May 23, 2011

Today is a pretty regular day. But I have been blooming. I sometimes like to type a word that has to do with my post into google images and see what comes up (I realize this is risky business and only a couple of times have I regretted it after the images come up). Today I typed, "Bloom" and this is what came up.

Of course. What was I thinking?

This is what I had in mind. I have been doing pretty well on my goal to do something every day to "bloom where I am planted." Saturday was pretty simple: I drove in a traffic jam. 

I'd never seen anything like it. At one point I just stopped and let the cars in front, to the side, and behind me just do their thing because I'm pretty sure that no one cared if they hit another car as long as they got where they were going. I'm starting to rethink my previous post where I said Texans were courteous drivers... 

So that's not much, but it's something. Yesterday was a little more promising. I went out of my comfort zone at church. I decided I need to connect more with the other wives that are here with their husbands who are selling with Ian. And you know men, they don't make those kinds of connections, or arrange anything really, so I had to do it myself. I talked with the Manager's wife, exchanged phone numbers, and hopefully will be more in the loop from now on.

Today I went to the gym, grocery shopped, and caught up on schoolwork. Not anything too exciting, but those things have to be done too I suppose. 

I also finished "The Hunger Games" series. I have mixed feelings on it... anyway. Have a good Monday!

Inferno

Aw man... my school website seems to be down today. Darn... (note the sarcasm of the triple dots). Anyway, I read on the weather channel this morning that the heat index here today is 105! For those of you who would have to google heat index like I did, it's just a fancy way of saying the "perceived temperature" if you factor in the humidity with the temperature outside. Now I know all you people from Vegas and Arizona are scoffing at me right now, but that is a huge jump from 80 degrees and cloudy yesterday. Hello Summer! Nice of you to drop in. Hope you don't give my husband and his sales buddies heat stroke today.

I was thinking about giving shots last night as I was falling asleep. That was the part of my old job that I disliked the very most, but now I'm thinking about it and wishing I could get back to it. Obviously it's clear I need to get a job... Heck, I'd even do it for free at this point.

Have a good Saturday!

Growing pains

This week has been really frustrating. Not gonna lie. My search for jobs has come up with a big fat nothin' and Ian's sales are... well, not so great. This is pretty typical for a "Rookie" like him; it's all part of the learning process. I don't know why we were so vain to think he'd be exempt from that, but for some reason we were. Everything I read or think about seems to lead me back to the Lord's timing and patience right now. I read a really good blog the other day written by a teacher and mentor of mine from waaaaay back in Jr High. You can read the whole post here.
She talks about her daughter, and how she's usually a pretty patient baby until she's hungry. Then her face gets red as she screams her lungs out until she's fed. She says:

It was a couple of weeks ago – during one of those 3:00 a.m. feedings – I lost my patience. She was throwing the usual fit. Screaming, crying, fists flying, red face. She was so angry that what she wanted wasn't showing up when and how she wanted it.  The food was there, but she couldn't see it.  I was so frustrated, that I actually tried to talk to her about it.

"Why do we have to go through this every single time? I know what you want and I know what you need and I'm standing here waiting to give it to you.  In fact, it's two inches from your face and if you would just calm down and be still so you can actually breathe, you'll be able to eat and everyone will be happy!"



I thought about how often we're all like my teacher's baby. How we scream and cry have pity parties for ourselves, when what we want will be given to us if we just have a little faith in the Lord's timing. 
I've realized how hard it is to keep this in the forefront of your thoughts when you're right in the middle of it. I have these incredible moments of clarity where I feel great about the situation, as unfavorable as it may be at the time, because I realize it's all leading me to a greater purpose. But, at the end of the day, when I'm tired and again coming to the realization that I've pretty much spent my time doing nothing, I regress back to the self-pitying, frustrated girl. Blah blah blah, poor me. And forget those moments, tender mercies, where I get a glimpse of the big picture. 
One of my coworkers and good friends ("Work mom" as she refers to herself) from the pediatrician's office I just left, has reminded me a couple times since I've been here to "Bloom where you are planted". So, every day I'm going to make note of what I'm doing to bloom like a desert flower. 


Today is going to be simple. Chores.
I definitely don't take pleasure in doing chores, but right now, my only job is to be here as a support to my husband, and he's down to his last pair of clean underwear. 


So here I am... blooming. Well, sort of.

