Crazy Life & Times

Sand tray therapy in abuse and trauma class

2010-05-18T16:24:00.001-07:00

Studying and writing papers... Yes on my birthday but hey you gotta do what you gotta do!

this is my groups sand tray art from abuse and trauma class. Don't ask us what it means...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Spring Pictures

2010-04-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Been a long time gone....

2010-04-23T15:44:00.000-07:00

With grad school coming to a close faster then I can get papers written and procrastination being fresh on my to do list I figure it's only fitting that I post a blog. I mean it was getting close to the year mark. It has been an eventful year full of joys and sorrows. Here are some things of note:
My mom's sister, my aunt Suzie Tucker, passed away in the fall and then my grandpa Jay (my dad's dad) passed away over spring break. One positive thing about funerals is that it brings family in from all over. I feel blessed to have been able to visit with so many of my relatives in the past year.
I was...asked, coerced,...firmly nudged? not sure what the best word is here but at any rate I applied for a part time Medical Social Worker float position at Salem Health Acute Care Hospital right before the end of spring term. The "hints" and repeated queries about weather or not I had applied finally pushed through my concern about taking on a position before graduating. The manager came and asked me to set up an interview before I had actually turned in my online application. So I interviewed and was offered a benefited position. I started the position about two weeks ago and have been going through the training process. As I have been interning at the hospital for the past 9 months the training has not been too intense. I enjoy the team and it looks as though there is opportunity to grow into a full time position in the summer or sometime soon after. Right now I am spending most of my time on the cardiac ICU step down floor, the actual ICU, and the oncology floors. I continue to put in two days a week as a requirement for my internship as well but I am no longer permitted to assist with floor work because my internship and job roles have to be clearly differentiated. This distinction allows me to devote my Monday and Tuesday to more in depth counseling with the patient counselor. I work every other Wednesday and every Thursday and Friday and some Saturday's. I really enjoy working in the hospital and the social service staff is very supportive and a lot of fun. It's nice to have something set as I prepare to transition from school life back to work life.
I graduate June 12th! Crazy! Where does the time go? Of course I still have quite a few major assignments standing between me and graduation but it's still exciting. I plan to apply and begin the licensing process so that I could potentially be part of a group that is accepted by insurance. Unless you have your LCSW insurance will not reimburse counseling with a social worker. I am fortunate to be able to take some time off for my family reunions this summer but vacation time after that will likely be few and far between as I do not have seniority and the company policy gives preference to vacation requests of those higher up and hospital work being what it is holidays are pretty much no existent. So it's good I work close to family! At least I will be off in evenings to enjoy things like thanksgiving and Christmas.

I know I have seemed invisible pretty much the past year but I have been following blogs and facebook to keep in touch with everyone and I appreciate the opportunities I have had to talk with friends and family. I am looking forward to having my evenings free and some care free weekends!! The burdon of school is coming close to being behind me! On to the next adventure.

I will post some pictures of what I have been up to the past few months in the next post.

A little resolution on the internship front

2009-10-06T16:24:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to say my internship is almost offically stable! I interviewed with my new supervisor and task supervisor and hammered out the details. I feel like I'm actually ending up in a better situation with the move. My new supervisor is very approachable and eager to help. I will be splitting my time between oncology and patient counseling. They said their goal is to teach me the ropes of the medical world so I can be either hired on after graduation or marketable for a job elsewhere. Woot! That sounds good to me! I think it's going to be a good opportunity. Plus I won't be working Saturdays like I would have in the ER. I'm feeling good about it and I think I can now let the idea of pursuing the LDS social services opportunity rest...at least for the remainder of the school year:).

So that said they didn't waste any time in getting me going...after all I already have the ID, training, drug screaning, background check,web access, and parking pass situation squared away from my three weeks of interning in the ER. I start Thursday. It's going to be an adventure.

If you post it they will come....or something

2009-10-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

So i have been chastised for not posting for such a long time. What can I say. I have an aversion to writing after a year of grad school. I lived life offline as much as possible over the summer and I'm sorry that I have been unable to stay in touch with everyone. I have been assured that people do actually still look at my blog though and that if I post something it will be read...so here it is friends! It is impossible to recap the jam packed goodness of my ultra exciting life (note the sarcasm please) but here are some fun things I have been up to in no particular order.

I spent three weeks of the summer with my parents at the beach house in Delaware. It was the best! Lots of opportunities to walk, bike, and swim. It felt good to be moving and relaxing in turn. Plus I love spending time with the Glasmann clan. It's always fun to be around the Taylor family and I really enjoyed all the fun and laughter. There was card games, complete with smack talk and ribbing, and more good food then I will probably see again for some time. I have to stock up on my cheese steak sandwiches while I'm back there! I got drenched in a thunderstorm while I was out attempting to walk 6 miles. I made it 3 and then was drenched in .2 seconds and rescued by my mother. It was also fun to have my cousin Paul and his family come for a quick visit. The trip ended with an insane drive made by me and my dad all the way from Delaware to Oregon. On the drive out we stopped somewhere every night and we had three drivers. On the drive back....we stopped in Sydney Nebraska and there were two drivers. It was fun though.

