The Hunt

So, many of you know I am currently been looking for work. I have been applying at a lot of places, and all the jobs I've found and applied for are full-time. I have recently made the decision (with the help of a supportive husband, family, good friends, and inspiration) that I really shouldn't try to take on a full-time job and a Master's Degree, and all the other responsibilities and activities I have. I have a syndrome of over-working myself, thinking, "Yes; I can do that; I can do it all." Then I do do it all, and sleep a whole lot less, and take care of myself less than I should. Well, I'm am going to put a stop to that! (Well I'll try at least.) So I am on the hunt for some part-time work that is in my field of study: teaching English to speakers of other languages, tutoring, adult literacy, etc. I would like to get paid of course. Even if my job only produces a small amount of money, anything helps. I'm also really liking the idea of working from home. So if you, or anyone you know have any leads, contacts, or ideas for me, please let me know. Thanks!

Hannah's Gettin' Hitched!

My older sister Hannah is getting married to Michael Dimond. It's official! They started dating a little over 6 months ago. We could all tell that Hannah was really happy, and so in love. My whole family met Michael twice before Seth and I did. When we finally met him, we definately approved.

They go well together. They have fun together, support each other, trust each other, and love each other. And Michael is prepared to take Hannah to be married in the temple, so we are very happy for her. And she is definately happy, twitterpated is a good word for it.

This is my favorite picture of them. She's so pretty, and Michael's not so bad himself.

Here is the bling. They picked it out together.

They'll be getting married in the Chicago temple close to the end of June. We are so excited. Congratulations Hannah and Michael!

Easter Egg Blues - and Backwards Day

I wanted to dye Easter Eggs, so on Saturday, Seth and I went grocery shopping, and I got an extra carton of eggs. But the store had no dying kits. So we went to CVS. They were out, but they had chocolate bunnies. So we went to Target. It looked like the Easter aisle had bee ransacked. But they had a transformers dye kit, and a sports one. We got the sports one, but they had no chocolate bunnies. My mom always got them for us on easter, and Seth wanted me to have one, so then we went to Walgreens. Lo and behold, right when we walked in we saw 20+ normal PAAS dying kits.... That was disappointing. They had tons of chocolate bunnies and easter items galore. That'll teach us for next time, go to Walgreens. We worked so hard that whole day, and we boiled the 12 extra eggs, and then I felt sick. So we didn't even dye them after all! How sad is that!? So now we have a dozen white hard boiled eggs. I guess I'll have to make eggs salad or something.

Well Easter was a wonderful day for us. I got so much out of church. Our Sunday School teacher had us all stand up, and said "Stay standing if you've read and prepared for the lesson." All but one person sat down. That really called me to repentance. We talked about how the Holy Spirit is the real teacher no matter who is called to speak or teach. The more spiritually prepared we are, the more we will be taught, comforted and edified at church, and in our daily scripture study. Seth and I made one of our famous apple pies, and went over to the Brimhall's (Seth's sister Angie's) for Easter dinner. The kids decided they wanted it to be backwards day, so we ate dinner backward, ending with the vegetables, and told the story of Christ's last week on Earth. That end with Him experiencing unspeakable agony and sorrow in the garden of Gethsemane, and the kids not wanting to eat their brocolli. Angie and Jeff did their best to make it a fun, educational and spiritual dinner, and I give props to them. But I don't think I will ever want to do Easter dinner, or the Easter story backwards again. There is a good reason dessert comes last, and an even better one that the glorified ressurected Christ comes at the end of the story. It is the best part! The happiest, most wonderful part! I like to have that part come last.

We got to talk to our mothers on Easter, and I thought about how much my family means to me. Because of Christ's great sacrifice, His atonement and resurrection, we all have the opportunity to live forever, eternally happy with our families. That is the very best news I know. It gives me a good reason to try my best every day. It gives this life a good reason for living. I am so grateful for the truth of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I know He lives, and He is directing His church. He loves all of us and wants us to be happy.

Spring! Spring! Spring!

