Just some photos

I have been practicing and still have a LONG ways to go, but I thought I would post some pictures I had taken recently. Some of my nephew for his first birthday and some of my nieces for their school pictures. I am pretty lucky to have family let me borrow their children to practice on since I have none of my own. The way I figure it, I will get all my crappy photos and jacked up photo shopped pictures and be pro with my own kids. Think it'll happen? Yeah...I didn't think so either. I think I'll be a beginner for a while. Oh. I quit my job. Can I get a Woot Woot!

Life

I know I haven't posted anything in a really long time. Sorry about that. Just thought I would update what has been happening with us over the past couple of years.

JOB...
It felt like forever while trying to find a job, but it finally happened. I took a position working for a dental corporation in Phoenix, Arizona. I never wanted to work for a corporation, still don't really care for it, but it is a job and I am gaining experience. I have had some negative experiences with the company and have come home crying many times over the past two years. I won't say what company I work for, because I don't want this post to be stumbled upon by someone and it affect me long term and with other jobs in the future. I do have some great co-workers and they make it at least tolerable to go to work.

MOVING...
I like Phoenix and do not mind the heat. I do wish that I lived closer to family. It is so hard living 12+ hours away but still wanting to go home for birthday parties, baby showers, etc. This whole twice a year thing sucks. I am pretty lucky and have a husband that understands that I get homesick and will fly me home for the weekend a couple of times a year, just to get my Utah fix. The first 6 months I lived in Phoenix, I was by myself. I would commute back to St. George on the weekends to spend time with the hubby. That got old fast, but it was nice to get my Utah fix on a weekly basis :). It was sooo nice when Jared was finally able to finish the semester and work and move here with me.

SCHOOL...
I finished my bachelor's degree!!! I am ecstatic to have that thing finished and over with! I did my senior project on preventing injury and musculosketal disorders in dental hygiene. It was interesting and minus the stress of doing the project, the best part of my BS degree. Which brings me to the next section of the update.

PAIN...
The reason I chose to complete my senior project on this topic was because I have been having some neck and arm issues associated with the practice of dental hygiene. Throughout the day I get sharp pains in the back of my neck and shoulder. Occasionally, I will also have numbness/tingling down my left arm. ANNOYING! I was seeing a physical therapist 2 x week for almost 7 months with a little improvement, but it always comes back. It has been so frustrating not only at work, but trying to find a comfortable position to relax in is hard as well. Sleeping is annoying because if I lay in a position for too long my entire left arm goes numb or the sharp pains rear their ugly little heads. Had an MRI a few weeks ago which should minimal bulging in a few cervical vertebra. but basically nothing out of the ordinary. I saw a pain management doctor a few weeks ago and she wants to run a few tests. I am hoping I can get to the root cause of this soon and be able to move on with life normally. As you can probably guess between the pain and company I work for, I don't really like my job right now.

LAKE...
Jared and I have been spending a lot of time at the lake this summer. We live about 15 miles from Lake Pleasant and have been heading out about 1-2 x a week. Jared's new thing is wake surfing. It has been so fun learning how to surf. It really freaks some of the people we take out filling up the ballasts and extra fat sacks and tipping the boat to one side to get a really nice wake. It kinds sucks that he is so into cause he doesn't like to dump everything to let me wake board. I still am learning at that as well and I don't need a huge wake. This is my first year driving a boat. I have tried before, but it felt weird and made me uncomfortable. There were also always plenty of people willing to drive that it was never an issue, but this year I have had to step up. I still am not very comfortable but am starting to get the hang of it. It still makes me super nervous towing someone when there are a couple of other boats around us. Still have to learn how to trailer the boat, but for now I'll let Jared keep doing that. We took a couple of Jared's deacons out with us yesterday and it made me excited when we will get to take our own kids out.

JARED...
Jared has been going to school at ASU. He will finish up his bachelor degree in finance in May we are hoping. School is not Jared's most favorite thing, but he is doing well and can't wait to be done. He is thinking about going to law school, so we may have another big change coming up in the next year or so. I am so proud of him for working so hard to accomplish everything he wants. Jared is currently working with the deacons in church and loves being able to go on camp outs and hanging out the the boys at activities. It has been a blessing seeing him enjoy church a little more and setting an example to the boys. I get to work with 8 yr old cub scouts. I think I am more disciplined than the other leaders, but the boys still seem to have fun and I don't get as annoyed with them because they know I am serious when I ask them to stop doing something or they subject to the consequence.

