Today I got to hold a baby deer and also be a hero

Our time is winding down, a big move to the Pacific Northwest is fast approaching. Maybe that's why everything seems extra sweet—through the fear of tarantulas and scorpions and hornets and sweat. Sweet sweat.
Our time is winding down, so we're making our Must Do Before We Leave list.
Our time is winding down, we're starting to check things off.

July through August is hot in Texas. This is not new information. But July through August are also kind of my favorite... This is when all the sweet baby deer with their red coats and white speckles pop up like daisies and run and play with each other, always staying nearby their mamas. Apart from the spring time with all of the wildflowers, this is my favorite time of year here. It's so hot. It's hornets. It's brown grass. It's beautiful. It's kayaking down the river. It's diving in. It's bursting with new, red–coated–speckled, life.

I had just dropped Jason at work and was on my way home. I turned up the big hill to our house and saw one of our neighborhood deer in the middle of the road. This is nothing very new. But as I drove closer this doe didn't scurry away. She was immovable, frozen, focused on something to the side of the road. She didn't even notice the car. I looked in the direction of her intent gaze and there was her baby, stuck in the fence.
I jumped out of my car. She jumped away from me and a bit down the road, but not far.
I gingerly walked closer to the foal, she and her mama made deer warning calls. The sweet deer baby jumped harder and higher and stronger than I knew she could, in pure panic. I saw where the fur had been rubbed raw on her sides, where she was bleeding and injured.
I didn't know how to do this alone. I didn't know who to call.
Suddenly I heard the slap slap slap of flip–flops running down the hill. My nice neighbor man (who I'd never met until this morning—when we became innocent animal saving heroes together) heard the deer calling, saw my car stopped in the road. We worked together to lift and pull the speckled baby back out. She straightened out her beautiful front legs as long and still as she could for us. As soon as her hooves passed the poles, she bounded out of my neighbor's arms and she and her mama vanished into the trees.
Someone was clapping and cheering up the hill. I turned to see a neighbor lady peering down at the emergency situation over her tall, flowering, cactus peddle bushes and cheering for the victory.

I'm too exhausted from our marathon down mission memory lane trip (we just got back from visiting Houston this morning, where Jas served for two years) and running on roughly two hours of sleep last night, to draw any conclusions or meaningful morals from this experience.

I've just got this:

It was surprising how obvious and audible and visceral the concern that mama doe had for her sweet baby.
It also wasn't surprising at all.
It was surprising how quickly I could care about nothing other than relieving this sweet, speckled deer baby from her plight. The urgency. The magnitude of how much this mattered.
It also wasn't surprising at all.

And hero looks good on me.

♥︎

Chuck's Two–Tiered Dark Chocolate Cake from scratch with Cherry, Raspberry, Rhubarb, Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting

I guess you could say cake auctions are a joy. Cake auctions with an amateur auctioneer in a sombrero preceded by a top–notch taco bar fundraiser with homemade donkey piñatas are pure delight.

Jas and I decided to come packing some mega–heat for the cake auction... twenty dolla bill y'all.

The bidding began. I had my eye on an authentic, gooey, made from scratch and passed down from generations family recipe of a German Chocolate cake (ok, not sure all those things are facts, but that's how downright delectable that baby looked). Jason had his eye on a nice, thickly frosted, tray of brownies. Then a lovely little number came up for auction.

We were pretty sure we saw Chuck, one of our very favorite friends, carrying it when he walked in to the party with his wife, Mary Lynn (another very favorite friend), following close behind. Before the bidding our amateur auctioneer began to try to describe the lovely two–tiered item.

"Here we have what looks like a chocolate cake with... strawberry frosting..."

"Nahh!" Chuck raised a hand in the air and elevated his voice to be heard over the ambient nose of children scurrying and people chatting in the church gymnasium. "It's cherry! and raspberry! and uh, and uh, rhubarb, and cream uh cream cheese buttercream frosting!"

"So everything ever you wanted in a frosting, frosting on a two-tiered chocolate cake..."

 "It's a chocolate, no dark chocolate cake from scratch." 

Jas and I looked at each other as if to simultaneously say "We're in!"

"Alright who'll start the bidding at five dollars? five dollars five dollars, five dollars, Five dollars!"

