Grateful for…

Busy past few days (as in biz-zay – seriously)

I am trying to catch up on the last few days. Not just for some online thingamajigger that I occasionally post to once in awhile, but for my own sanity and peace of mind. Let me start out with Thursday night.

Thursday Night: Twilight night! As I mentioned before, Natalie held a little soiree at her home, complete with trivia games and prizes, awesome food (“bitten” cupcakes – see pic below), and the cutest little craft activity. In the book, the lead character Bella has a charm bracelet with a heart from Edward and a wolf from Jacob. Natalie rounded up heart beads for all of us to make ourselves a bracelet or charm or earrings or what have you. It was so cute and creative! We all wore our designs to the movie, of course. And our fangs from our cupcakes.

The pictures below show off some of our fun (sorry for the quality – I had to take all the pics with my Blackberry in lowlight):

  

(this is what my family would look like if we were all vampires; complete with red eyes, of course)

Friday: I am able to work from home on Fridays (soooo helpful after three hours of sleep) which is such a nice perk of my job. And thank heavens I do because I was surprised at my front door by an agent who was coming in to show a young newlywed couple my house. My agent (whom I love – she’s great) had mixed up the date on when they were coming and forgot to call me to give me a heads up. So I asked the agent if I could have a 15-20 minutes to just run through my house really quickly. 

Well, needless to say I was a bit ragged and razzled when I left to take a walk around my neighborhood as they looked through my house. I didn’t have any expectations that anything might transpire from their visit.

Saturday: Yes, Ute fans, say it with me – BEST DAY EVER!!! All day long I was anxious about the game, just wanting it to get started. If a BCS bowl bid weren’t on the line, I don’t think I would’ve been nervous at all. But this was a huge game! As in HUGE! And boy, did the Utes come out to play.

Roughly 10 of us watched the big U vs. BYU game up at my parents house (while they went to the game). Two were Y fans and the rest of us were normal. Ben was just pacing the floor before the game got underway, the tension visibly palpable as evidenced by the clenched fingerprint markings in the chair he happened to occupy. 

Needless to say, we certainly whooped it up at my parents house. Now we’re just waiting to find out: Sugar Bowl? Orange Bowl? Fiesta Bowl? I would love to take a trip out with Caden and cheer them on firsthand.

Besides the win, I also got some interesting news during halftime. My agent called me and said, “The couple who came by yesterday would like to make an offer on your home.” Um – what??!!!???!!! I was in total shock. But, but my house wasn’t vacuumed…but, but the laundry was still in the basket…but, but there was a dish in the sink. Apparently that didn’t matter. They love the area (as do I) and they are ready to move. I did counteroffer which brings me to…

Monday: I just got word – they accepted my counteroffer so my home is officially sold. We close on the 22nd and I am going to rent back a week so that I can stay through Christmas and move out by the 29th. The reality of selling my house is just starting to sink in. At times I am excited, at other times I am very emotional. Selling means I have to move. Selling means I have to leave the first home I ever bought – just me, by myself, to have a little home. Selling also means opportunity – to buy, to move, to invest, etc. There are just so many mixed emotions around this…one minute I’m happy, the next I’m sad. But I am thrilled for the couple that is buying my home. My area is chock full of young couples which will be absolutely perfect for them. They will love the area. And I will hate leaving it.

It’s gonna be a LATE night with Twilight!

My dearest sister Natalie gave me this invitation last Sunday:

Tonight, me and about 9 other women are getting together at my sister’s house for a pre-Twilight party – lots of fun, lots of games, lots of caffeine and No-Doz to go around. Once we’re sufficiently “sugared up”, we’ll be heading on over to Jordan Commons for the 11:59 p.m. showing of Twilight. Yes, the movie about the vampires who sparkle…and are so alluring…and try not to kill their girlfriends. We’re talking a good 90 minutes of imagery with which I can fill my head with dreams that I will never tell a single soul about – EVER.  

Truth be told, I don’t have high hopes for the movie (trying to keep expectations down); I just think this is going to be a lot of fun tonight with tons of excitement, lots and LOTS of women oohing and aahing over Edward, and a very long, very extended GNO. Hey, men have their football, women have their vampires.

I don’t know how effective I will be at work tomorrow, seeing as how I unwittingly set up three strategic meetings I am completely in charge of. I was too distracted by the thought of partying all night long. And watching vampires. Hmmm…well, I will just do my best. It’s worth it, right?

They be bad and we be good

Just got home from my Monday night ritual of volleyball. Tonight was a big game, we were playing the only other team to have lost 1 game. The competitive side that resides so heavily in me was fired up to go. A couple of other girls from different teams told us that they were going to come and cheer us on which of course we appreciated but curiously wondered why.

After having just played this very good team, I completely understand why everyone wanted our team to bring the beat down on them. Talk about a bunch of sorry, pain-in-the-butt, smack-talkin’, ball carrying, incessant whiners that were some of the poorest sports I’ve ever played against. And I hate to say this but they were all of a certain Island persuasion, if you know what I mean. 

