Travel Agent

When my sister and I went to Paris in 2009, she let me plan the whole trip.  It was so much fun.  I did TONS of research, read tons of websites, and got almost everything I could in advance.  Our trip went off without a hitch and everything went smoothly.

 

So when my husband suggested we talk to a travel agent about this trip, I was VERY skeptical.  VERY.  Like….I had a pretty bad attitude.  I mean…if I can plan a 9 day trip to Paris by myself like I did in 2009, why in the heck would we need a travel agent?  I CAN DO IT.

 

But husband was very ‘pro’ travel agent.  He used one when we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon.  And I will admit….our honeymoon was awesome.  The travel agent got us one free night at our 5 star hotel.  She also booked us at a smaller, more intimate luau a few minutes away from our hotel that was completely AMAZING.  She did this because she said the luau held at our hotel each night was super crowded (it was, and we never would have known it).  She was an expert on traveling Hawaii, especially Maui.  So…it was helpful.

 

But…I was still skeptical.  However, I went along with it and tried to have an open mind.  We met him a few weeks ago.  He was a VERY nice older gentleman that my husband found on Angie’s List (he got the best reviews).  We met our traveling buddies there.  Within the first 10 minutes I flat out asked him how he made his money.  It was a valid concern!  If he was going to quote us a price on something and I found it online for cheaper, than why would we use him?  He explained to me how it works.  He gets the same prices that we do online, sometimes better.  However, he gets paid a commission by the ‘vendor’ of whatever we are buying.  So, if he books us a hotel through a particular website (specific to travel agents), that website pays him anywhere from 5 – 12% of the total purchase (and I’m assuming that the hotels pay the website that pays him….I’m not sure how all that works).  For instance, while we were there, he booked our train tickets from Paris to Ghent through Thalys (one of the major high-speed train companies in Europe).  I’m assuming that Thalys pays the website, and the website pays Dave (our agent).  So we, as the customer, don’t pay him at all and pay the same price as if we would have booked it ourselves online.  Okay.  I felt a little better.

 

He’s been to Europe multiple times.  When we were talking to him about our short stay in London, he had some great ideas.  When we were originally thinking about staying at an inexpensive hotel further from the city center, he gently reminded us that we would have our luggage with us and no car, so staying near a major subway station would probably be wiser.  He was right.  He showed us a map of London and showed us that we would only have to take the ‘tube’ to one of our planned outings (the Tower).  Everything else would be in walking distance from our hotel, including the largest subway station (Victoria).  Meaning…when we leave for Paris to get on the Chunnel, we will only have to walk about 300 feet with our luggage.  That’s important.  He also told us to get a spot by the fence EARLY to watch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.  He told us that usually the ‘fish’ served with the ‘fish and chips’ so popular in London sometimes has the skin on one side still.  GOOD TO KNOW and, ew.  Stuff like that.

 

While our friends were there with us, he pulled up his super-secret website that listed all of the tours and special things we could do in Paris.  He turned his computer around so that me and Nancy could ‘drive’ and see and make a list of everything we wanted to do.  The tour packages included tickets, transportation, etc.    Like Versailles…..tickets, transportation and a clear description about what was included (we are going Saturday and staying Saturday night for the fountain show).  

 

The skeptic in me is still going to price it out individually on my own, but we got a very good idea of the types of things we want to do and seen some things that I NEVER would have thought of on my own.  Like spend an hour ‘behind the scenes’ in a French bakery and learn how to make macaroons.  We will do this for sure as long as our friends get there in time.  Anyways….he can set that up for us last minute if we want, while we are in Paris.  Very helpful.

 

He doesn’t make any money off of booking airfare.  Which is really too bad for him, because that’s definitely the most expensive part of any trip.  He told us he makes the most money off of tours…especially 3-4 night river cruises, stuff like that.  But he also makes money off of hotels and trains too.  I think he made $10 for booking our train tickets (which took him about 3 minutes).  He will booked our hotel in London so he made a commission on that too, AND it was $13 cheaper than the price I found online.  