Today was in the upper 60's! There are flowers blooming spontaneously, birds are singing, the air smells sweet, the sun shines! Hooray for April! (At least today). There are daffodils growing in our flower beds, just by themselves! I LOVE our house! It is so cute and cozy! I read my scriptures in a rocking chair on my beautiful porch, Seth and I ate Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner, outside for a picnic! (I say that voluntarily eating outside in any circumstance is a picnic. Seth disagrees because we used our card table and rocking chairs on our deck.) Then we played the Train Game outside! (Ticket to Ride), I won with 273 points. Brimhalls, watch out, because I am getting good at this game (maybe good enough to win against you guys!). Then we went on a walk around our beautiful neighborhood, holding hands. This is the life! What a great day. :)

Good News

It has been forever since my last post, I know. I have been travelling for over a month. It is so good to be home. While I was gone, I drove to Chicago twice, flew once. Flew to Utah, drove to Idaho, flew home, drove back to Utah, and flew home again, and I am here to stay, for a while! While I was in Chicago, I got to go to 2 of my little sister Martha's track meets. She is a shot putter. Right now, she is ranked 1st in the state for big high schools. At the first one, her name is on the wall for the best throw at that fieldhouse. At the meet she threw 43'2," so they are going to have to change the numbers. I also went to her MSL Conference. She won 1st, and no one was even within 2 feet of her throw. She has a full tuition scholarship to Illinois State University, and she'll go there in the fall. GREAT JOB MARTHA!

Well, during my trips, I didn't take any other pictures because I was very sick. At the end of February, I got this terrible virus (I'll spare you the details), and I was pretty much miserable for 5 weeks. I thought less about documenting my travels than I did hoping my head wouldn't explode and that I could sleep more than 3 hours a night. But now, I am getting better, and I am so grateful!

Now for my good news. I applied and was accepted into the Masters of Education in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) at Cleveland State University, and will start my masters program the first week of June. I am so excited! I want to focus on teaching (legal) adult immigrants English to help them to have more opportunities for success in our country, and so they can give back to it as well.

Seth took me out to Dewey's Pizza to celebrate. These are my new glasses. :) My hair is getting long again too! Yay! Now I am looking for a part-time job, and as many scholarship/grant opportunities I can find.

Vacation Tribulation

The Bahamas were really beautiful, although it was too windy and cold to swim. Seth even ventured to play some sand volley ball. What a trooper!

This is the only picture I will post of myself on our vacation. I was so seasick, I did not look well, and would rather not keep those memories forever, and this one was pretty dark and far away. I lost my make-up case and all its contents on our cruise. SAD! Now I am doomed to use my very very old back up stuff I don't like, but at least I didn't get sunburned, so I can be very glad of that.

I'm sure some of you are probably wondering how our vacation turned out. Well, as you can see from the title, it wasn't exactly what we expected it to be. Over a year ago, we 'won a free cruise' to the Bahamas from Ramada Plaza Resorts, and Imperial Majesty Cruise Lines. Well, to say the least more than a year later, when we went to use our vacation, it certainly wasn't free, and it ended up being quite a scam. I won't go into to many details, but as a recap we had to spend a third of our time listening to sales pitches, and it felt like another third was spent waiting in line for 'comped' buffet meals that were less than quality, our cruise line was over 50 years old, and light as a feather, our room that we had to upgrade and upgrade which cost a lot of money and grief was more like a low rate motel on terrible seas, than the Veranda Suite we were promised. We got lost a few times, we both were absolutely sea sick the entire cruise, throwing up, feeling like our heads were going to explode, barely being able to stand up and walk, etc. (I won't go on about that too much more, but I will say that the crew couldn't find enough housekeeping staff and cat litter to clean up the mess on board, with the terrible ocean we faced. Needless to say the Dining Room was practically empty the first night, and we sure didn't make it to dinner.) When we stopped in the Bahamas we paid for an excursion to a beach resort, but it was close to 65 degrees, very windy, and mostly cloudy most of the day. We couldn't swim, and were really too sea sick to do much else.