One particular girl on their team, I’ll call her Gigantor, was one mean biddy who was looking for a fight any chance she could get. They’d hit the ball out of bounds, she scream at the ref, “It was in, ref! IN!” Um, no Gigantor, it most certainly wasn’t. If you could see beyond the large girth that protudes from beneath your wide open trap you would’ve been able to observe that the ball was clearly a good TWO FEET out of bounds. 

I happened to hit a ball directly at her one play. She got a pretty good dig but sent it directly back my way. Bam! I hit it again and she missed. She glared at me and claimed, “She was in the net! She was in the net!” I just looked at her, smiled, and shook my head. She flipped me off. Sweet. Come closer to the net, dearest, so I can accidentally kick you in the shins. 

We won the first game by default because their team didn’t show up until almost 6:20, twenty minutes after we were supposed to start. They beat us the “second” game 11 to 9 but really we beat ourselves with just some dumb errors. The “third” game was rally scoring of course. Everytime Gigantor would agree with the ref’s call, she would clap obnoxiously and say, “Good call, ref. Good call.” Annnnd of course when the calls went our way, “This game is rigged. They don’t want us to win first place.” Yeah, honey, a little city league is out to get you. 

I ended up serving the last two points (one which was an ace – booyah for me!) and when the score flipped to 15-12, we all let out a loud joyful scream – as did many spectators in the stands. After giving them a cheer, we walked towards the net to give them a high five and Gigantor just walked away. No high fives. No congratulations on playing a good game. Just decided to wallow in her big fat pity and be mad at the world. Sheesh, what sore sportsmanship. 

Besides stickin’ it to a team that everyone hated, we also clinched first place in our league. That lofty perch means we get to split $50 between the six of us (we are so RICH!). We’re going out for ice cream. Poor Gigantor will just have to cry herself to sleep over her lost double fudge brownie sundae. 

I’m terribly despondent over the fact that I only have one game left to play next week however…

Birthdays, origins, and booby hatches

We celebrated my sister Natalie’s 27th birthday last night at my house (it actually was her birthday yesterday). She is one of three sisters that I love and adore and she has been a great support to me, most especially with Caden in the past few months. She is witty, unselfish, gracious, and unfailingly kind to others. She also is extremely creative, blessed with a great talent for improvisation and design (check out Logan’s monkey costume she made on her blog). I love her to death and am so proud to call her my sister and my friend.

After gorging ourselves on food, cake (homemade by Ryan, no less), and ice cream, we played an abbreviated albeit rousing round of “Origins”, a game Allison had given Natalie all around the origins of certain phrases like “dead as a doornail”, “black mail”, and “all and sundry”. Yes, that popular phrase “all and sundry” was so easy to decipher since we use it all the time. We became quite creative at coming up with our own origins, like the popular phrase “booby hatch” (you go ahead and let your mind wander there).

Perhaps you’d like to discover the origin of some other well known phrases such as “beat around the bush” or “put up your dukes” or the ever popular “son of a gun”? Check out more info here and impress your family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, best friend’s third cousin once removed, and so forth. I’m done chewing the fat.

The most important week EVER

 

Well, it’s come down to this: Utes vs. Cougars in a matchup for the outright title and a trip to what looks like may be the Sugar Bowl. This week is going to be interminably long for me at work. Mainly because I work with a lot of wonderfully self-righteous, blowhard, completely overbearing, avid BYU fans. There’s a small contingent of us that bleed red and we’ve decided to deck our cubes out in total RED all week long in support of our team.

College football doesn’t get any better than this, people. First off, it’s a rivalry game – it’s nicknamed The Holy War (for a very good reason) and gives you bragging rights for the next year. The Cougs have had their bragging rights renewed two years in a row and all I have to say is not this year, baby! Second, it’s a BCS busting year. Truthfully, the Zoobies should be hoping the Utes do win because it really helps our conference out. The Mountain West doesn’t get any respect and look at the talent we have: the Utes, the Y, TCU, Colorado St, and fairly decent teams in Air Force, New Mexico, and off and on Wyoming (they did beat Tennessee). 

I wish I were able to go to the game this Saturday but sadly, not able to snag a couple of tix for a somewhat reasonable amount (one guy I work with sold his 2 tickets for $350 a piece – hello, Christmas Cash). However, I don’t mind screaming at the tv up at my parents house (as I don’t have The Mountain at home – another gripe: what the HECK? Why isn’t a game like THIS on ESPN????). Oh my gosh, how much do I love college football?

(my dad will be so proud he raised a daughter right)

Digging a few tunes

Considering all of the crazy flurry that has consumed me as of late, I’ve found myself listening to my iPod or my shuffle quite frequently. Sometimes to release stress, sometimes to send me into a sleep coma, and sometimes just because I need to drown out petulant voices that ring shrill in my ear. 