 

Soooo…..he was helpful.  And very nice.  Especially considering we were there for like two hours on a Saturday night.  I’m sure he had much better things to do.  He even talked to one of our friends about possibly becoming an agent when she showed interest (they can work from home).  He gave her all kinds of information.  He also answered all of their questions about flying standby (which is what they are doing) and was very knowledgeable.  They liked him a lot too.

 

So.  There you have it.  I’m a believer for the most part now.  I still will check prices online for some things first, but that’s just the crazy couponer/YNABer in me coming out.  I can’t help myself!

Favorite Blogs

I don’t read as many blogs as I used to.  Ones that I used to check every day I’ve found that I check maybe once a week or once a month.  My all-time favorite blog, Young House Love, stopped blogging.  Boo!!  Oh well.  So I can cross them off the list.  Lately I seem to check websites every day instead of blogs.

Here’s the few I still check in on occasionally:      

www.ABeautifulMess.com

I check this one about every other day.  It is run by 2 sisters, Elsie and Emma.  The blog was started by Elsie YEARS ago.  I followed her way back then.  She got her own line of scrapbooking products, which were really cute.  She then began painting. Then her blog grew, her sister joined her, and now they have around 10 people working for them and have built a million dollar company.  The blog is a little bit of everything, but here’s why I read it regularly:  

*Emma is a cook, and is also a vegetarian.  So there are TONS of vegetarian recipes on the site.  I’ve made a few of them and they are really good. 

*They offer a lot of e-courses.  I haven’t taken any of them  yet, but I have one that I purchased that is ready for me whenever I want.  It is a DSLR Basics class.

*There’s plenty of content.  They post usually twice a day and usually once on the weekends.  I skim a lot of their posts (like their fashion ones…because their style is soooooo not me).  But I read most of the others.

*They created a photo editing app, which is just amazing.  It is sooooo easy to use.  It’s .99, and worth every penny.  All of my pictures in Instagram that are collages or have text or doodles on them were edited from their app.  This app is what was a game changer for their company I think.  It was a huge hit.

*They introduced me to Kelly Moore bags.  Enough said.

Here’s a few that I check once every now and then (usually once a week or once a month)

www.thepioneerwoman.com

Everyone knows who she is.  I used to check every day, but not so much anymore.  I like her Home & Garden section the most.

www.theartofdoingstuff.com

This is written by a DIY maniac (I mean that in a nice way) that lives in a super old house in Canada.  She is hilarious.  And she has chickens.

http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/

My favorite organizing blog, hands down.  Jen is awesome.  I check this one usually twice a week.

www.theboldsoul.com

I’ve been reading about Lisa’s journey of moving to Paris for a few years now.  I love reading her blog about her life in Paris and especially her ‘No Love Locks’ campaign to keep the ‘love locks’ off of the beautiful bridges in Paris.  I emailed her a few months ago and attached a brochure that I found at Jared Jewelers (of all places) advertising a new line of ‘love lock’ jewelry they have.  Sickening.  She emailed me right back and thanked me for my support.  I told her how I ranted in the jewelry store (yes, I actually ranted).  Tourists need to STOP doing this.  Anyways, she was very sweet.  I like her blog.

And….that’s pretty much it as far as blogs go.  I just don’t read them like I used to.

