Hi, How Are Ya?

Let me just start by saying, I LOVE STEVE ZAHN. He is truely under appreciated.

Just think, would "That Thing You Do" really be the same with out him? I say no, very much no.

Movie of the week... SAHARA

(excuse the ginormous poster... I can't figure out how to resize it)

This is one of those movies you watch and love and then completely forget about for some reason. I'm not usually a huge fan of Matthew McConaughey, or Penelope Cruz for that matter. But in Sahara it just works. Plus throw Rainn Wilson into the mix as a not annoying nerdy guy and the amazing movie quotes just don't end. I would sum this movie up for you but I just want you to go watch it (or borrow it from me, I'll happily lend)

Steve Zahn = Al Giordino

McConaughey = Dirk Pitt (admit it... Dirk is a cool name)

Al: Hey, you know how it is when you see someone that you haven't seen since high school, and they got some dead-end job, and they're married to some woman that hates them, they got, like, three kids who think he's a joke? Wasn't there some point where he stood back and said, "Bob, don't take that job! Bob, don't marry that harpy!" You know?

Dirk: Your point?

Al: Well, we're in the desert, looking for the source of a river pollutant, using as our map a cave drawing of a Civil War gunship, which is also in the desert. So I was just wondering when we're gonna have to sit down and re-evaluate our decision-making paradigm?

Al: Hi, How are ya?

Dirk: Maybe you have a small head.

Al: I don't think so. Someone would have told me.

Okay I'll stop before I do give you a run down of the whole movie. Bottom line, one of the best pairings... though I will say Jude Law and Robert Downy Jr. probably beat it in Sherlock Holmes.

Flattered

Am I allowed to follow up on a follow up?

Well I'm doing it anyways...

Yesterday in my "good" list I mentioned interviewing for a possible new position. It was on the good list because it had it's own list and good happened to out way the bad. I was uncomfortable, for some reason, with all the attention I was unintentionally drawing to myself in the new office. Maybe it was uncomfortable because it's unintentional because, let's be honest, when it's intentional attention seeking... I love it.

Despite all of my worries and insecurities with the situation I was extremely flattered to learn that I had been recommended by my supervisor who padded the recommendation with some very high praise. I was kind of floored and VERY flattered. I've felt a little out of my element and I've really wanted to do a good job since this is what I've decided what my career is going to be. It was a great confidence boost that I definitely needed.

So 6 weeks after started this new job... I've been promoted and given a raise. I've been given great opportunities that will give me great experience in this new (and exciting) career. I'll be much more involved in the litigation process, and while I'm not planning on leaving anytime soon, it will look great on a resume.

No scales to tip today. I'm feeling great. Super flattered, excited, and filled with a desire to earn all the praise.

:)

Trying to tip the scale...

To follow up on my "it's been an interesting week" post I'm going to whine. I'm not sure if today has been a good one or a bad one so... I'm making a list to decide if I'm justified in being grumpy like I want to.

Good things about today

1. I have been interviewing for a new job within the new company that would pretty much be a promotion within my first two months, and got to meet with a partner attorney today and I think it went well

2. A suspicion was confirmed... the Quest guy at BBT is, in fact, an elf. (My theory is he works for Quest on the "off season")

3. It's sunny today

4. There was a fair amount of giggling at work today (though that may have been caused by my lack of sleep and a very pregnant waddling girl)

5. SoBe Lifewaters are on sale at the Sev. 2 for $2

6. I happen to know there are home made mint ice cream sandwiches in the freezer.

7. I got home and discovered "Holes" was on TV. Followed by "The Goonies"

Bad things about today

1. In my opinion the sleep from the night before is considered today since it has a huge effect on the day after and last night... I didn't really get any

2. My lack of sleep caused me to sleep in and get to work later than I wanted

3. I'm worried about some family issues

4. I have been a total slacker with my new calling. Visiting teaching coordinator in a brand new ward... I get to start from scratch and I'm totally intimidated.

7 to 4?! Really? I'm trying to think of more bad things so I can keep being grumpy... I kind of feel better looking at my "Good Things" list though.

Ugh! Okay FINE!

I guess I'll go be happy... and eat one of those ice cream sandwiches.

Watch How Good I'll Fake It

I miss my Song of the Day tradition on facebook. I REALLY enjoy music and I'm pretty much listening to it constantly. Either actually listening or I have something (or multiple somethings) stuck in my head.

There are lots of reasons why I love music. One of those reasons being that usually someone can say it better than I can, and it helps me get my emotion out. The problem with that is my "angry music"... it tends to just make me even more angry. You gotta love a good jam session with Linkin Park screaming about how I'm not going to be just exactly what you want me to be, but it tends to just snowball.