Here’s what I’ve got poppin’ in my ipod:

 

• Pieces by Red – pretty, meaningful song that I find myself drifting off to sleep to
• High Head Blues by The Black Crowes – classic rock, all there is to it
• Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon – relatively new band that has kind of a throwback vibe
• Money Honey by State of Shock – just like to jam out to this one
• Love and Memories  by O.A.R. – love these guys
• Before the Worst by The Script – free song on iTunes this week (one of the better ones)
• Contemplating by Colossus – a chill song, for those  mellow moods
• So Long, Goodbye by 10 Years – moody rock ballad
• People Should Smile More by Newton Faulkner – the title says it all
• Oh Boy by Duffy – listen and love it like me
• Leave the Memories Alone by Fuel – I’m diggin’ Fuel these days
• Nashville Skyline by Dishwalla – check out their new CD Opaline, it’s sweet

 

I have to say that I would really like to be playing these tunes on this:

It seems that the holidays are coming up, or, er, are already here…this would be a GREAT present to give me (hint, hint). I gave away a few of these at my recent conference and they thoroughly enticed me. Not that I really need a new iPod…I just really, really like it’s purple-ish lovely goodness.

You know how life can just sometimes get in the way?

A little over one week ago, I wrapped up a two day conference up at Snowbird that I helped plan/organize/oversee. I had no idea how much I had deprived myself of sleep and food over the anxiety of making it a success until last Friday. I think I slept for 11 hours straight.

The conference, though, was a smashing success! We had head VP’s from all over the globe come attend so it was quite the high visibility project. Each site around the globe had held a similar conference but ours was a bit unique; we had to twist the agenda to reflect the fact that Utah is closing and we will all be either losing our jobs or moving within the next 8-12 months. Many employees at our site came up to me prior to the event and were not excited – even angry – about us organizing this conference. But at the end of two days? Every single one of them came up to me and said how meaningful and important the conference had been. THAT was the best part, not how well the decorations, food, and agenda came off.

The snow couldn’t have come at a more perfect time: it snowed 5 FEET while we were up there! I stayed up overnight from Monday to Wednesday and when I came out to my car ready to leave Wednesday afternoon, this is what I found:

 

It is so nice to be a woman and be able to play Damsel in Distress so that I can have 7 men help dig me out. It took them a little over an hour to clear me out enough so I could make it up the hill and down the canyon. The snow also conveniently reflected our chosen event logo of a snowflake. The VP’s were quite impressed and we even had 14 people from Costa Rica attend, 3 of whom never had seen snow in their life.

I ordered a bunch of snowflake schtuff from Oriental Trading, found little snowflake chocolates from Trafton’s Chocolates, and spread mints in the shape of a snowflake with our logo on it across the tables. We had a pretty tight  budget so I couldn’t go overboard, but it still looked pretty dang good if I do say so myself. I ordered fleece vests for the committee with our snowflake logo embroidered on it and they loved them (they wear them all the time).

This is Rob and me getting ready to kick off the conference:

 

Rob was our master of music. He wrote personal musical intros for each of our speakers which were totally hilarious. We ended up being the highest rated conference that was held because of all the little details and personal touches we added. I wish I would have had time to take pictures! But being the coordinator, I had no time and really no freedom to do so. I’m glad a few other committee members snapped a few shots here and there so I could remember a few things.

Two days and a lot – I mean A LOT – of work, prep, and good old sweat went into making it a rousing success. My thank you is a dinner out at Ruth Chris AND a dinner out at Market Street Broiler. Thank heavens my appetite has returned…

Seven days later

One week ago I was making last minute collections for Halloween, sitting through three hour meetings for a conference I helped organize, and enjoying the last vestiges of warm weather.

This was Halloween:

I was a Bed Bug for Halloween. Each year we have an aisle decorating contest at work and we try to pick a fun theme. I came up with the idea this year of The Great Bug Infestation of 2007, a nod to the bed bug infestation we had occur from co-workers traveling to Malaysia and bringing back tainted flags. It was a nightmare of comical proportions–the building was closed for several days for spraying, people had to throw out mattresses, there were bites to treat, so obviously it was something we could make fun of now. We actually won the group costume contest.

Caden was Indiana Jones this year which was fantastic because that is one easy costume to put together. Forget all the sewing I had to do for Elvis 2006; Indy’s costume came ala one Deseret Industries. Safari-looking campshirt? $4. Satchel? 75 cents. Cargo pants? Already had ‘em. Hat? $4 at Joanns. Whip? $5 at a costume store. Total cost? $13.75. Caden’s enjoyment and my reaction to not paying a lot for a cheap costume that falls apart the second you put it on? Priceless.

Tomorrow I will have to let you in on the lovely conference I helped organize up at Snowbird for my company the past couple of days. I’m still trying to catch up on missed sleep…