October Bliss

October has been a pretty busy month. Not to mention stressful. Since I started my job and school has progressed, Jonathon and I haven't gotten to spend as much time together. To make up for it, he gave me flowers. Isn't that sweet? :)

A couple weeks ago, we decided to go the a couple Haunted Houses in Salt Lake. It was Jonathon's first "real" experience at a Haunted House, so he was nervous. The picture below pretty much summarizes our experience. A huge spider landed on Jonathon's head and he screamed like a little girl! Haha, ok, maybe not quite that bad, he it definitely startled him. And me, being the nice, sweet girlfriend that I am, teased him the rest of the night :) Nightmare on 13th had some cool clown things going on. I thought they would be really freaky and weird, but they weren't. The weird part was the zombies. I'm not a fan of zombies, and I just don't understand the appeal. I'm sorry, but apocalyptic zombies are just retarded. Now, if you go back to the Hocus Pocus Billy kind of zombie, that is cool. 

Ok, sorry for that little zombie rant. After Nightmare, we went to the Haunted Village. If I thought Nightmare was lame (which it wasn't too bad, it just didn't scare me at all), then the Haunted Village was really lame. Seriously, we were trying SO HARD not to laugh the whole way through because it just was ridiculous and the premise of the village was retarded. They had a couple of cool things. I guess the best part was this one guy was following me really close and breathing heavily on me. His face was practically over my left shoulder. I turned my body away from him, and in the process, my shoulder hit his chin (that's how close he was to me!!!). It wasn't even that hard, but instead of the heavy breathing, I heard "Ouch!" HAHA! That's what ya get for getting so darn close! It was really funny, but I felt bad. I told him sorry. And he lost any kind of scare appeal. I bet he felt retarded.

The Saturday before Halloween, Jonathon and I went over to Tate & Amber's and carved pumpkins & watched Hocus Pocus. It was a great night!

My Ugly Frankenstein
I was trying to be cool and it didn't work out so hot.

Jonathon's Werewolf
Isn't it so good?

Mine, Tate's (Creepy House), Amber's (Owl)

My work provided lunch for everyone on Halloween. It was awesome! The best part was dipping the apples in carmel. I added toffee & oreo crumbles to the carmel. It was the most delectable thing my mouth has ever experienced concerning fruit. 

After work, I headed home to get ready for the Hansen Halloween party hosted by Tate & Amber. The next two pictures are the appetizers I brought (thanks to Pinterest). My carrot pumpkin was already half eaten by the time I got a picture of it. My celery fingers are pretty rad, if I do say so myself ;)

Amber made the pumpkin cake on the left (delicious!) and Carrie made the pumpkin cheese ball (I love cheese balls!)

Amber also made bread bowls with yummy vegetable soup :)

 

And I can't forget the delightful apple cider. I'm not a huge fan apple cider, but the romantic ambiance of the holiday made it irresistible. 

My costume: I'm a doll

Presenting America's typical Prom King & Queen and Mr. & Mrs. Skeleton

And we can't forget the cutest couple on the block ;) I'm so lucky to be dating 3-Hole Punch Jim!

Life Since Moving

Welcome to The Coaching Department!

(Isn't it so cute, decorated for Halloween?)

Life has been crazy busy since I moved to Provo. It started off super chill, but was frustrating because I could not find a job for the life of me! I swear I had at least 10 interviews before I found The Coaching Department. But looking back, I couldn't ask for a better job. It's flexible with my class and I get to sit down all day long :) I like it. Also, it's almost 40 hours a week, which means I have to organize my time. 

Before I got this job, I had oodles of time to mess around and play, but I was also bored much of the time. My class took up a fair amount of time, and now it's taking up even more of my time! (Or so it seems). My class is a Literary Criticism class and is seriously the hardest class I have ever taken. There are so many abstract concepts, it's hard to grasp them all and see how they interrelate and connect. Sometimes I just want to give up on the notion of going to grad school after all. However, I got an A on my first test, so that's good! Also, my professor is super supportive of my endeavors and has offered to help me any way he can. Direct quote: "Let's get you into that grad program!" I'm grateful for his help and know it will be incredibly useful. Now I just need to find the time to study for the GRE and prepare the different parts of the application. That's the real kicker.

My job, as I stated earlier, is at a company called The Coaching Department. The Coaching Department is basically a school to help people set up their own online businesses. There are a million training webinar tutorials and the clients "meet" (via phone) with their coaches for additional training. I am a scheduler. I schedule people with their coaches. I am also kind of like a receptionist because I field all the incoming calls and try to get people the correct help they need (phone numbers, contact info, appointments made/cancelled, and coaches to call them back). I am not the only scheduler. I think there are 9 total, and there are usually 3-5 here at a time. My job is a bit confusing and it's a lot more complicated than it looks! I could go into a lot more detail about what I do, but I don't want to. That would take too much effort to explain. So just be satisfied with fact of knowing that I talk to people on the phone all day. And luckily, most of them want to talk to me, so they mostly are nice!