There are a few websites that I check every day though:

www.weightwatchers.com

The message boards.  Always helpful, sometimes entertaining.

http://forum.youneedabudget.com/

YNAB, YNAB, YNAB.   The forums (message boards) are by people who are using the product.  You can post questions, complaints (although I have yet to see a complaint), success stories, random things, anything on these boards.  I am not a participant, but I could be if I wanted to I suppose.  I just read read read read read.  The forums are open to everyone, although there are certain areas that are blocked unless you create an account (which is free), like the Journals.  The Journals are amazing.  These are what I read the most.  I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. on Saturday a few weeks ago reading one journal.  I couldn’t put it down!  She started journaling her financial journey a couple years ago, and so there were pages and pages and she is still journaling.  People write about their budgeting wins, losses, plans, getting out of debt, living on a super tight budget, how to make extra money, etc.  It is just very inspiring and I love reading them.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…YNAB is amazing.  I highly suggest it to anyone who needs a budget tool.  I converted my sister and she is a believer now as well.

www.cnn.com

I don’t watch our local news or any news for that matter on the television, so I read CNN for the latest headlines just so I’m not completely oblivious to what is going on in the world.

That’s pretty much it.  I used to check People.com daily but now I check it maybe once a week.  I’m finding that the older I get, the less I care about celebrities.  My time is too valuable to waste it reading about what Kim Kardashian wore (or didn’t wear) or who is dating whom.  I just don’t care.  

I’d rather read about a single mother of 3 who manages to live on practically nothing each month due to her incredible budgeting with YNAB.  Or the woman who moved with her husband and two kids to England and bought a fixer-upper house, sharing her budgeting ups and downs along the way.  :)

Fashion Show! Fashion Show! Fashion Show at Lunch!

If you are not a fan of The Office, or Mindy Kaling, you will not get the title of this blog post.  So, sorry.  And if you aren’t a fan of The Office, well, you should be.  Ha ha.

You know how when you go shopping for clothes, take 10 items into the dressing room, and almost all of them fit perfectly and you love them?  Yep….that happens to me all the time.  Said NO ONE EVER. 

Except, this actually happened to me a couple of weekends ago.  It was just one of those shopping trips where everything fell into place.

One of the items on my vacation ‘to-do’ list was to get some new clothes.  My old clothes are fine, and I will be bringing a lot of them with me.  But I needed a few new pieces.  First, the entire week we are in Belgium, we are not to wear denim of any kind.  Which means….no jeans, no denim Capri pants…no denim.  So I needed to get some capris that were of a different material and possibly some flowy skirts to wear too.  That’s 7 days of outfits (3 assembly outfits included).  I made a mental list of at least 3-4 pairs of capri pants, 3 new skirts, and maybe a couple new shirts. 

After I consulted my husband and YNAB, I set a budget of $150.  Which seems like a lot, but not really when I was counting on 9 or 10 (at least) new pieces of clothing.  So I hit up Goodwill first ha ha.

I rarely shop at Goodwill, so I’m glad that I was able to find something.  I got two pairs of like new capri pants.  A navy pair (Ralph Lauren), and a khaki pair (Old Navy).  They both fit and I swear they look brand new.  Grand total for both pairs?  $9.25.  Woo hoo!

Next, I went to Ross.  Ross is a great store, but you have to DIG.  And sometimes you will find nothing, and sometimes you will find everything.  I hit the jackpot over the weekend.  I took 10 items into the dressing room with me, and I bought 8 of them. 

Here’s my loot-

1 pair of black capris:

4 skirts (one not pictured):

One of these doesn’t quite fit yet, so I probably won’t take that one to Europe.  But the other 3 are coming with me.  Two black and one navy.

3 shirts:

All colorful because my skirts are dark.

My grand total for clothing at Ross?  $93.  Which means I have $47 left in my clothing budget for Europe.  I will probably go to Old Navy (or Ross again) to get some more casual shirts to wear in London and Paris (where I will be wearing the heck out of my denim ha ha).  And at Ross, $47 will go a long ways!

I love successful shopping trips, I wish they could all be like that!

This Is Why

This post is kind of all over the place, so I apologize.  I’m just sort of writing down all of my feelings, so bear with me.  

 

We’ve been in the French group now for 2.5 years.  

 

Let me preface this by saying that we have never really wavered in our decision to stay in the French group.  We’ve never thought about returning to English and even if we ever leave New Mexico, the next place that we live MUST have a French group or congregation.  