I love this "Song of the Day"/ Week (or longer) because it's a happy/angry song. This past week has been "7 days of torture, 7 days of bitter" for various reasons and this has been my outlet. Seriously on repeat in the car TOTALLY jamming out. It's the perfect dance it out song. "La la la WHATEVER! La la la IT DOESN'T MATTER!"

Enjoy

Comparisons

I'll give you a little tidbit of information about me. My mind is a comparison machine. I thrive on examples, similes, metaphors, parables, and the like. I have an eye for patterns and detail. Sometimes I'm really impressed with the connections I make. Sometimes things turn out really eloquent and beautiful, but more often than not I end up spending a lot of time trying to explain to people how my mind got from one thing to another. It all makes sense to me.

Sometimes the connections my mind comes up with are absolutely ridiculous and often very funny. If you ever see me quietly laughing to myself... that's why. I had one of these moments today. I was driving home from IKEA and there was a man on a motorcycle on the freeway. I was already drawing the conclusion that he was odd because 1. he didn't have a helmet on 2. because he didn't have a helmet on you could see from behind that he was wearing goggles. I

instantly found this amusing and then I came up along side of him and realized he was an older man (when I say "older" I actually mean "old''). The connection my mind made was something like this....

and then a fit of hysterical laughter. :)

One Big Organized Mess

One big organized mess... that's what my life is. I like to claim that I'm a little OCD and a bit of a neat freak, but to be completely honest... that statement is rather selective. If you have ever seen my bedroom during the week you'd yell like Buddy the Elf, "YOU SIT ON A THRONE OF LIES". Hey, cleaning day is Saturday and sometimes I take a weekend off. I have a habit of leaving shoes out... and collecting dishes in my room from midnight snacks... and never NEVER making my bed.

I'm getting better though! My shoes actually have a place in the closet, even if they are never there. And my bedspread is now usually folded neatly at the end of my bed instead of in a jumble from being kicked off during the night.

Now that those admissions are out of the way... there are SOME things that I am actually very particular about. My hanging clothes are one of them (let's just skip over the idea of the clothes in the drawers). The clothes hanging in my closet all face the same direction, and are in order by color, style, and season.

I've just recently conquered my jewelery, and it now falls on the list of things I'm particular about. When something has a place... that's just where it goes!

My movies are in alphabetical order and it bothers me if the DVD isn't right side up, if one is missing, or if two (or more) are switched.

Things in my car are generally organized and clean.

My bathroom is organized. I even have little baskets in the drawers to organize the hair ties, bobby pins, brushes, and other odds and ends.

Okay, you might be wondering what the point of all of this organizational rambling is... Well I'll tell you.

A lot of the past few weeks at the new job have been training. Lots of new vocabulary terms, some not so new but with better definitions. A lot of uncertainty with what my actual job would be once I got settled and learned the ropes a little better. I knew for sure I'd be doing a little of everything when help was needed, and I'm pretty well cross trained by now. I knew that eventually the plan was for me to take over the Supplemental Order process...EVENTUALLY. And then they fired the girl that had been doing that process. Transition time all but disappeared. It, all of the sudden, became much more important for me to get all the other little things out of the way and the idea of good "background" training was gone. I knew I had to really crack down on figuring out the "final" job and get rolling with it so things didn't get too behind.

I'm a pretty hard worker so the timing actually worked out well. I finished helping get things caught up with Jen (my new cubicle buddy and trainer) and we really were ready to roll last Thursday by lunch time. Jen suggested I take a look at the filing for Return of Non-Service... pretty much all the papers that come back when the constable can't find someone to serve them papers (either Supplemental Orders, Bench Warrants, or an Order to Show Cause). This is where the organizational rant comes in...

THIS FILING CABINET WAS A MESS! Seriously. It took me the better part of 3 work days to sort through all of it... and that was with TONS of help. As we went through and alphabetized the file (big enough job in itself) we realized that, because it was so disorganized, all the files would have to be checked just to make sure nothing was getting missed. In doing this check we found that A LOT of extra work had been done, and some work completely neglected because the previous girl either didn't care to look, or couldn't find anything in her mess of a file drawer.

It really isn't that hard is it?! Just take the 5 extra minutes to sort and file things correctly when you get them instead of wasting everyone's time trying to dig through a file system that, in theory, is very efficient, but in practice.... not so much.

