Blog backgrounds

I have recently been playing around with creating my own blog backgrounds! Hooray! It is fun and not too hard! I have made a cat one and a Thanksgiving one so far (which I am using at the time that I post this). There is a site that provides free blog templates to use and instructions to do so, and also instructions on how to make your own if you want to! It is: The Cutest Blog on the Block. Check it out!

Also, today is election day so Vote, Vote, Vote! We have heard so much about this election for so long and now it is finally here (finally)!

Sports and fun

Now that fall is officially here, we have been so busy! It seems like every evening we have stuff and more stuff that we need to get done (like homework, Seminary lesson, YW, dinner, going to sleep early...) so we don't get nearly enough time having fun.

Fortunately we have something to do on a lot of the evenings that we DO have free. Since it is dark and usually cold in the evenings now, we switched from playing tennis to playing racquetball. It is kind of a hard switch to make but I've heard its a lot harder to move the other direction. I guess we'll find out come spring when we move back outside. We play these sports with some friends of ours and have a great time and get in some exercise while we're at it. The other day while playing r-ball I served the ball and turned around to see where it was going when WHAM the ball hit me - hard - in the forehead. It stung a bit and I got all teary but I was mostly just in shock. It was a hard hit! But I recovered after a minute and we continued playing. It is a lot of fun and is better exercise than tennis and a lot less precision is required (which is good for me if you catch my drift).

However, yesterday was a very warm lovely day so we headed back out to the tennis courts for one of the last games of the season (boo). It was great - perfect weather, good courts, fun, blah blah blah. My serve, which was okay in the spring then went severely downhill over the summer, is on the ups again so that makes it nice since I rarely did the dreaded double-fault. Even with that though, we lost again but it was close as usual.

We have also done some other fun outdoor activities recently. We went hiking at a nearby state with some friends from the ward. I had a really good time and want to go again! Hiking around where we live is so cool mostly because it isn't like hiking in Utah where you are tired out from all the elevation gains! Nope, we decided to go on the "Moderate difficulty" hike that was 2.75 miles long. I was worried because I'm not in great shape and was never a great hiker to start with but having been on it, I would say now that a Moderate hike here equals a Beginner hike in Utah. Or maybe more it's closer to an unpaved nature trail. So as a result, I now love hiking :) I hope we can go again soon while the weather is still good. Especially if the fall foliage is still around. Ooo-la-la!

Yesterday we played some good games of sand volleyball with 6 other couples from our ward. It was way fun! I haven't been crazy about volleyball previously either and I'd really only played in YW but is was great! we played a few sets, switching up the teams now and then, just really casual-like. Yay! I hope we do that again soon too!

It is really very ironic that now that the weather is cooling down to where it is often uncomfortable to be outside, I have found all these fun things that I want to go outside and do! We'll see how many of them I can fit in, but you can bet I will be ready next spring when it warms up again!

A History Lesson

For those who just met Jeran and me recently or those of you who want to know what we are up to, here is some background on both of us.

Jeran and I met at Utah State University in Biology class. He had just gotten home from his mission and it was the first semester for both of us. We finally got around to dating and were married the next summer in Logan, UT. Both of our families live in Cache Valley so we got to live near both of them while we finished school. We both graduated from USU in 2007, Jeran in Biochemistry and I graduated in Management Information Systems.

Jeran was accepted to graduate schools all over the country but decided he wanted to be a Tarheel, so we moved to North Carolina in July 2007. He is currently attending the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill to get his PhD in Pharmacology. He works in a large research lab that researches pancreatic and colon cancer to "delineate the molecular basis for cancer". If you're into the science stuff, their lab studies Ras superfamily GTPases, oncogenes, signal transduction, and target-based anti-cancer drug discovery. I can't tell you which stuff Jeran specifically works on because it all goes over my head. Anyways, he is very good at what he does and is making some good friends there. After he finishes in 3 to 5 years, who knows where we will go. There are a lot of options and we would eventually like to move back to the west and perhaps to Utah, but we'll go where the jobs and opportunities are.

While I was a junior in college, I started working at a software company, New Dawn Technologies in Logan, UT, that makes case management software for agencies involved in the justice system. This includes Courts, District Attorneys, Public Defenders, Probation and Parole Agencies, etc. I do database scripting to move data from Legacy systems into New Dawn's system. This job has been a great blessing for me because it pays pretty well, is very flexible, and the company is young and well-managed. When we moved to NC, I was able to keep my job with them and telecommute from home all the way across the country. Now I am self-employed and have huge work flexibility and choices. In many ways it is a dream job and I was so blessed to have found it all those years ago.