 

But…..it’s hard.  And ‘hard’ is an understatement.  We are SO busy.  We both work full-time.  I leave the house each morning by 6:30 and get home anywhere between 3:45 – 5:30.  Husband leaves around 8:30 and gets home around 6:30 or so.  There’s the house to take care of, the dogs, studying for English meeting, studying for French meeting (which takes 2-3 times longer), chores, errands to run, vet appointments, public talk scheduling (my husband does this and it involves contacting and coordinating with speakers from Texas, Colorado, Arizona and California), service, meeting parts (in both English and French), selling my mother-in-law’s house, planning an overseas trip, I could go ON AND ON AND ON.  

 

So needless to say, life in the French group can be very overwhelming.  Take everything that you would normally do as a person in the truth and times the difficulty factor by at least two.  For example, PREPARATION.  We usually start preparing for our Wednesday night meeting the weekend before, (the meeting consists of ½ French and ½ English).  Comments MUST be prepared in advance.  I read every scripture ahead of time, because I never know which ones the conductor will ask to be read and I want to be prepared.  I highlight the ones I am comfortable with (just stuff you don’t even think about in English, you know?).  We try to start studying for our weekend meeting on Thursday or Friday.  Again….very time consuming.  We use the Simplified edition which you would think would help a lot, but it is still difficult.  I study only in French first, but when I prepare my comments or I don’t understand something, I have to refer to my English magazine.  

 

Talks….lots of preparation.  Google Translate is evil, so I don’t use it often.  I use what I already know, Word Reference (an amazing app) and my Verb book.  Which makes things accurate, but it takes FOREVER.

 

And….we only have 35 publishers in our group.  So for a ‘regular’ sized congregation (60 – 100?) preparing 1 or 2 comments is sufficient.  In French?  It’s more like 7 or 8, especially for the Sunday meetings.  Same with talks/assistant parts…they are given much more frequently because of the size of our group.

 

Next up?  DISTANCE.  It takes about 25 minutes to get to our meetings.  This isn’t completely terrible, but we were used to about a 7 minute commute.  Not anymore (although that may be changing).  And our territory is the entire state of New Mexico.  Some days, we drive almost an hour to the territory and only have time to work maybe 3 doors (our territory is not door-to-door, it’s a list of address in a particular zip code).  And then we drive an hour back to the hall.  And if no one is home…it can be a little discouraging.

 

It is HARD learning a new language.  It’s overwhelming.  Sometimes I wonder WHY we do this.  We can only go in service on the weekends, so honestly, we don’t find many people home and if they are home, usually they are not French speakers.  It can get discouraging.  

 

But…before you start thinking what a Debbie-Downer-Negative-Nelly I am, now I’m going to talk about the good things.  The rewards.  Something happened Wednesday night that made me realize WHY we keep plugging away.  

 

I had a French talk.  I’ll be honest….I feel like I butcher the language. I have no accent whatsoever.  The accent is hard for me, because you almost have to change the sound of your voice completely to get the accent down and it just feels so….weird.  Almost fake.  Like you’re imitating someone else’s voice or trying to sound cooler than you are ha ha.  One of the gals in our group is totally fluent and the first time I heard her comment in English I had to turn around and look to see who it was because I didn’t recognize her voice.  It’s a very noticeable change.  I stumble in my words a lot.  My pronunciation is not consistent.  I could go on and on.  But anyways, I wrote my talk and sent it to my assistant (who is pretty much fluent) to look over.  I told her to PLEASE let me know if it didn’t make sense, if I needed to change anything, etc.

 

She emailed me back and changed one sentence.  ONE!  I wanted to cry (in a good way).  When I had my very first French talk (this is only my 5^th one I think), there was a bunch of stuff that I did wrong.  I had to change a lot of it.  But in 2.5 years, I’m down to having to fix only one sentence.  This is huge for me.  I’ve learned a lot.

