I've got a second blog!!!

Because I'm horrible at keeping this blog updated with my shenanigans, I've started a second blog, One Day, When I am Queen.  I've had fun writing the entries, I hope you'll take a gander :)

http://www.queenoneday.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

This thing called growing up

The awesome part about being a "grown up" is having your own place. You come and go as you please, stock the cupboards with whatever your little heart desires, and leave crumb messes whenever you just don't feel like cleaning up. While all the listed items are truly wonderful, the whole money thing has not been.
I suppose we'll start with work taking away my $0.30/hour raise for mentoring new hires. They chose to take it away last month, saying it wasn't incentive to mentor, because you get the raise whether or not you're helping out. Thirty cents doesn't seem like much, but add it up with an 80 hour paycheck. Twenty-four bucks, or forty-eight bucks for the month. Before I had to clip coupons to afford groceries, forty-eight bucks meant nothing to me. Now, however, taking away that money is taking away my ability to pay the water bill.
Ever had to sign something saying it's okay for them to LOWER your wage? Imagine someone asking if they can kick you in the crotch. As hard as they can. Now imagine the pain as they do it, and having to grin and bear it, and act like everything is just peachy.
I don't know about you, but docking your employee's wage isn't really the fast-track to retention. I could be wrong. But I'm not.
This leads me to the next part of why being a grown up is sometimes the lamest thing on Earth. I'm seeking a second job to help me catch up on bills and get some money set aside to get back to school. Talk about an exhausting search. Of course with the economy, finding a job isn't nearly as easy as it was 2 years ago, but I've been able to find a few new job postings everyday. Hopefully something will fit. I'm dreading the day that I have to work 8 hours then drive to the next joint and throw down another 8 hour shift. Come home, sleep, and do it all again the next day.
It's not going to be fun, it's not going to be easy, but it's necessary. I'll keep you updated on the search, and if you know of anywhere that's hiring (NOT customer service!!!!) let me know!

Mirror Lake

Our first camping trip of the year had to be at my favorite place ever... Mirror Lake! It's high in the Uintahs, about 45 miles past Kamas.

Alex snagged a Slurpee for the ride up, and did what's called a "Suicide" by mixing all the flavors together. Amazingly, it was really tasty! It's a good hour and a half drive, up Parley's, past Park City, through Kamas, and then up the canyons through the Uintah National Park. It's only 6 bucks to stop anywhere in the canyons, so I suggest you take a trip sometime, it's beautiful up there!

Dama was a wiggle worm, so we retired her to a spot on the floor.

She didn't seem to mind too much, until you run over those rumble strips on the shoulder. She would look at the floor, very offended at the vibration.

Probably the best and most unexpected part of the drive up is the nudest ranch in Kamas. Of course we couldn't pass up the photo op-- just to prove it's really there :)

Here is me, making a really cute face...

Dama found the giant pile of pillows and blankets in the back seat, and couldn't fight the temptation to look like the queen of the castle.

Then she decided to sit on my lap while Alex was napping. She rested her face right on the steering wheel, keeping there even when I turned.

And after uploading this picture, I guess I drive with a dainty little pinky sticking up. Hahaha... weird.

We scoped out spots on the campsite, and with it being a Wednesday night, we weren't worried about snagging a decent one. #44 was perfect, right off the lake.

On our search for the closest potties and the place to pay our campground fee ($16 a night), I found this fantastic photo opportunity. It was the camp host's site. Made me giggle, because I guess I'm immature like that.

They were super nice when they drove around to make sure everything was cool as a cucumber. Everyone was commenting, "Wow! That's a great site you guys have!" Of course it was, that's why we chose it!

Alex starting putting up the tent...

I wish I would have gotten a picture of his caveman-like reflexes when he started pounding the stakes in with a rock. Nonetheless, he got everything put together in no time.

We hit the lake to do some fishing. The prospects were kind of meh for the day. Alex reeled in 2 and I reeled in 1, with lots of nibbles. We didn't keep any of them, as they were all a little scrawny. Dama really enjoyed fishing, here is proof:

Looks comfy, right? Rock pillows and all! Admittedly, we were relieved when she zonked out for a nap. It's really hard to fish with a puppy wanting to get into everything you're doing. Eating bait, knocking over the cup with worms in it, wanting to greet anyone that walked by, trying to eat my lure while reeling it in to shore... You get the idea.

Sitting around with a pole in your hand for a few hours is really hard work, so we took a nap in the tent, and I got the fire going. Here it is, keeping my toes warm. Yes, I wear flip flops everywhere, even camping :)

You didn't really go camping unless you roasted marshmallows and made s'mores (it's in the rulebook, I saw it!). I don't know how many I ate, but I can tell you that all diet restrictions are out the door the second you step onto your campsite. Oh, we also roasted hot dogs and sausages too. Yum!

Here's me, being excited for vittles:

While the temperature up there was fantastic during the day, it was freezing as soon as the sun went down. Poor Dama was shivering, so we kept her bundled up. This picture made me laugh. Dama looks so pissed.

Checkout time at the site was 1pm, but we were out of there in plenty of time. Then it was an hour and a half drive back down to the valley. We were greeted with 99 degree weather. **sigh**

Workplace Shenanigans

Working in a call center can be insanely mundane and tedeous, even when you are on a billion different committees and take part in a hundred special projects. Luckily, the people I sit next to have a silly sense of humor that nicely complements my own craziness, and we're always plotting something to keep ourselves entertained.