And before we knew it we were the proud owners of a $10 two tiered dark chocolate from scratch cake with cherry, raspberry, rhubarb, cream cheese buttercream frosting.

As we were cleaning up and clearing out the event Mary Lynn passed by and we told her how excited we were to have won her cake.

"Oh no." Her eyes were wide with smile. "That's Chuck's cake. He made it all by himself. Scoured recipes online and came up with it all on his own."

You can imagine Jason and I's surprise and delight! "You're kidding! This is the best."

She shook her head, "I really think we need to give you your money back..." 

"What? We got a great deal!" 

"When he was working on it in the kitchen I could hear all sorts of moving and shuffling around in there... he kept yelling out questions for me. 'Is powdered sugar the same as real sugar?!' And then he did't remember to set a timer. I started to smell something and let out a yelp! He got it out of the oven and was trying to take it from the pan and THUNK it went onto the counter." I'm uncertain of the last time Jason and I were laughing so hard. Mary Lynn put her finger to the side of the cake, testing how hard it really was, grimacing. "Then we had to scrape off the frosting in the middle because he'd had big chunks of butter all through it..."

"Hey! I thought it would probably melt in there." Chuck had come up behind Jason and decided to stand behind his cake and all decisions in the making of it. "I believe I followed all the directions."

"We got it all scraped off and blended it up and spread it back on... ... oh I hope it's alight. Edible at least. I really feel like we aught a have you over and repay you with dinner and another..."

"No repayment necessary!" Jason and I chorused each other. "Now we know the back story I'm sure we couldn't be happy with any other cake."

"Well... I don't know about that." Mary Lynn sighed, her eyes flitting up to Chuck. "But the roses on top are right off Chuck's very own rose bush! And I washed out all the bugs."

We figure we got the best deal of the whole Girl's Camp Fiesta Fundraiser & Cub Scout Cake Auction.

A good story is always worth more than a perfectly crafted two tiered dark chocolate cake frosted with everything you ever wanted in your frosting, frosting (and yes, it really was everything you ever wanted in your frosting, frosting).

harder than...

I was sitting at the end of Jason's hospital bed yesterday, chatting about nothing while he blinked his heavy eyelids slowly and tried to focus on my face—refusing to sleep because he wanted some quality hospital time with his ladyfriend.
I asked him how he was doing, if he needed anything. He blinked half awake again, "Yeah I'm ok." Alright.
We sat there a moment more and his face turned thoughtful. "This is the hardest thing I've been through." Yeah? I echoed. "Yeah. Harder than the transplant. Harder than being bit by a vampire—"
"Huh?"
"Oh... I think I dreamed that... ?"
"Yeah, I think you probably dreamed that."

This conversation brought to you by the makers of high power pain meds and Twilight commercials.


*doing quite a bit better today. pretty sure he'll be headed home tomorrow.

birthday fortunes

May 15 was Jason's birthday (you're 26 dude!) and he spent it in the hospital—just overnight because he was dehydrated and they needed to make sure he was up to his portion of the IVF process... the ever–dreaded TESE (no comment. look it up).

To celebrate his birthday we ordered takeout from PF Changs, because it's Jas' very fave and because when birthday-boy is also hospital-boy he pretty much gets whatever he wants.

After devouring the delish Chinese dinner we each took our fortune cookies.

I cracked mine first. It read:

"You will soon be going on a fun road trip with friends or family."

I said that sounded like it could maybe be in a U-Haul... all the way to Duke?... No? Alright, whatever, I ate the cookie anyway.

Then Jason cracked his. It read:

"You will soon witness a miracle."

And nobody really said anything for a second—the simple message ringing in our ears.

I think the real lesson here is: expensive Chinese food equals much better fortunes.

Or maybe: sometimes our fortunes can be told in cookies? maybe all the prayer and support and faith and worry and love and work will lead to a happy miracle at the end of this, our biggest adventure yet.

Something told me it was so.

In any case that fortune found its home by my sweet penguin friends on my desk. And I think I'll be hanging on to it for a while...

(I can only think of things that are inappropriate, therefore no title.)

Injections started on Tuesday. Fluid Ultrasound went down last Thursday (you don't know what that is? google it up. youch). Pap went down on Monday.

Next week: Sperm Extraction and Egg Retrieval. Week after that: Transfer.

Word.

Now, about those injections.... first one took far too long.