 

After my talk, one of the sisters in our group who is from France (and totally fluent obviously) tapped me on the shoulder and said I only missed the pronunciation on ONE word.  ONE.  This is high praise coming from her.  Again….I wanted to cry. (By the way, I have personally asked this French sister AND my fluent friends to tell me when I screw up.  I want to know.  I want to know the right way to do it and use it as a learning experience.  A lot of people have gotten offended when they have been ‘corrected’, but I welcome the correction.  I mean…how else do you learn?)

 

But here’s the part that made me remember WHY we do this and why we will continue to do it.  After the meeting, this same French sister came up to me and she had tears in her eyes.  She gave me a great big hug and told me (in English, with her thick French accent) how much she appreciates us being in the group.  She said that she knows how hard it is to learn a new language and commended us on how well we are doing and thanked us over and over again for being in the group because she then gets HER French meeting.  French is the language of her heart.  And because we have people to support the French group, THE NATIVE FRENCH SPEAKERS GET THEIR MEETING IN THEIR OWN LANGUAGE.  I never thought about it this way.  I always (selfishly) thought that the native French speakers were supporting US trying to learn their language.  I guess it does work both ways.  I never would have thought that I could have been a source of encouragement to someone in the French group, particularly this sister who talked to me afterwards (she is of the anointed and so knowledgeable about the Bible and knows French, Spanish, English, and Hebrew.)  And little old me, an English speaker who butchers the language of her heart, is encouraging her???

 

It comes down to this:  if there are not enough people to support the French group, there will be no French group.  I’m sure this logic applies to any foreign language group out there.  Currently, we have 8 native French speakers in our group.  They get to hear the meeting in the language of their hearts because of our little group.  Imagine as an English speaker if you went to a foreign country and had no other choice but to go to a Chinese language meeting.  That was your only option.  How would you feel?  Probably frustrated, and your spirituality may suffer.  You would have to learn Chinese and not get to hear any talks or even comment for that matter in your own language.  That would be terrible!  Even if you knew a little Chinese (enough to get by), you still wouldn’t get the FULL meaning and application of the talks and comments, because Chinese is not your first language.

 

So when I get discouraged because we don’t find many people in the ministry, or when I get frustrated and overwhelmed at the amount of time it takes to prepare something that used to be so simple, or the time we spend driving all over town (and the state) to not even find anyone home, or when I get frustrated with irregular verbs, or when I understand the side question that is being asked but I don’t know how to answer it in French, or when I think I should be way further along than I am, I will remind myself of how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learned in 2.5 years, but mostly I will think of those 8 people in our group.  Those 8 people, who get to hear about 75% of our meetings (all but the service meting and every other public talk) in their native language, the language of their hearts, all because of our little group.  I will remember the brother from Nigeria who came here with his family as refugees last year who comes up to me after every single meeting and gives me a hug and thanks me for my comments.  I will remember the friendships I have created with people of all ages within our little group.  I will remember my French friend with tears in her eyes last night thanking me for being in the French group, so that she gets her French meeting.  THAT is why we continue to do this, no matter how time consuming and frustrating it can be.  The rewards greatly outweigh the struggles.

 

The end.

Cinq (A Love Story)

Five years and 8 months ago, I got an email from this cute guy in New Mexico.

 

I had known him YEARS ago when we went to the same congregation in Nebraska for a while when he was finishing up law school.

 

We emailed back and forth for a couple of days, then we moved on to phone calls.  A LOT of phone calls.  We talked one day for 9 hours straight.  Thank goodness for Verizon Friends and Family plan.  Also, phone chargers.  Also, the mute button (for bathroom breaks).

 

Five years and 6 months ago, he flew to Nebraska to see me.  We went on our first official date (dinner downtown).  We went to a Husker game with my brother and nephew and sat in the skybox. 

 The Huskers lost.  He kissed me for the first time on a dock at Carter Lake.  I cried when he left.