For Valentine's Day, we thought it would be funny to pose as a secret admirer of someone on our team. We thought Tanner would be the best sport, so he was an easy target. Adrienne drew a very crappy portrait of him. Surprisingly, it looked a lot like him, just with an extra 20 pounds. Perhaps pencil drawings add some poundage, just like the camera :) I took on the task of making a "self portrait" of his secret lover. Then Adrienne took it a step further, and drew their love-child, Grace. I'll have to dig through Tanner's desk to see if he still has the pictures. They really were hillarious. Oh, I almost left out the part where Adrienne got some candy wet and used it to "paint" the drawings. She was sure to notate that she was "experimenting with watercolours". Fancy spelling and all. She really does pay attention to detail! Anyway, so we had a good laugh, and I'm crossing my fingers that I can find the drawings, so you can see our fabulous artwork!

I had been trying to come up with a new shenanigan for a long time, and finally came up with what I deem one of the most brilliant ideas I've ever had...

I plan to purchase a cheap diary, preferrably one with Lisa Frank artwork like this...

Or perhaps something with kittens like this...

Or, maybe I can even find a combination of the two, such as this...

Then I'm going to make up a persona, obviously a cat lady, and write the most random and silly diary entries. Once it's complete, I plan to leave my sweet creation on someone's desk, and wait for it to make the rounds, passing from one desk to another. I guess my hope is that everyone gets as big of a kick out of it as I did. I'm planning on creating a different blog to post the entries in, so you can keep up with my shenanigans :)

If you've got a silly recommendation for the next shenanigan I can play, please let me know!

I can has dis puppy?!

Alex and I adopted a puppy from the humane society at the end of May. Yeah... it's already almost July and I'm just now getting around to posting this :) And mostly, I'm just doing it because Becky gave me crap. Hahahaha! Anyway, here she is...

She's a Boston Terrier, about 11 months old now. We stumbled across her at the humane society, on what seemed like a never-ending quest to find a doggie to adopt. From what I remember on her adoption card, she was a rescue from California. Her previous owner dropped her off at a shelter and listed the reason why as "Other Pet." They also noted she doesn't like other dogs (not true, unless they're super high-strung and won't get out of her face).

It's sad and pathetic that someone didn't want her anymore. She's the sweetest little thing ever, incredibly intelligent, and loves to snuggle. I call her my little shadow, because she wants to be where ever I'm at. She's great at keeping my toes warm, and is always right at the door when I get home from work. We've taught her to sit, shake, lay down, crawl, and the best trick yet... play dead when you point your fingers at her like a gun and say, "Bang! Bang!" I'm basically in love with her.

Lolrus

**Click image to enlarge**

Our love-child

Haha... I'm stealing this from Becky. Made me laugh. Her kids are going to be way cuter than mine. Lucky!


Baby Manpants...

Baby Ranpants...

Apparently we are going to have a Muslim baby. How did they know?!?!

Lady Fingers

Lady fingers. Lady fingers? What a grotesque name for a cookie. I've made a mental picture that includes rotting yellow nails, bony knuckles, and skin peeling away from flesh.

God I need to stop watching crappy horror films.

My new favorite thing

Pandora music player.
It's amazing.
I've found so many awesome new bands, so much new music... I don't know what to do with myself! Check it out, yo!

www.pandora.com

It's been awhile...

Hello again. Not really sure why it's been so long since I've posted anything. BUT! Here I am... I can't believe it's January already. I'm still denying that Christmas has happened, let alone that we've started a new year. I'm still at 1800contacts. They feed me and it pays the bills, so I suppose I'll hang around for a while :). I'm planning on having my car paid off in the next six months or so. What a relief that will be! And then I'll get a new car and have a new loan to pay off... seems a little silly, but I'll go with it. I'm taking this semester off from school so I can get my finances in order.
I created a budget and it's been amazingly easy for me to stick to. I give myself $100 every check to do as I please (cash only, debit card stays tucked into my wallet, burrito style). It's funny how much harder it is for me to spend it when I have the actual bills in my hand. Of course I have a list of stuff I want to buy that's 1000 items long, but I'm reluctant to make any purchases. The debit card is used for gas, paying bills online, etc. Every time I use it, I transfer a dollar into a high interest savings account. It's adding up to a pretty sweet little stash.
Anyway, enough about money. I'm gettng back into oil painting again. My hope is to set aside one day a week to paint for a few hours. It's quite messy, and messy paints plus a messy Ran equals a really long time to clean up.
The grandma side of me would like some more face time, so I've started scrapbooking again too. It'll be neat to have all these pictures in chronological order for my kids to see some day.
Speaking of pictures, I've discovered a sweet option for printing pictures with Windows Vista. I don't know why so many people have horrible things to say about Vista, I think it's got a lot of really cool features. One of which is the option to digitally send your pictures to Walgreens, Walmart, really wherever you develop your film, and then you go pick up the prints. Or if you're super lazy, they can mail them to you. I dig it because I love pictures printed on real photo paper, not something that came out of my laserjet printer complete with gross smudges. And it's super cheap, like ten cents a print. You should check it out!
I'm planning on moving our here pretty soon. It'll be nice to escape the mulleted wonder. I'll be sure to keep you updated.
I think that's about it for now. There's something on TLC about child beauty pageants (which creep me out) so I suppose I'll finish watching that.