Over an hour and a half of pinching tummy chub while completely psyching myself out over and over and over again. I was positive I had to do it myself, kind of like putting in eye-drops. But then I'd realize I couldn't figure out how to jab a needle into my own skin and hand it over to Jas. Once it was in Jason's hands I would immediately have a complete melt down and start crying and yelling "Give it back! Give it back! No dive-bombing! No surprise attacks!" So he'd hand the needle back over (because he knows what's good for him) and I would resume pinching my stomach and counting to three nine-million times and pausing to either cry or laugh (depending which side of the emotional merry-go-round I was on).

In the end I poked myself twice and drew blood once.

It finally went down while in the office, with Gilmore Girls turned on in the background (to smooth the nerves), my eyes shut, pinching my tummy chub with one hand and squeezing Jason's arm with the other. We counted to three together and he stabbed me in the stomach with the tiniest needle in the universe.

I didn't feel anything.

The following night went much smoother. I think by the time we get to the muscular injections I'll be ready for the challenge.

Yeeeeeah, maybe not.

The Case of the Most Horrible Bathroom in the World

This little Nancy Drew mystery begins in St. George.

Nope! Actually it begins with me telling you that last weekend I made a quick solo trip to Utah to shoot an engagement sesh—and when I say quick trip I mean drive Friday, shoot Saturday, drive Sunday. Pheewph! I was telling peeps it took 7.5 hrs, but I got my math wrong because time change and adding hrs doesn't make a lot of sense in my head. It was 8.5 hrs, with only one pee stop in St. George both ways (because I ROCK at road-trips).

Alrighty, now that we've got that all cleared up....

On the way back to Cali it was time to get some gas because the meter on my dashboard said so; and because it was time for that trip to the ladies room. So I pulled off at good ol George, taking the weird exit with the weird round-about and a weird gas station/super old strip mall hybrid (nobody likes the weird exit).

I fueled up the car and headed into the strip mall/gas station place. A lady who was obviously on a road trip herself (it was something about the glazed over eyes and the smooshed-on-one-side hair) was hustling away from where the restroom sign hung from the ceiling. Destination spotted.

I power-walked over to the bathroom, pushed open the weird swinging door, and the grizzliest stench in the solar system smacked me in the face. The air was thick with the smell, the light was dim with a flickering florescent, and the temperature was noticeably warmer. Gaaag. Guuhhhh. Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about. And don't hate that lady, it's not her fault her stomach hates her. The next thing I saw was the single stall. I submit there is pretty much nothing so awkward than a public bathroom with a single stall and no lock on the main door. Yes, you just stand in here with me and wait while I take care of my business. Whatever. I was already inside.... After getting into the stall I realized the latch did not lock—at all. I can deal with this. If someone comes in I'll just make some noise with the toilet paper roll or something so I don't get barged in on.

Fast forward a minute, things were taken care of, and you guessed it—someone came in through the swinging door. Crap! I rattled the toilet paper way more than necessary, I shuffled my feet around the floor and then, just as I was about the push down the flusher I heard something..... That other person was definitely peeing out there. Where?! My mind thought back: I promise there was only one stall, I know I didn't make that up in my head.

WAIT! What was that weird divider thing by the weird swinging bathroom door?

It hit me. I stopped breathing, it became completely silent. I heard some rustling and then the sink turn on. I leaned backward an inch at a time until I could see through the crack in the stall door. And there at the sink was a very tall gentleman in an extra large white Stetson and very tight Wranglers. A man! A man a man a man a man a man a man had just relieved himself right next to me. If there had been no stall I could have tapped him on the shoulder and said "Excuse me sir, could you kindly give me a moment before you drop your drawers? Thanks."

Once I was sure he was gone I bolted out of that horrible bathroom and ran right across into the ladies (which was like night and day) and I washed my hands for a solid 4 minutes.

lemon juice and beer

I don't know how to explain this story—I don't even know where to begin. So I'll just tell you the end.

As I was drying off from my swim yesterday a guy dumped lemon juice and beer on my head. Then he poured organic coconut oil in my hand to rub on my legs to make them beautifully tan.

Yes he was sane. Yes he was sober.

I just remember covering my eyes a bit and rubbing the beer from them as well as my mouth—which had hung open in shock in the event of an acquaintance telling me he was going to pour the magic bleaching mixture on my head.

