Thanksgiving/Birthday weekend

On Wednesday I was able to leave work a little early and drive up to Salt Lake. I babysat Lauren and slept over at John and Jen's house. It was a lot of fun but I was exhausted because of a cold I had (and still have.) Lauren was as cute as ever. That girl seems to have endless energy. The next day, Thanksgiving, I drove up to my parent's house. Along with 27 or so other members of the family, I enjoyed an amazing meal that was mostly made by my parents. I am always amazed at all my parents do each Thanksgiving. There was plenty of food and talk to go around. Later, a group played dodge ball and a few board/card games. I stayed up late talking and slept in Friday morning. I spent most of the day chilling out because my cold symptoms were so bad. I did manage to meet with an insurance agent and finalize my car paperwork though. Mom, Dad, Nancy, Jen, Jeremy, and Britnie went to see the plastination exhibit at The Leonardo in Salt Lake. Renee and Grandma Roberts babysat Lauren for Jen. That night, Mom, Grandma, Renee, and I watched a BBC movie and then Renee, Dad, and I watched a Jeff Dunham video. (He's a puppeteer that has amusing but inappropriate humor. My favorite puppets were Achmed the Dead Terrorist and Peanut.)

On Saturday morning, I was awakened by my mother telling me that there were pullaparts ready and that I should give some people a ride in my new car. Once I had truly awakened from my NyQuil-induced stupor, I drove them to Costco and then Mom started on dinner while some of the rest of us cleaned the house. My family arrived for my birthday dinner around 4:30. All the kids were so cute, even if I couldn't hold or kiss them because of the cold. Some of the kids were pretty tired because they didn't take naps. Mom made potato soup as well as tomato soup and breadsticks. I am always amazed at how great Mom's soups are. We also had a great chocolate cake that Josh and Brooke had posted on their blog. Renee, Nancy, and I stayed up until after 2am talking. Sunday morning brought another great meal (breakfast cake, eggs, hash browns, bacon, milk, and orange juice.) After a shower, cleaning, and taking empty boxes and my luggage to my car, I talked with everyone for at least another 2 hours. Tonight I've been packing my room and returning e-mails.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I loved seeing all of my family members and eating all the amazing food. This coming week should be interesting. I will be moving on Saturday so I want to make sure that 98% of my stuff is packed and ready to go by Friday night. All of the stuff that I will need on Saturday (clothes, bathroom stuff, etc.) will go into a suitcase so that everything will be ready for those who will help me move on Saturday morning. I don't know my roommates but I choose to believe that we will all get along and become great friends. I will have 4 roommates but each of us have our own rooms. Here's a picture of the house that I will be living in:

Thus my blog entry ends. It was a great, if not slightly tiring, weekend. I loved seeing my family, driving my car, and eating great food.

A new car

For those of you who don't know already, I bought a new car. I bought a 4-door dark grey Toyota Corolla and I love it. It is awesome. I love knowing that my car is safe, getting good gas mileage, and is reliable. The picture is not exactly my car but it is pretty close.
I love it but I kind of freaked out the day after I bought it. Other than owing my parents a few hundred dollars, I've never owed people money. Yes, every once in a while I would borrow $20 or so from someone if I didn't have any cash, but I always paid it back as soon as possible. I now owe thousands of dollars and it makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know how people live with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. I have read stories about people who have $300-$400K of debt and I can't imagine how they must feel. I have since calmed down though.
Anyway, my consolation is that I know I can afford the payments and still pay my rent, phone bill, buy food, and have a little fun. I will probably still tighten my financial belt though. Anyway, I am really excited that I have a new car. Yeah me!
Now I need everyone's help to nickname my car. The old Saturn, depending on how it was running, was called The Red Devil or Big Red. Any suggestion for the new car?
(As a side note, no one gets a ride in my new car if they have food, drink, dirty clothes, or even dirty thoughts. :) Just try it.)