 

Five years and 5 months ago, I flew to New Mexico to see him.  I met his mom.  I met his friends.  Went to a meeting.  We watched a Husker game at his mom’s house with a big group of people.  We drove around a lot.  Spent lots of time at Starbucks.  We drank pumpkin lattes.  He worked and I read ‘A Moveable Feast’ by Ernest Hemmingway.  

He told me he loved me in his mom’s backyard (on Husker game day of course).  

 

Five years and 4 months ago, he flew to Nebraska.  We drove to Kearney to meet some friends.  We went to Lincoln to have dinner with my entire family.  We went to the University of Nebraska School of Law and drove around and he showed me where all of his old classes were.  

We also set off the alarm at the Law Library on East Campus (long, but funny story).  We went to M’s Pub downtown for dinner.  After dinner, he said ‘let’s walk around’, which I secretly thought it was crazy because it was 7 degrees outside (it was really 7 degrees….I am not exaggerating) and there was tons of snow on the ground.  But I went with it.  We walked to Gene Leahy park, which was just a couple of blocks away.  It was beautiful, snowy and there were white twinkle lights everywhere on the bare trees.  

We climbed to the top of the slides, he got down on one knee, held out a ring, and asked me to marry him.  I said yes.  (it also happened to be December 28, 2009, which was my parents 36^th wedding anniversary).

 

We then walked to Marcus theaters, another few blocks away to catch a movie.  Marcus theaters is one of those movie theaters where you sit at a table and can order food with the press of a button.  

We were a bit early for the movie though so we went to the bar, ordered drinks, and I admired my ring.  There’s an inscription on it that simply says ‘Proverbs 31:30’ ("Charm may be false, and beauty may be fleeting, but the woman who fears Jehovah will be praised").  

The bartender gave us free drinks because we had just gotten engaged.  We watched Sherlock Holmes.  Well, I wasn’t really watching.  I was looking at my ring.  And I got up like 4 times during the movie to go to the bathroom just so I could see that ring in better light.

 

I will always have a special place in my heart for that Sherlock Holmes movie.  

 

He flew back to New Mexico and I started planning my life.  We were going to get married in Nebraska, but I would be moving to New Mexico.  Do I move before or after the wedding?  If I move before, how will that work?  What do I do with all of my stuff that I’m NOT taking with me?  What kind of wedding should we have?  How large, how small?  And WHERE?  And WHEN?  When would I quit my job?  When would I start looking for a job in New Mexico?

 

The details slowly got worked out.  We would get married in April.  Outside.  At my sister’s house in the country.  It would be a small wedding.  I would move to New Mexico BEFORE the wedding and get settled, because I didn’t want to worry about it afterwards.  

 

I slowly started going through my apartment and marking things with a sticky note that I wanted to take with me.  Everything else would be sold (which was a lot).  I put in my notice at work and told them I would be leaving in March.

 

I bought a wedding dress (a $95 formal at Dillards).  I made our invitations (from Target, but I dressed them up with ribbon and a custom logo that I paid a graphic designer on Etsy to do).  I registered.  We picked a caterer, who also handled the rentals (chairs, tables) for our wedding.  We picked our colors (different shades of purple).  We asked our wedding party if they would be our wedding party.  My husband planned our honeymoon.  We got dates figured out.  I was moving in March, so I had to get most all of the wedding stuff done by then.  

 

Five years and 2 months ago, in the midst of all of the wedding planning, moving planning, and chaos, we met in Colorado Springs to see some friends.  It was a much needed break.  We drove to Garden of the Gods, hung out, talked a lot, and then my husband got food poisoning for a couple of days.  I took care of him and then got back on a plane to head home.

 

My sister and sister-in-law and friend threw me a Paris themed bridal shower.  It was amazing!  