Jason asked if he needed to "pound some skulls".
Better not—this guy was mid 40s, pretty buff, bleached hair, very tan and knows karate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Full story:  It was a beautiful day and almost no one at the pool—perfect for a great exercise (i.e. laps back and forth, running in the water which is actually great exercise, mixed with lots and lots of diving for my bright colored torpedos that I and every other 3 yr old in the complex owns).

Near the end of my swim a guy who had been laying by the pool talking on his cell phone gets in for a dip and starts some friendly chatter. I quickly mention my husband to make up for the lack of ring on my finger and he continues on with the light conversation as I tread water. He asks where I'm from. Idaho. He asks if I'm Mormon. Yes. He says he knows some Mormons—some that are really strict and some that aren't. I was confused. They drink coffee and alcohol. Oh, yeah I guess you could say that's not very strict. He asks what I do. I'm a photographer, you? He says he's a teacher. What do you teach? Karate, professional fighting, that sort of thing. Then he does some pull-ups on the metal handles by the stairs out of the deep end. Yeeks. We chat a bit more, he gets out, I finish my swim, do another dive or two (because diving's my favorite) and go to the other side of the pool where my chair/towel are.

As I'm reading and letting myself dry a bit before I head back to the apartment some friends come to the pool. We say hi, a friend sits on the chair next to me helping her little girl slip on some floaties, I continue reading. I'm soon interrupted by tan karate man putting a tall plastic cup of something by my face. "It's beer and lemon juice." I was confused. He knows I don't drink right? I'm one of those "strict" ones. "For your hair. You put it on your hair. I've got this left, don't wanna throw it out, it's great for your hair. It'll make your hair lighter, it's what I use (from his bleached hair I suspected he also used some form of peroxide too)" I shake my head, No thanks. "Here. Here. It's great, great for your hair, helps the sun to bleach it nice and light. Here. I don't want to waste this last bit. Here. Here." I reluctantly hold out my hand in dismay. He pours some in my palm, I slowly bring it to the top of my head. "No, let's just pour it on. That'll be better. Here I'll just pour it on your head. Ok? K. I'll just pour it on your head here." Too stunned to say anything or do anything I sit there as I feel liquid trickle down my scalp, cheeks and shoulders. I blink my eyes and look at my friends around me and their amazed faces.

What in the (insert word of choice here) just happened?

I wipe my eyes and the corner of my mouth where the beer/lemon juice had seeped down.

Next thing I know he is holding a smaller bottle, twisting off the cap "This is oil. Organic coconut oil, imported from (somewhere, I don't remember) put it on your legs and they will tan beautifully. Here. Here." The oil is poured into my hand and I put it on my legs as he straightens up and walks away and through the gate.

A lady I don't know gets out of the pool and says, "Oh how sweet...... is he a friend of yours?"

"No. I just met him."

"You just met him when he dumped beer on your head."

Thoroughly stunned I sit there, eyes sort of glazed over, hands oily and beer dripping from the tips of my hair.

"Uh-ha."

my toes get the star treatment

 

Some gals said they were going to get themselves pedicures and I said "Pedicure? Umm yes please." So yesterday I hopped in the shower right after my workout and took extra time to shave my legs (didn't want to exfoliate the crap out of anybody's hands when they had to massage my legs....I'm really thoughtful like that). And we drove over together, pumped for some ultimate relaxation.


Anybody remember this nail salon?


Our pretty nail ladies sat in a row in front of our chairs, chatting with us. The two girls I went with are in the bebe-business if you know what I mean....totally preggers—like Aubrey's having her babe on Tuesday, Krystal is due middle of May. Krystal and her husband are not finding out what the gender is and the nail ladies were full of tricks and tips of gender-guessing. "You ly sweet o sowa?" "No no no no. Dat one don matta."—"You beby pointy, you having boy. I know."—"You pom soft? Boy. Boy means soft hand."
Then our friendly little ladies turned to me, "You single?" Dang. Forgot to wear my wedding ring. "Nope. I'm married." which I promptly followed up with "But noooooot pregnant." didn't want that awkward conversation. "Oooh. How long you marry?" "Almost three and half years." "You have no beby?" "Nope. Not yet." "Oooh. Time for beby. Beby is niiii. It bring you closa togetha."


Oh I loved it.