Ok, now that is over with, I will tell you about the good things about our trip. When I was on the ship the first night, After the losing of our lunches, Seth and I were laying in our bed trying to ignore the feeling of rising 15 ft. in the air and then descending over and over, I remembered looking out into that dark abiss of an ocean. It looked like a terrible monster waiting to swallow us up. I was amazed at it's power. I had never been on a boat on the ocean, or a sea. I got to experience first hand, a taste of what it could do if angered. As I laid there, I was reminded that the Lord created the ocean, and has complete control over it. I think the ocean can be compared to the Lord in a way. It is so vast, man cannot even comprehend it completely. It contains such deep mysteries, and beauties. It can be so helpful, taking you across miles and miles to your destination. When it is angered, it is indeed terrrible.

I also remembered the scripture about Christ from Mark 4 in the New Testament:

35 And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.

36 And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.

37 And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.

38 And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?

39 And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, aPeace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great bcalm.

40 And he said unto them, Why are ye so afearful? how is it that ye have no bfaith?

41 And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?

Jesus Christ is the master of earth and sea. All the elements obey His command. How is it that His children, most often do not obey? I want to do better to obey, and feel the peace, and calm He can bring to me as I follow.

I was touched by this feeling of how aware the Lord is of me, only one passenger, on one small ship in the deep vast ocean. I prayed many times, that if it were the Lord's will, that He would calm the sea. He did, and around midnight that night, I fell asleep.

Other great experiences we had on our trip. Throughout the many sales pitches we had to listen to, we got to know some of the people, and were able to share part of our faith with them.

Seth and I got to spend every minute of a whole week together. We had many deep conversations all about the US government, the welfare program, immigration, Pres. Obama, our life together so far, our future plans. It was nice to really talk.

We got to go to Universal Studios, and despite some lingering seasickness, we really enjoyed the Simpsons Ride, Shrek 4D, The Mummy (we rode that twice. it was the only roller coaster, and it was a very good one.)

My desire to eat did come back eventually, I renounced my vow never to set foot on a cruise ship again (as long as it is BIG and NEW!) My dizzy, lightheadedness did go away after about 5 days of being on land.

I learned a lot about myself on the trip. It just so happened that the only book I brought was called "Emily of Deep Valley," by Maud Hart Lovelace (one of my very favorite authors). Because of the sea sickness, and the bad weather we had, I had a lot of time to read. I ended up reading it 2 and a half times. I loved every page. I could really relate to my namesake character, and this book helped me figure out what I want to do now. I have some work to do, and preparations to make, but I will unfold my plan for the near future very soon.

The very last day of our trip had nice 75 degree weather with not too much wind. We went to a cool hotel resort called Gaylord Palms (for free! probably the only part of our trip that actually was.) We saw fish, and alligators in the atrium and beautiful plants and flowers. It was a really cool place.

I got a new jacket, bright red, and beautiful!, and some jeans that were very needed! Thanks Seth!

We got to drive our first rental car, a shiny new blue Ford Focus. That was the first new car I had ever driven. It was so powerful! Wow! I liked it a lot, almost as much as my red Miata (R.I.P). And we even got to enjoy XM radio with no commercials.

Seth and I didn't get to swim in FL because it was too cold and windy, but we did get to walk barefoot on the beach, hand in hand under the stars. That was wonderful. I learned more about Seth, and we grew closer on our trip, through the trials and all. I definately don't regret going. I learned and I grew, and I am better for it, and I think Seth is too.

It was so wonderful to come home. This trip made me realize how much I really love our house, Cleveland, our ward at church, our wonderful friends, living close to family, and just being able to come home with Seth is a blessing.

And now we will have a hilarious story to tell our children someday.

80 Degrees, Here we come!

Seth and I are going to Florida tomorrow to go on our Honeymoon we never had time for, and to celebrate our 2 Year Anniversary. We are getting excited for sunny 80 degree weather, swimming in the ocean at Ft. Lauderdale, going on a cruise to the Bahamas, and checking out Universal Studios, and maybe some Disney parks. Hooray for vacation!