 

I finished packing.  My mom came and stayed with me for a week and I had an ‘indoor’ moving sale.  I sold most of my stuff and made enough money to pay for my move and some more wedding stuff and even had some leftover.  I rented a cargo van.  Everything I was taking with me had to fit in that cargo van.  The morning of my move, my dad and brother packed up the van (as I said more than one prayer hoping everything would fit).  My mom and I packed up my car.  I put my cats in the car.  I said goodbye to my parents.  My brother drove my cargo van and I drove my car and we made the first leg of our trip to Pueblo, Colorado.  We stayed the night, and then the next morning we drove the rest of the way to Albuquerque.  I was exhausted. 

 I arrived at my fiancé’s house (OUR house now).  We unloaded the van, rested for a couple of hours, put my cats in the bedroom so they could get somewhat adjusted, and then went to Outback for dinner with more friends.  The next morning, my brother left to drive the van back to Nebraska.  And I slept with my two cats until about 2:00 p.m.  It was an exhausting trip.  I am still so thankful for my brother’s help during that trip.  I couldn’t have done it without him!

 

I spent the next three weeks unpacking, finishing up wedding details, doing some work for my husband (who was in business for himself at the time), applying for jobs and getting settled in the house.  I also spent loads of time driving back and forth between our house and my mother-in-law’s house (my husband was staying with her at the time).  She threw a shower for me with my new New Mexico friends.  

 

Five years and 4 days ago, I flew back to Nebraska.  I had packed some last minute stuff for the wedding, plus everything needed for our honeymoon, because we were leaving for Hawaii  2 days after we got married.  

 

Five years and 2 days ago, my fiancé flew back to Nebraska.  We went to Kohl’s to pick out wedding ties for him and the 2 groomsman (fancy, huh?).  Nothing was too matchy matchy.  I refused to make people pay for fancy bridesmaids dresses and tux’s.  I told my girls to get a purple dress that they could wear again.  The guys had matching ties and we said to either wear a black or gray suit if they had it.  If not?  Than they could wear whatever.  It all worked out and everyone looked great.

 

Five years ago today, April 24^th, we got married.  

The weather was perfect.  My sister’s house was beautiful and blooming.  Everything went smoothly.  The food was good.  The flowers were beautiful.  The cake was perfect and simple and just what I wanted.

  We had invited 50 people, and 45 showed up.  The wedding was at 2:00, and we left around 4:30.  Short and sweet.  The next day the weather was awful….cold and rainy.  We were lazy.  We went to a movie (Clash of the Titans).  We re-packed our suitcases and went to Fed Ex to send our wedding gifts back to New Mexico.  The day after that we were off to Hawaii for a week.  (funny side note….I checked my email ONE time on our second to last day in Hawaii and I got an email for an interview for my current job…funny!  I interviewed as soon as I got back home and started work one week later….and five years later, I’m still at the same job.)

 

It has been five wonderful years.  He is an amazing husband.  He is spiritual.  He makes me laugh every single day.  He takes care of me.  I feel incredibly safe and protected with him.  We have so much fun together.  

 

We’ve traveled a lot.  In our five years as a married couple, we’ve been to Alaska, Hawaii, California, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona (the latter three multiple times).  We’ve traveled all over New Mexico.  We travel well together.  I like structure and he likes spontaneity, so we’re a good match.  A good balance.  This year marks our first international trip together.  I can’t wait!

 

We have been through layoffs, new jobs, new pets, and a new congregation.  We almost moved to Texas, but ended up staying here (I think we are staying put, at least for a while).  We started learning French together over two years ago.  

 

He’s my best friend.  My partner.  My husband.  I hope our next 5 years are as amazing as the first 5 have been!

Random

*Did you know that London is one of the most expensive cities in the world?  Like…more expensive than Paris?  We are only staying 2 days and honestly I don’t think we could afford to stay longer than that.  Geez. 