Best day of my week. And the leg massage part was heaven aaaaaand my magician-nail-lady made my teensy-toenails look normal and nice and not abnormally small and freaky.


I think I'll be going back. Next month? I'm sure we can work it in the budget.


When it was all over I ended up with blue Hawaiian flowers on my big toes. I must have agreed to it.... somewhere in the middle the "what?"s and "oh. ok..."s. Definitely not a royal blue girl, woulda asked for a nice coral with gold sparkles, but it's all good. I think she was just matching my toes with my skirt (which I'm pretty sure, by the angle of the chair, peeps could see straight up).


Next time I'll wear a coral sweater.

no elbows on the table and other things like that

British flag image source

The other day I learned a bit about table etiquette (the old things you know—with soup spoon away from you, sit up straight always, never lean down to your food instead bring your food up to your mouth, no elbows on the table–duh! bread to your left–drink to your right, napkin in your lap....those sorts of things).

At dinner time Jas and I decided to practice our manners............

I'll just say that our fancy pants dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup ended in both of us speaking with British accents, two backaches, three counts of pepper in teeth and a big drip of soup right down the front of my shirt.

"Betta luck next time yeh jolly ol chap!"

somebody's looking for some attention

The sink was empty, the counters were sparkly clean...... I decided it was a good time to take advantage of our Clorox Wipes fetish. So I turned on my tunes (Bubble Toes/Express Yourself - Jack Johnson actually. it's an old fave) and started setting up shots for some more photos of our pad for the apartment tour (you did remember we were in the middle of an apartment tour, didn't you? you didn't? well. maybe that's because it's been going on for about five months now! sheesh lady pull yourself together!)


Well! After setting up a particularly difficult shot of the kitchen sink somebody grabbed me and decided it was time for a dance number in the kitchen (thus the photo of the cereal boxes above). See, we've been learning some pretty rad duets from Just Dance. After that number was finished some little fella just kept on partying without me and popping into my photos. And when I say "popping" I mean popping. Like literally popping.


I think he might have been begging for some attention or something. I like him.

Annnnyway, here's some Jack because I really like him and because I like dancing to this song and because we're wearing our matching shoes and because I think it's fun to get a little jiggy wid it once in a while.

(more apt photos coming soon—like tomorrow.)

So I told you how much I love the LB Airport right?

Well I really do.

I flew out of there by my own little self on Monday, to get to Idaho and work my buns off before the holidays, and everything went without a hitch. So much better than that other airport in LA called LAX or something real hip like that (I have lovingly named it Big Ol Nasty). All airports are hopping, even the cute little ones like the Long Beach Airport. There is always somebody talking over the intercom: "Don't leave your belongings unattended somebody might put drugs or something in them or they might just steal them altogether." "Increased security.... we can search you however/whenever we want." etc.

Well, while I and my fellow passengers were waiting to board the plane a guy's voice came on saying, "May I have your attention, this is Tyrone from the Long Beach Airport Lounge. Will the person who was pushing a wheelchair come back to The Lounge and pick up the wheel chair and its passanger?"

A) The LB Airport has been signed, sealed, delivered--I'm in love for life.
B) I think I'm going to be real picky about who gets to push me in my wheel chair.

Anyway, it's good to be back in Idaho--snow and wind and cold and all. It's where all of our Idahoan peeps are! And I'm so happy we get to have a white Christmas.

p.s. when you fly on planes and take things in tubes (foundation, zit cream, face wash.....) does something bad happen and every time you try to use those items the stuff on the inside shoots out whenever the lid is off? it's really messy and really buggy. is there anything to make it STOP?! my face looked all sorts of nasty today because too much foundation came out and I was not about to waste any of that stuff!

FHE bombed and then we went to Yogurtland

not sure where this photo came from... but if you know let me know!

Jason's idea for our fun Family Home Evening activity last night was to go through the budget over the next few months, because I guess that's what grown-ups have to do.... After about 4 grueling hours (we somehow managed to make it take waaaay too long) of going through papers and numbers and guessing on what will happen in our future and remembering everything that happened in the last few months I was ready to die. Because we were so into the awesome activity we never did have a spiritual message. Maybe when we read scriptures later that counted? Oh well, better luck next time.