Frequency of posting

I just wanted to warn everyone that the frequency of my posting will most likely be going down for the next few weeks. Sarah contacted Comcast and our internet will be turned off sometime tomorrow. Since I try not to do personal stuff at work (blog posting, phone calls, e-mail) I will have to do it at the library or somewhere else. I hopefully will have the internet at my new place.
In other news, one of my bosses, MJ, is returning from a week long trip tomorrow. I suspect that I will be pretty busy between tomorrow and Thanksiving. I've really enjoy my new job, especially this week. Since MJ was gone, RJ and BM have given me a lot of HR stuff to do. (Wow, that was a lot of initials in one sentence.)
I am really excited for Thanksgiving. I love getting together with my family every year. I've taken the day after Thanksgiving off so I will be able to spend time with my family and celebrate my birthday with my family.
On the moving front, I have managed to pack up 11 boxes of stuff I won't need in the next three weeks. I don't know how much more I will be able to do this week since I do have to use most of my stuff to live the next three weeks. I've decided to use this Saturday to test drive some cars.
Anyway, that's a quick update on my life.

In honor of the movie....

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

"Music?" she said in a sweet, questioning voice.

On Thursday I was able to take off early from work (my main boss had a flight to Texas earlier that day.) I drove to Salt Lake to Jen and John's house. Lauren and I looked at books, danced to The Sound of Music, and generally drove her mother crazy as she tried to cook. We had an excellent dinner. I especially enjoyed the flavored rice, and then Jen, John, Mom, and Dad went to see Noises Off at Pioneer Theater. Lauren and I danced, played, and read. After dancing, I would pause the music so we could play with some toys. After five minutes, she would look up into my face and say "music?" I would then turn on the music and we would sing and dance. I always think it is so cute to see a two-year-old dance. She also sang along with the "Do Re Me" song. We played until a little after 8, when I changed her into her pajamas and we read some books. Her eyes were getting droopy and she had yawned twice so I knew it was time the bedtime. We read two more books, sang two songs, and said our prayers. She went down quietly and I settled down in front of the tv. By 9pm, I realized that there was nothing on tv and I was growing drowsy. I decided to make myself useful and empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher and attempted to load the dirty dishes. I found the problem of doing dishes in someone else's house is that you are never sure what goes into the dishwasher. Such is life. Jen and John came home, we spoke for a few minutes, and then I was off to drive home. I got home late and spent a few minutes talking to Sarah before going to bed. I was pretty tired on Friday but I still managed to get a lot done.

I have officially found a new place to live. It is in a house less than a 1/3 of a mile away from where I currently live. I have put down a deposit and paid December's rent. I hope to move in the first or second weekend in December. Before I move in, I want to tear down some wallpaper (which I have the permission of my landlord to do.) Depending how long it takes me to do it will set my moving date. I have already started to look for boxes to pack. It will be hard moving away from Sarah but I had to find a place to live before Sarah leaves for France. I am hoping that she will let me buy some of her spare dishes and pans at a small discount since I don't have many of my own. I will have at least two roommates, whom I have met once.

The next big event in my life is looking for a new car. I haven't really had time to test drive cars although I've done research into cars for gas mileage, dependability, and other important factors. I will admit that I am pretty nervous since I've never made a purchase so large. I haven't the slightest idea how to proceed when it comes to financing or bargaining. Oh well, I guess that's what parents and siblings are for. I will have to ask a lot of questions to try to figure it all out.

My first week of work & other stuff

I have completed my first week of work and I am finally think I'm getting the hang of it. I understand the e-mail, IM, and calender systems. On Friday, some of the people in the office had a marshmallow fight at 5pm. We divided into teams and used marshmallow guns that you blow into. It was fun. (I've included a picture of an example of a marshmallow gun. Since it's just made of PVC pipe, I'm considering making one of my own.) I left after 20 minutes so that I could go tour a house. I heard about an open room in a house within the ward boundaries that I'd thought I would check out. (Before anyone starts worrying that Sarah and I aren't getting along, remember that she is going to France in January and I have to look for another place to live.) It looked pretty good. The house has five bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. It also has a kitchen, dining room, family room, living room, and a garage. The rent's decent (utilities are included) and it will be nice not having to worry about trying to find a place to live once Sarah leaves. I will be going over later tonight to check it out a second time.

