recently graduated from the MBA, and Ryan
(brother) did it years ago with his law degree. I'm starting to feel
left out. Rochelle is continuing in her nursing school. She has one
semester down and 4 to go (or 2 years). She will be a fantastic
nurse. She is currently TAing for a class, and helping teachers do
research.
Anyways, we have a new web page up… and it IS new. Incomplete and
unfinished, but still worthy of your browsing I hope. Please visit it
at http://somedayhappened.net Inside you will find pictures and a
blog, both of which will be updated soon. For those who would like to
log in, just send us an email, and we will send you an email that will
let you create your own account. Currently logging in allows you to
add recipes to the recipe page, and potentially see family birthdays
when the page is working right (also soon to be redone). We hope to
be expanding the web page soon with my new found free time, so check
back from time to time, and feel free to drop us a line.
Take care all,
BJ