Even though Jason thinks budgeting is a fun activity I think it is awful. Totally awful. I hate numbers and calculators and long division and trying to remember the past in detail. It'll make your head explode! But I guess it's good to know where your money is going every once in a while—it's what grownups do. Right? A funny little side note: I took a whole class on budgeting at BYU-I. I left that class everyday with my mind doing twirly-wirlies. Too much for me... and it'll only get worse I'm sure.


Anyway, after those 4 hours of punishment (yes, the whole time I was trying to think of what it was I did to deserve it. I honestly couldn't come up with anything) we were both thoroughly overwhelmed and I declared that we needed to get out and eat some fruit—in the form of Jamba Juice (because we still have a gift card from graduation or birthday or last Christmas or something). Jas was game, we threw on our shoes—who am I kiddin? I hate shoes—in my case, flip flops,  and ran to Jamba. It was 9:56 as we pulled into the parking lot and read on the door that this particular Jamba closes at 9:30 on Mondays and Tuesday and other days it feels like it. (k, not sure what the other closing times were, you caught me. sorry. but it's a different time almost everyday and every time we go it's doors are locked and the guy is sweeping up in the back. I know that because I can see him through the window.)


This naturally sent me into a depression, especially when Jason said we should go back home and go to bed. I was like "No way! I hate our bed!" (oh, I forgot to tell you the part where we were holding our little FHE of punishment on top of our bed with all of the documents spread all around us. guuhhh.) So he took me to Yogurtland because all good things come from Yogurtland. (I know, I know, I said we broke up, but if you haven't tried it you don't know just how hard that break up could be!) And I got peppermint and dark chocolate and thought I died and went to stupid-budget-anyway-heaven!


Then we came home, threw in Elf, ate our frozen yogurt and laughed ourselves silly! (so much funnier than we remembered) And our brains healed from the budgeting and we were happy again. Yay!


Oh, and I worked on our Christmas decor....... which was in fact inspired by Elf. We left all of our Christmas decor in storage at my parents because we must have thought that there was no Christmas where there isn't snow. But let me tell you—there sure is! I've been listening to Christmas music just as soon as the clock struck Nov 1 (yesssssss, I am one of those people). So I have been making our Christmas decorations, one piece of paper at a time and this place is about to look like a winter-wonderland! So excited.

The End.

i was a telemarketer once

and I promised myself that was one thing I would never–never be.

(I think I promised myself that the same day I promised myself that I

wouldn't smoke or drink things like vodka and rum and oh yeah, beer.

Now that I've let myself down in the whole telemarketing thing who

knows what I'll do to let down my super-strong-convictions I have

built on my now shaky moral ground!)

I signed up for a telethon fundraiser to earn money for SCCO.

(me and my stupid guilty conscience—signing up for service!)

I don't think I was properly prepared for what I would be getting into.

For some reason I forgot that I would be calling real people, asking

them to donate real money. Now that I think about it, not really sure

what I thought I would be doing. I don't think I really thought about it.

After the lady with the tank-top/fanny-pack combo got done with her

whole spill (she even had a paper-easel-thing and she transformed what

was the anatomy lab into a room full of phones and smily faces taped

onto the wall. I thought that was endearing.) I sat there and looked at the

"script" we were supposed to speak from. Well it was around this time

the sweating started. (you remember my little issue with sweating, right?

I still gotta look into that a bit further.) I read through the whole thing.

I got up and got a handful of plain m&ms. And then I sat there and

stared at my white telephone and the doctor's name I couldn't pronounce.

Fanny-pack lady said that we should expect to get mostly answering

machines the entire night. I guess there isn't much speaking to the

actual doctors that happens during these nights of calling.

Not sure how long I went between the little card and the telephone,

but after some time had passed (and after I listened to the fellow

behind me dial in his first call and get his first answering machine.)

I popped two blue m&ms in my mouth and dialed in the digits.

One ring.

Two ring.

(don't pick up! please don't pick up!)

Three ring.

"Hello?"

*insert swear word here.*

"Oh! Hi. Uhhh. Hi. I'm Geri Egbert, I am a spouse of a first year

student at Souther California College of Optometry..." then I

asked for the doctor and then he said it was him and then I went

stammering on... "Oh! Oh. Ok. Great, good, Um, I guess I wasn't

expecting someone to answer. Um. Actually, I'm calling to—I'm

sorry, I'm just really really really nervous!"