Oh, Texas

I'm writing this little update mostly for myself, but if you'd like to follow along, go ahead.
Ian seems to be getting into the swing of things with selling. He hasn't been as successful as I'm sure he was planning on, but things are going okay. He's just in the learning curve part of it all right now. He's been out in the scorching sun (yesterday) and there was a rain storm on Thursday that might as well have been a Tsunami. I'm not even kidding. I was outside for 10 seconds running to the car and I was completely drenched. In a way it was kind of fun though. That definitely doesn't happen in Utah.
I'm so back and forth about this place. One minute I love it, the next I'm dying to go home. Mostly I just hate not having much to do besides sit around my apartment. I've been looking for temp jobs, but there doesn't really seem to be much available right now. It's a little frustrating. Add to that the fact that Ian is gone from 11 AM to 10 PM on Weekdays and 9 AM-10 PM on Saturdays, it gets a little discouraging. Which makes me wonder if I'm really going to enjoy life as a stay-at-home mom... Interesting thought... Anyway.
I really am dying to get back into the game as an MA. I miss my job. That sounds weird coming from a person like me, because most days I left work completely exhausted, and really wasn't too excited to keep up my hectic schedule. And don't even get me started on call nights. I'm pretty sure Ian was ready to hide from me the moment he knew I was coming home on those days. But it frustrates me that I don't feel like I have an opportunity to do what I'm good at here.
But if that minor detail were to be resolved, I would really love it here. And most of the time I do. There's lots of palm trees, and although the humidity and I are kinda not friends right now, it does wonders for my hair and skin. And I have to think back to the days during the winter and school where I would've killed for a day to just sit and do nothing.
Also, a side note: people are right when they say Utahans are bad drivers. People here are so much more polite. They'll let you in, keep a space so you can make a left turn across traffic if you need to, they obey school speed limits (I think this one is just because they all know cops like to hang out in school zones) and EVERYONE stops for emergency vehicles. Like actually stops, not just pulls over and slows down a bit. It's weird, I always thought people were being dramatic when they said Utah drivers suck...
Sorry about this weird, slightly rambly post, but I'm just kind of venting I suppose. Things will probably get better as we go along, they always seem to. Classes start on Monday, and that'll give me more to do. I hope anyway... :)

I've been told you get used to the humiditiy...

Howdy y'all!! We made it to Corpus Christi, TX. All in all we ended up spending about 24 hours on the road. It was a super long drive, but a lot of it was on highway roads, so there were some fun sights to see along the way. I'd never been to Moab before (I know, pathetic right) so it was kind of fun to cruise through there and see some of the arches. Utah really is a beautiful state in its own way. 

 Are we the only ones that a giant sign painted on the mountain is slightly ghetto?

 Arches (taken through the window, so you can see the bugs)

 We made it to Cuba! Also the best picture I could 

get going through the town at 40 MPH.

 We stayed in Roswell, NM the first night. The whole town is obsessed with alien spacecraft and all kinds of Area 51 type stuff. They claim there was a UFO sighting on July 4, 1947. We think it was radiation exposure from the A-bombs... It was a pretty cool little town though.

 Corpus Christi Bay. This was taken about 2 minutes away from our house, right by Texas A&M. What a pretty place!

 Ian wading in The Atlantic Ocean. If I remember right, this was the first time I'd ever been in the Atlantic.

White cap beach. Can you guess where its name comes from?

I haven't taken any pictures of the apartment yet, but it is SO nice. We can see the bay from our kitchen window, and it's at least twice the size of our old apartment. That's not really saying much, but still. 

Ian's getting the hang of the whole selling thing pretty well. There were a couple hiccups with his licensing, but we got all that worked out, and I'm thinking it'll be a pretty successful summer. I'm still looking for temp/volunteer jobs right now. I'll let you know how that all pans out.

What a cool place to live! It's 100% different from Utah, but it's pretty fun to wake up in the morning and go play at the beach for an hour or so before Ian has to go to work, which is what we did this morning, but also have the conveniences and some of the familiarities of home here. I'm still having a crazy time navigating all the roads, but that's what GPS  is for, right? It's gonna be a great summer!

Day 16: First Kiss

The first person I kissed will be the last person I will ever kiss. I know some might think it's kind of corny, but I really love that the only person I've ever kissed is my husband. He kissed me about 2 hours after he got released from his mission, and we've been happy ever since!

Oooh la la!!