This is my lovely desk.

I'm rockin' a beautiful headset. It hurts my ears after awhile!

What my typical computer screen looks like. You probably can't tell what's going on, but I have the scheduling calendar on the left screen, the client's information on the right screen, and Skype in the middle. Also, I have a zillion tabs because I set up clients' products (tools that help the clients' build their website).

At this job, I learned a new word: Toggle. As you can tell from my picture above, I do not participate in the art of toggling. What is toggling you may ask? It is switching back and forth between web browsers. I just have mine side by side. I think it's easier that way. And if you knew what toggling was before this post, kudos to you! You know more than the English major.

This is Swagger, our Betta fish. 

Every day, at least one of the other schedulers would come over to Swagger's fish bowl (which is right by my desk) and see her just floating there. The scheduler would tap frantically on the bowl and exclaim "Is Swagger dead?!!" When Swagger would swim to life, the scheduling girl would say disappointingly  "Dang it. That fish never dies!" Seriously, this was an every day occurrence. Then, sadly last week, Swagger was murdered. They all got tired of feeding her and cleaning out her bowl every so often, so one of the coaches threw her into a field and then flushed her down the toilet. I was sad to see her go. Goodbye Swagger! You will be slightly missed.

The Halloween decorations that replaced Swagger's existence.

And that has pretty much been my life! I've done a lot of fun things since I've been here and I'm grateful to be close to family. That has been a wonderfully nice blessing. I think I would be lost without them. It has been a hard adjustment, but I'm grateful for the change of pace this new life brings. I've learned an incredible amount already.

P.S. In case you were wondering, Jonathon and I have been doing great :)

Summer Fun!

It's official! I am all moved-down to Utah. Which means only one thing: Summer is officially over (almost). Where, oh where, has the time gone?! Before Summer is completely over, I think it's necessary to celebrate with a song:

If you haven't had any sexy summer nights, it's high time you repent, get out there, and do something before time is up!

So, what have I done to make my summer worthwhile (besides work, you may ask)? This is the first real summer I've had since I graduated high school. Every summer since then was consumed with school, so it's been nice not to have to worry about school for once and just be able to party whenever I wanted to!

A couple of weeks ago, Jonathon dragged me along to hike Table Rock. (Yes, there was some real dragging involved...especially the last little bit of the hike!) Jonathon picked me up at 4:00 in the morning and we made our way over to the Tetons with Jonathon's dad and sister Elizabeth.  

This is the trail we took up the mountain. The men thought this sign was cute. Word to the wise: Heed the sign!!! The "trail" was so steep, I thought my knees would give out on me and I would die on the mountain. Ok, not really. But it was a very steep trail and I was grateful when it leveled out some.

I was not very amused with the hike at this point -- especially that early in the morning. I should have still been in bed!!

 Almost past the tree line. There was a light at the end of the tunnel!!

The last little trek of our journey. Suddenly that light got very dim...I wasn't ready for more steepness.

Atop the peak. There wasn't as much snow as I expected (it's been a really warm summer), but the wind was frigid cold!

Awww....aren't we such a sick-nasty couple?

The hike was good, and I'm glad I did it, but it's going to take me a long time to forget how much it hurt! I want to go back to Jenny's Lake. It's a beautiful hike with lots of water and waterfalls, but not nearly so strenuous! ;) (And yes, I know, I am a baby). 

A week after this hike, we took off to Palisades for a YSA activity. The first day was pretty stormy and the water was too cold, so we just played some volleyball. As always, I look lovely.

 

The next day started out coldish, but it got much better and turned into an awesome day of boating! I'm pretty sure I got severe whiplash from being tossed to and fro on those tubes. My body is covered in bruises. It's kind of ridiculous.

Jonathon is embarrassed that I'm "immodest" in this picture, but he's the one that took it! (and every other picture on this post...) But he totally thinks my ghastly-white shoulders are hot ;) Someday we will get a decent picture of us together. Someday.

Before these two adventurous activities, Jonathon was Charlie Brown in the local production of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" so that consumed our (mostly his) lives for a few weeks. We didn't have too much time to play together, but we took many walks and enjoyed the pretty sunsets. We have also enjoyed many softball games, ping-pong matches, frisbee golf rounds, and movies to keep ourselves busy! Not to mention Mexican restaurants... ;)

From the WEST side of my house. This picture doesn't do the sky justice!

From my backyard. Isn't the moon awesome?

It has been a very wonderful summer. I am sad to see it go, but I look forward to the many adventures Fall will bring! I'm already making a must-see Halloween movies list :)