I have an awesome husband who bought me a nice camera for Christmas. I have always wanted one and he surprised my by exceeding our $100 limit on a Canon 60D. I still want to take a class, just haven't looked into it yet. It is hard, but something I always admire and I mostly just want it to be able to get great shots of my family and my kids one day. I took some photos of my nephew for his 1st birthday. That was fun! I've posted some of those below. I am excited to keep learning.

Hopefully it will be more frequent than a year from now that I post something here :) Oh. side note, just got my 1st smart phone this week for my birthday :) It has been way to long. Don't worry nothing fancy just the free iPhone when you update your contract.

Love,
Jenny

Home

I love being able to spend time with my family. I never realized how much joy, peace, comfort, love, and gratitude I feel every time I have the pleasure of going home. I miss home. I miss the small town atmosphere. I miss feeling at ease walking outside of my house. I miss being able to go for a walk by myself with out feeling like I will get run over by some motorist flying down the street. I miss the slow pace. I just miss it. I want that part of my life back. Seriously, I wish I could sleep with my windows open every night and only hear the trees rustling, the crickets chirping, and maybe a sprinkler or two. Those are the sounds of home. I want to go home. I wish life would allow me the opportunity. Sadly, I know that right now I am required elsewhere. I hope one day I will be able to enjoy that peace and comfort all the time.

Changes

I seriously hate constantly feeling like I am limbo. It makes it hard to just be happy with life. While I am trying my darndest to find a job, it is a very slow and frustrating process. But since I don't have any control over the economy or the fact that I don't have all the experience employers want, I keep my head up and just keep searching. That is all you can do right?

Well there is one thing I can control, that is my hair.

Here is a few shots of before.....

Here is after... (sorry I was lazy and my hair would not cooperate and I didn't want to put make-up on. Not that you can tell much of difference when I have it on and when I don't. wow, now I am just rambling...)



As you can tell MUCH shorter!!! I think I ended up cutting around 12" off in the back (it's an A-Line cut) and closer to 9-10" in the front! I am so excited to see all of that hair gone!!!

***SPRING CLEANING***

The vain of my existence for the past 3 days. Monday as I was sitting outside in the warm sun reading a book, I decided it would be a fantastic idea to do some spring cleaning this week. WHAT IN THE H$*! was I thinking?! Seriously it has taken me forever! But it is worth it. We bought our house about 3 years ago and not once have I done a deep spring clean. I mean I keep my house pretty clean, but I don't wash the blinds or the walls or the floorboards every time I clean so needless to say, it needed to be done.

When I told my husband about this idea, I could see it in his eyes, "NO!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I AM ON SPRING BREAK!" but his awesome mouth said, "Okay I'll help you." I don't think he knew how serious I was about this whole cleaning thing until he came home after work on Tuesday and found all of the furniture shoved into the dining room so I could properly wash the walls and floorboards. I am pretty sure he was thinking, "What the heck did I get myself into." But being the good sport he is, went and looked at the list and started cleaning the window sills. (YEAH!! I didn't really want to do that one.)

Seriously, when I told him I wanted to wash all the walls, he was like, "Why, the walls don't get dirty." Do you want to see proof that your walls get dirty, even if they don't look like it. I'll show you.

The water was this dirty after cleaning...

...this much hallway. Seriously gross.

Well it is now Thursday and I am almost finished! (I just have a few things left to do in the master bedroom and I am done!) Thank Heavens for a clean house!

Picky Eater

You may or may not have noticed from my last post, but I am an EXTREMELY picky eater. Don't believe me? Just ask anyone of my family members, they will set you straight. Seriously as I sit updating this blog, I am eating one of those Little Debbie oatmeal cookies. You know, the ones that are soft and chewy on the outside with the cream in the middle. Yes, those ones. Well lets just say the wrapper has as much frosting on it as I could manage to get off the cookie part. Don't ask me why, I just think it tastes funny. Bonus for me, less calories :) but who's counting?