I only whine about this because these past 3 work days have made my brain mushy. I've gone cross-eyed trying to figure out this new process and I haven't even really started! I'm totally freaked out that they've given the new girl more than they can handle, and that is something I'm not okay with. I like to do my job well, and frankly, I've set the bar pretty high the past few weeks. My boss even called me a work-a-holic today (which I'm not, so I'm proud to say I have them duped).

I'm hoping that now that things are getting organized they will get easier too. I even went out and bought more organizer things for my desk just to try and help the "I'm drowning in paper" feeling. I'm really TRYING to stay calm....

Ugh, wish me luck... my mushy brain is going to need it.

Adele

Let's throw some music into the mix, shall we? We shall. Fortunately for me (and for you) I have just recently fallen in love with an amazing voice. Adele is slowing gaining the popularity she deserves. I've enjoyed some of her music for quite some time. Some of my favorites from the past few years are "Chasing Pavement" or her awesome version of "Make You Feel My Love" . Both are from her album 19 from back in 2008, like I said... she's been around a fair while. Just last week I heard a song from her more recent album 21 and it was one of those that made me turn around, by the album and then play over and over in my car and just don't get sick of. This woman has a flat out AMAZING voice and she jams every note full of genuine emotion.

I've been wrestling with picking a favorite from the 21 album... so I picked my top 4. These are the ones I feel are "strummin my pain with his fingers" right now for me. I picked these four because they really cover the range of emotion you (or really I) feel at the end of a relationship. I think that's a place everyone relates to at one point or another. If that doesn't apply to you (well, you're lying) then you can't help but get a glimpse of those feelings while Adele is singing.

"Don't You Remember"... a little hopeless and confused, wondering what went wrong.

"Turning Tables"... done with the ups and downs, hurt and resolved to end it.

"Someone Like You"... totally and completely missing someone who meant so much and hurting at the idea of them moving on.

"Rolling In the Deep"... love this one! It's a feisty hurt with just a tinge of bitterness and sadness.

Now I'm totally the sing-a-long-in-the-car type of girl and these ones provoke the kind of stares in traffic that interrupt my belting it out with fits of laughter at the faces of people driving by. I can't help but just turn it up and sing.... very loudly. And I dare you to listen to "Rolling in the Deep" and not at least tap your foot.... don't be surprised if you end up REALLY moving.

And in my opinion if you sound this amazing live, there isn't much argument left.

Soul Surfer

I've been trying to decide how to break up my posts about work so that you people don't start to think I have no life. I started thinking about what other things I do on a regular basis and the top two most interesting things I could think of are music and movies. I love both. I listen to music constantly and watch PLENTY of movies (though probably not as often as my friend, Liz). So I thought I'd use my blog to share my opinion on both subjects. So to start off...

I went and saw 'Soul Surfer' last night at the theater.


It's the story of Bethany Hamilton, a teenage competition surfer that lives in Hawaii. One day, while she is out surfing, she is attacked by a shark. In one bite it takes off her left arm right at the shoulder. I'd love to just sit here at tell you about the whole amazing story. It's no wonder they made a movie about this inspiring young girl.... I'm just going to tell you 1. I loved it (I cried, no joke). 2. The thing that amazed me most, and that they hardly touch on in the movie, is that one of the miracles of the attack is that Bethany stayed almost completely calm... and it saved her life. You would expect someone who has just been attacked by a shark and who has her entire arm completely removed in one fell swoop to just freak out, or pass out, or something! This girl just doesn't. In the movie you can tell that she is obviously hurting, but all she does is quietly ask for her family. She doesn't yell or scream or grab for her arm. If she had panicked, her heart would have pumped even faster, and honestly, she would have died. She lost 60% of her blood volume even with a calm heart rate! When she wakes up in the hospital, she reassures her family that, while she's had better days, she's okay. All she wants to do is get back out on the waves.

I think there is so much to be admired and learned from this. I am inspired by how brave this teenage girl was... I want to try and be more like that when I'm facing hard things. My stake president gave a talk that really stuck with me for the same reason. He reminded me how important it is to stay calm during hard times so that the Lord doesn't have to fight all of our emotions to help us and to lead us. He said, "When you're on fire it does no good to run around waving our arms yelling , 'I'm on fire! I'm on fire!' We need to stop, drop, and roll." It makes a lot of sense to say that sitting at computer feeling perfectly fine, but when it comes to it, I'm not always calm or reasonable when I'm dealing with a problem. I want to, like Bethany, have courage and faith in times of trial. I want to stay calm and show that I know that I can, with help, get through things. I know I now, and in the future, have the opportunity to be stronger and braver, and have more courage.

GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

<3

Don't judge my review to harshly... I'm new at this ;)