And then the guy donated 500 big ones!

And my fingers ached from the death grip I had on the phone.

The rest of the night wasn't as successful for me. (but I did get the

most contacts with actual doctors in the whole group. so I'm not

saying that I don't rock.) There were, indeed lots and lots of

answering machines, not homes, wrong numbers and even one

hang up! (I tried really hard not to take that one personal.)

All I gots to say is that I'm pretty much an awesome telemarketer.

Too bad I don't see a career of it in my future.

(nope not doing that again. I only have to learn lessons once

thank you very much. well, except for that whole procrastination

thing—I keep having to learn that one over and over.)

the end.

p.s. tell all your friends to vote for Jason!

a short love story about a girl and yogurtland

Jason got a gift card to Yogurtland from his mentor (I still giggle a little

bit when I say that Jason has a mentor) at school. Well this made me

pretty much pumped because I love frozen yogurt and there are a few

fro-yo joints round these parts that are begging to be tested out. Jason was

happy to go because we had a gift card and he likes almost anything.

I was in love the minute we walked in the door. The fresh and simple

design was calling me by name, the selection of flavors was fantastic

and the sampling of toppings were perfect. Once I took the first bite

I knew that me and Yogurtland were about to be hommies for life.

(honestly the best, creamiest fro-yo ever. ever. promise.)

After we finished up and were getting ready to leave (but don't you

worry, I was plotting my quick return) I saw something so sad.

Heartbreaking actually.

Yogurtland cheated on me.

After viewing their seamless, simple design and giving a swift

nod of approval I saw it. The swanky little harlot that has managed

to sneak her way into craft stores, book covers, wedding invitations,

clothing, business fronts, stationary, you name it.

Papyrus.

(did I just hear "dun–dun–dun" in my ears?)

Oh no! Not Yogurtland!

Sorry dude. We had a nice run you and me, but I just can't say you're

my fave if you have three full length posters fully set in Papyrus.

I'll try to get over you.

(but not yet because we still have half of our

gift card to use and hey, I don't believe in being wasteful.)

we are alive and in california.

or i guess i could say we are living in CA.


so we didn't get the official memo that stated the part about refrigerators
not being included in a fully-applianced-up apartment. let's just say our
emergency fund (also known as a VISA credit card) found a shiny, slightly
dinged, maybe a tad scratched, but nice and cool home. (we bought our
first fridge at the sears outlet store right next to home depot for less than
half  the original price. it's a beauty. we tried our luck with craigs list. gag.
AND the nice maintenance man's stash in his garage.. yikes! i'll be telling
that whole story later if you are interested.)


awesome.


our first day we stopped at walmart for the bare essentials (water, garbage
bags, toilet paper-my fave) and met a disgruntled check-out-girl who,
after learning that jason and i had just pulled into town, told us to run. to
"get out. get out of orange county now." the shock of actually moving to a
completely different state had been getting to me since we came over the
hill and saw the smog earlier that afternoon. i didn't need a cashier telling
me to run! i swallowed the lump in my throat and smiled and decided that i
needed to meet some people who like it here.


and then i did.


we met lots of people who love it here and the feeling of nausea/excuse-me-
i-might-start-crying-now went away because i realized that i can love it
anywhere (especially if we're talking palm trees outside my bedroom
window and 80 degrees and sunny all year round. but i have learned that
the warm weather brings different bugs onto the scene and i am not too
pumped about that! i've even met a few of the creepy creatures already
and it did not go well.)  if you know me you know that change is hard for
me and that i get really attatched to family and friends. but change is good
and i pretty much always like adventures and if this isn't an adventure...


now we're still setting the place up (need to decide what to hang on what
wall), jason has started optometry school and i'm blogging from jason's
laptop (had to take my own dang computer in for repairs on the LCD screen
that is getting all splotchy and foggy. when i took it in to the apple store
they assured me that it was still under warranty, but that the warranty
runs out at the front of september. somebody is looking out for me!)
the job search will officially begin on monday i believe (oh boy) and once i
get my apple back i will be working away at the photos i have neatly piled
up from the past little while. (if you are a client and you are reading this,
thank you for being so patient!)


and not to worry, photos of the place will come soon too!
i promised rachael a full-on-tour. lucky you.
we love it. (lots of closets and places to store all of our crap-ola!)


it's going to be home in no time.