One time when I was about 6, my mom made me a sandwich made out of wheat bread. I refused to eat it. I seriously would not eat any of it. My mom, being the awesome mother that she is, made me sit there until I ate it. I honestly remember sitting there for over an hour. I think she made me eat half of it at that point and let me go play.

Another time, (sorry I may have told this story before) my parents were not home and the older kids were left in charge. We had Sloppy Joe's for dinner that night. (enough said right!!) Once again I refused to eat it. My brothers were not as nice as my mom in this instance. One held me down while the other duct taped me to the chair and tried to force feed it to me.

This picky eater nightmare stills happens to me and I make my own food now! what the ... Let me explain. Sometimes in Church they use this wild oat wheat bread stuff for the sacrament bread. I dread the days that bread appears on the tray. It seriously makes me gag every time I have to eat a morsel of that bread. All I think about the entire time is, "can you hurry up and pass the water already!!" I know I should be cast down to Hell right now. I am pretty pathetic.

So sorry in advance if you ever invite me over to your house for dinner and I just push the food around on my plate. No offense. I just don't like very much. (I know, I'll never get invited to any one's house after this! That's okay if you want, we'll just go out with you instead.)

Love, Jenny

TrUe StOrY tHuRsDaY

I honestly don't know how people post daily or even have multiple posts a day. I have a hard time thinking of a good story once a week! Alright I lied. I usually only think of a story as I am sitting here about to write the post. which as you guessed is why some are lame. 

Jared and I are pretty stubborn. Neither of us likes to cook or do the dishes. This is why for the first three years of our marriage we ate out. So much in fact my sister and sister-in-law each gave me a magnet.

When we were first married, I LOVED eating out. Growing up in a large family, we only went out on special occasions. So when we were able to go out every night, I always got excited. Now when we go out it is more of chore and not fun. I miss eating out being fun and special. 

I really hate deciding what to make for dinner and Jared always says, "I don't know, something good." I hate that answer. We are usually hungry right then so we just go out and get something. This resulted in us paying like $500 a month on restaurants, not to mention the regular grocery bill of $ 150 a month.  WHAT?! Seriously $650 a month on food for 2 people. You would think we ate like kings! Yes we were crazy.

You want to know what we do now and how much we spend?

This is our Monthly Food Chart. I tell you what. IT works wonders!

 1- No more having to think about what's for dinner

2- Grocery shopping is a snap!

3- $$$ BIG SAVINGS $$$

Wanna see a close up? Yeah I thought you would. You are probably thinking, "Yeah ideas for dinner!" Your welcome!



You may be wondering why every Saturday has Jared's name on it. Well I think Jared can handle dinner one night a week. That means I don't have to do a dang thing on that day! Yeah!! This usually means we go out because Jared won't cook. Once a week is so much better than everyday!

Now our grocery bill is a little more and our restaurant bill is WAY less. Instant savings!! Grocery bill $350 restaurant bill $120 for a total of $470. Savings = $180 a month (figures are approx.)

The tricky part was getting this thing started. I am a picky eater so the first month was killer! I would ask anyone that I knew, "What's your favorite meal?" If it sounded good it went on the list. I then started to stick them into the calender with similar meals spread apart. After that it is just sticking to it. If you don't want whats planned for the day, To bad just eat it anyway. The next month was a little easier. I already had a little over a month and a half a meals on the list so it was just mixing them up a bit. So really we only have the same meal once a month or so.  It works out great for us.

For Christmas my parents gave us a cow. So now I have a freezer full of roasts, steaks, and hamburger. Know of any good recipes? Please share!

One Down...

Yeah finally!! I finished a project! I decided to reupholster our dining room chairs.I bought them used from my cousin and have wanted to do it forever. They weren't in terrible shape, just stained.

Before

After

It is hard to tell but the fabric is an ivory color and has a swirly-viny print. They look pretty good. The most annoying part was trying to sew the corners of the back rest. I could not figure it out. I finally just hand-stitched them. I am glad I decided to do it.  Don't worry I scotch guarded them pretty dang good so hopefully they don't get stained to bad. 

One project down... Bathroom is still being worked on. I finished everything I can, now I have to wait until Jared has a break from school so he can finish the plaster work so I can paint and then done!