*Sometimes after work I will run an errand or two.  I ALWAYS try to remember to take my work badge off or tuck it into my pocket when I go into public places.  Why?  Because I can’t tell you how many times I have been stopped at Target, Petsmart, the mall, etc. with this:  “Oh you work at Major Hospital?  Can I ask you a question?” and the person proceeds to pull out their medical bill from their purse (who carries these around anyways?  People just hoping to run into a random employee??) and then starts asking me questions about their bill.  I’m never rude and sometimes I always try to help, but mostly I can’t.  I politely tell them that I’m not in the Billing Dept. and direct them to the customer service number located on their bill.  Ugh.  I know I should have a better attitude about it, but really?    I AM NOT IN THE BILLING DEPARTMENT.  My favorite question?  “This says ‘THIS IS NOT A BILL’.  What does that mean?”  Um….it means IT’S NOT A BILL.  Yes, I know it’s confusing and I’m still not 100% sure why insurance companies send these out.  I just tell them to keep it for their records and wait for the real thing to come along (and believe me, it will).  

*The month of April is nutso, hence my lack of blogging.  Sorry.  It's been crazy.  May probably will be too.    

*A few days ago, the Apple IOS 8.3 update came out.  I updated my phone, and then my Target Cartwheel app wouldn’t work.  This happens sometimes.  Sometimes apps need a few days to catch up to update themselves after the general software update.  Anyways, I was AT Target, the app wasn’t working, but at least ¾ of the stuff in my cart would have been discounted on the app.  It was mostly Market Pantry (Target’s generic food brand), and Up & Up (Target’s generic ‘everything else’ brand).  Anyways, I asked the register clerk if there was a way that I could call customer service with my receipt  info to see if they could at least give me credit within the app of my purchases (the more you save, the more ‘spots’ open up in the app for your cartwheel items).  She said she wasn’t sure and so she called her manager over.  The manager said the only way to get me the discount was to manually type in the discount on all eligible items (about ¾ of my cart).  Now, if there were a line of people behind me, I wouldn’t have had them do this.  But Target was dead (I went on my lunch break) and they insisted it was no problem.  The clerk asked me how much the discount was on these items usually and I told her it was at least 5% off Market Pantry and Up & Up brands.  And the manager looks at the register clerk and says “give her 10% off just in case.”  !!!  Reason #46,798 why Target is the BEST.  They gave me 10% off most of my cart.  Then I got an additional 5% off for using my Redcard.  Target = great customer service.

*My most favorite band ever is Of Monsters and Men.

They are from Iceland.  There is just something about their music that is so DIFFERENT and it makes me want to go climb a mountain or something.  On Wikipedia, they are labeled as ‘indie folk pop’.  That’s probably accurate I guess.  The gal (Nanna) is the lead singer, although the guy (Raggi, the one to the right of Nanna sitting down) sings just as much as she does I think.  Their first album ‘My Head is an Animal’ was awesome.  It’s funny though, the song they’re known the most for (“Little Talks”) is my least favorite (the radio version anyways…they recorded a live album where they slowed it down and sang it practically without music and that was really cool).  But the rest of the album is great.

Their next album, ‘Beneath the Skin’ is going to be released on June 9^th.  I cannot wait!  They’ve already released their first song from the album, Crystals, and it is amazing.  I downloaded it from iTunes immediately.  They are going on tour this summer, but nowhere near New Mexico, pooey.  I even looked on their website to see if I could catch them in Europe when we’re there, but the dates didn’t work out.  That’s how much I love these guys, I was willing to stalk them in Europe ha ha. 

If you’ve never heard any of their music, go to YouTube and search ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty trailer’.  One of their songs, ‘Dirty Paws’ was featured in the trailer:

*Have you seen ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’?  If not, please stop what you are doing and go watch it.  It is a GREAT movie.  And if you hate Ben Stiller (a lot of people do I guess…I’ve always liked him though), watch it anyways.  This is not a typical Ben Stiller movie.  It’s just REALLY good.  AND a good portion of it was filmed in Iceland.  You won't be disappointed!

*That's all for now.  I have a talk tonight in French that I need to practice some more.