As for work, I was finally able to sit down with my main boss, MJ, and get some assignments. He has been so busy preparing for a big conference that we haven't really had time to to discuss my responsibilities. My other boss, RJ, has given me the assignment of gathering info for the EEO-1 report. This is the first one that CR has had to file since they've always had less than 50 employees. I can probably now explain the reason why I have to gather information on ethnicity and gender in my sleep since I've been asked so many times. My job is different every day. For example, today I had to find a chair that didn't have arms for a bigger client. Since I was unable to find such a chair in the entire company, I ended up talking the arms and back off a chair. I ended up creating a fairly comfortable stool, but it worked. That was just one of the interesting things I did. I am getting to know new people (and remembering their names.)

I'm an American...and I voted.

I am so grateful that I live in a country where I can vote (and it only took me 10 minutes.) Even if I had had to wait hours, I still would have voted. Since I have been able to vote, I've tried to vote in every election, no matter how small. Mom and Dad always taught me that it was part of being a citizen of this country. Besides, you can't complain if you don't vote (and I love to complain.)

This was a historic election. I was impressed with John McCain's concession speech. It was very classy although his supporter's booing was not impressive. Barack Obama's acceptance speech was excellent. His supporters clapped for McCain. Both, along with their vice presidential running mates, fought a good fight. I love that the opponents can now take off the gloves and go to work. What would it be like to live in a country with dictators, where a change in power includes death and destruction? I am very lucky indeed.

Last day/first day

My last day at Prosper was Monday. It was strange. In the morning I had almost nothing to do since I had trained everyone else to do the various parts of my job. I walked around and said goodbye to some people, two of which are shown below. (Sherri and Emily are two of my closest Prosper friends and I can't believe I managed to say goodbye without crying.)

In the afternoon I helped Erin put the new hires into the system, answered a few questions while Cami wrangled with the team list, and made generally obnoxious comments. I sent some final e-mails and made sure my out-of-office had the contact information for all my projects/responsibilities. I said good-bye to the the HR staff. Travis, Cami, and Erin all wished me good luck. Susan and I said good-bye during my exit interview and Bradley came out and shook my hand. Emily walked me out to my car and we said a final "see you later" since a couple of us are going to lunch together next week. I learned so much from working at Prosper. Even though it could be very frustrating and tiring at times, I'm glad I worked there. On a strange note, it turns out that Monday was the last day for another person working at Prosper. I won't mention a name since I generally try not to embarrass others, but his leaving surprised most people. If I had known it was his last day as well, I would have shared my good-bye candy with him. Once again, I didn't manage to get a picture of Susan.

My first day at CR was interesting. My new boss, we'll call him M, was really busy and didn't really have time to talk. Natasha trained me on the phones and e-mail system (they use Zimbra, something that I have never used before.) I met lots of new people, who all seemed really nice. I also met my other boss, we'll call him R. I will be helping R with Human Resources and M with all sorts of random projects. Hopefully I will get to meet with M tomorrow to discuss responsibilities and expectations. (It's hard to exceed expectations when you don't know them.) Although change is really scary, I think this was a good one.

Parties at Prosper

On Thursday, a few people got together at Prosper for a pot-luck/good-bye party for me. I was surprised how many people showed up. It was a lot of fun. George, the head of the legal department, said some very nice things about me and I was really touched by all the people who came to say good-bye. Here's a picture of some of the people who came to the potluck:

On Friday, Halloween was celebrated at Prosper. People dressed up and we had trick-o-treating for the children of employees. We then had a costume contest and had pizza. Sadly, we didn't get as much work done as we should have. It was a lot of fun though. One of our owners dressed up as another of Prosper's owners. It was pretty funny. Here is a picture of the HR group (minus Susan):

Cami was Raggedy Ann. Erin was the High Priestess of Evil, I was a Geisha (minus the white face make-up,) Travis was a "mack-daddy," and Bradley was a woman. When I first passed by Bradley's office, he had his back turned to the door and I thought "who is sitting at Bradley's desk?" It was pretty funny when he turned around.

We had quite a few kids turn out for the trick-o-treating. At 1pm, we had the costume contest.


Two of my favorites were Traci the jellyfish and Neal the giant Muppets character.
Happy Halloween!