Christmas Songs

So I have started to have Christmas songs running through my head more frequently than usual the last few weeks so you know what that means.... It not really even close to Christmas yet! Some of them are those Christmas songs that you can only really enjoy or maybe even handle at Christmastime like The Little Drummer Boy and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. Other songs are awesome all year round, only even BETTER at Christmastime! Like It Feels Like Christmas or I Saw Three Ships or Marley and Marley or Ding Dong Merrily on High or One More Sleep Til Christmas.

I have decided that I will force myself to wait as long as I can hold out before I watch A Muppet Christmas Carol, which may just be the best movie of all time. Who can get enough of the singing lettuce, the fabulous Gonzo a.k.a. Charles Dickens, the "Mister Scrooooge!"-ing Miss Piggy Cratchit, hula-dancing rats, and ice-skating aristocratic penguins. Ahhhh.

And now, some Favorites on this theme:
Favorite Muppet Movie: A Muppet Christmas Carol
Favorite Muppet Character: Gonzo
Favorite Christmas Song: It Feels Like Christmas, Ding Dong Merrily on High, White Christmas, Let It Snow!

A Great Opportunity

Today I got to do something that you don't get to do very often. Some people don't even have opportunity to do this thing in their lifetime, and that is a shame because it was an exciting once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I got to smash a toilet with a hammer. It was awesome! Since we accidentally cracked the base of the toilet when remodeling our bathroom, we recently got a new toilet. After an unsuccessful trip to the dump today (they were closed - it's Saturday! geesh!), we decided to smash it into good sized chunks and just throw it in our garbage can. Hence the smashing. It makes me think of those places where people pay to go in and vent their anger by smashing everything and ripping the place apart. And to think, we got to do the funnest part fr free! (minus the cost of the new toilet)

I don't think we appreciate very often that our toilets are most often made of ceramic, the same material that those delicate figurines that always break are made of. Well, apart from being a lot thicker, it broke just like you might imagine those figures breaking if you took a tiny hammer to them. Yep. It was fun. I pity those who don't ever have the opportunity to intentionally destroy something permanent that we all use on a daily basis.

On a different note, we also went today to the nearby fire station for some suthun BBQ pork. Twice a year they host a BBQ dinner and we decided to go for the southern food experience. They had pulled pork BBQ, Beaufort stew, coleslaw and some little fried bread things that looked like little fingers. It's probably some southern food that no one else eats. All in all, I was not very impressed. I didn't like the BBQ! I only made it half way through the meat and I can honestly say I didn't enjoy it for a minute. The stew was pretty good and the coleslaw was typical. I still can't decide what to think of those little fried things. Probably because I don't know what to call them. Anyway, they tasted like onion rings but less good. I guess I will never turn into a good old southern girl after living here.

I can do hard things

I thought today was going to be a bad day (not a very good start if that's what I'm thinking). I had left many work problems unresolved and I had no idea what to do to fix them. Yesterday I worked on a number of these problems and got a few resolved but found even more. So today I started out in despair that this project would ever work and get finished. But then today at about noon, I started knocking the problems out of the park! Boom, boom, boom! By about 5:00 they were all but gone! I am just so grateful that I know that I can do hard things.

That topic reminds me of a conference talk we just heard. I don't remember who it was but they made a comment on a similar theme: "I can do hard things," and then pointed out that what we really should be saying is "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phillipians 4:13). I'm grateful that we have general conference twice a year and that it brings these sorts of messages to our remembrance.

My day

I thought I would let you all know why I don't post more interesting and real-lifey updates on my blog. The best way to demonstrate this is to give a run-down of a typical day for me.

I wake up about 8:30 usually and Jeran has already left for work (and has already taught Seminary and been back before that). I wander around for a minute and then if I am feeling particularly ambitious or procrastinative, I will change out of my pajamas into some real clothes. Then I sit down to the computer and work until I am hungry, grab something from the fridge adn continue working until Jeran gets home in the evening. Then he has homework to do and Seminary lessons to plan so I make some dinner, eat, and then wander around trying not to bother him too much. I work on my cross-stitch, read, watch tv, cook something else, occasionally clean, etc. Then by 9:00 its time to start getting ready for bed because Jeran has to wake up so early. I usually stay up and read or do puzzles for a while. Then, it starts all over again.

And that is why there are not interesting posts of the things I do/see each day. HOWEVER, I have made a goal to notice, be grateful for, and celebrate the little things. So hopefully there will be more to say as I practice each day appreciating some little thing and actually thinking more about it.

Today, I am grateful for the opportunity to play tennis. Once or twice a week we get together with another couple and play some doubles tennis. It is really fun, good exercise, and basically, for the first time in my life I am actually noticing improvement in a sport. Almost every time we play, it is a very close match and we have had many tie-breaker rounds (and lost most of them, I might add). It is one of the best ways I can recommend for couples to strengthen friendships and get to know new people. I look forward to it a lot and I can't often say that about a sport! Hooray for tennis!