My cousin's got baptized in Utah at Brewer Camp. That was a really special experience. It was cool to have them baptized at a place rich with family history. The trip to Utah was fast but it was really nice to see so many friends and family members. I also really loved my cafe rio!! Ah I miss that place so much.

On the drive out to Delaware we drove through Rocky Mountain National Park. Holy Cow! Beautiful place. I loved the drive and would love to go back and do some hiking there sometime. It was so impressive to be driving up to the top of the Rockies. I recommend visiting the park!

Just before school started up I walked in the Newport Half Marathon. I walked with my aunt Karen and my brother in law Zach ran it. It was a lot of fun. I was surprised that I felt so good all the way up to mile 10. The last 3 miles were hard because they didn't have any water tables out. Next time I will walk with my water bottle! It was a beautiful course that went through trails in the mountains and then led us over to the beach. The course was 6.5 miles of beach walking. That was unexpected and took a little more effort but it was beautiful. I finished the 13.5 miles in 3 hours and 40 minutes. not shabby

I started my internship for the year at the Salem Hospital in the Emergency Department. I loved the 3 weeks I put in before school started....but it looks like that is all I get to love. My supervisor has had a family emergency and due to the stress and the need for erratic and possibly long periods of absence I am being reassigned to another supervisor. Initially it looked like I was going to be able to go back to the ED but now I have had word that if I choose to keep the hospital placement I will be permanently assigned to patient counseling and oncology. I have been struggling with this decision and I have my interview tomorrow. I plan to meet the supervisor and gather info and then make the final big decision. About the time everything went south with my internship I heard from a friend who did her internship at LDS family services last year that they were now looking for a student. Ironically when I wanted the placement last summer they didn't want a student! So I have been torn by the decision between two things I really want and not really having enough information to make a decision has made things interesting.

Alright well I think that brings you all up to speed on the things that have been on my mind lately.

I do still exist

2009-04-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

I know it feels like I have fallen off the face of the universe but I do still exist. I had good intentions to update my blog a few weeks ago at the start of spring term but life happens and my blog didn't. Winter term just about did me in. Apparently winter term first year is the worst term in the masters of social work program. People told me this toward the begining of the term and I thought ok it has some tough assignments I will plan ahead. There was no room to plan ahead. I was always writing papers! I'm tempted to post my theory paper on ego psych just as a sample of the intensity of the papers I was cranking out last term. But I don't think anyone would really read it so why go to all the trouble. Sping Break was not much of a break for me either. By the time the last paper was in and I was done at my internship I had a few days to breath and then I started cooking to fulfill my calling for break the fast. I did enjoy spending time with my family and going over to the coast, but the reprive was short lived.
Spring term started and things looked a bit more managable. Then two weeks into the term there was an unexpected blow that knocked us down. My friend and classmate Paula died unexpectedly of heart failure. She had no history of heart problems and nothing to indicate trouble. She got a virus and told us she was sick as a dog and the next day she went to the doctor and ended up having heart failure in the doctors office. In the Portland State MSW program you have a generalist instructor and class of about 20 students who stay together for the whole first year of the program. So my generalist class is like a little support system of people all experience comiserating and relating to each other. We formed some strong bonds. Paula was also in a small group with me that started at the begining of winter term and our group formed an amazing friendship, in large part due to Paula's amazing warmth and big heart. Paula's death has been a struggle for our generalist class. It has been a unique experience dealing with death at the scholastic level. We basicaly had group therapy our first day back together, it was a unique and beautiful experience. Last week was an attempt at a transition back to classwork...but we didn't quite make it. I'm not sure how assignments for that class are going to go. The biggest project for this term was a group project and as my group involved Paula my group is the one most in limbo. So I feel like I'm playing catchup and trying to juggle and compartmentalize everything to manage. This too shall pass and soon I will be taking on a new internship and looking toward graduation. Spring term ends the first week of June and I'm looking forward to some time off. I plan to catch up on blogs and post some pictures and do fun stuff. Hopefully I will be able to pay a visit to Utah and see many dear friends. I am also really hoping for a family trip to Disneyland...hint hint (did that help mom?). I interview this weekend for my potential placement next year. I'm hoping to be placed at a hospital emergancy department! I'm excited about the opportunity and praying the interview goes well and I get the placement. Hope the sun has shined where ever you are. We had a brief bout of sunshine this last weekend and it was amazing. I will post pictures of my venture out at the tulip festival the next time I post.

I'm back!

2008-12-15T08:26:00.000-08:00

Now where have I been you ask?...
~Started my Masters in Social Work program in the end of September. Class from 8am to 8:30pm Monday which mean I wake up at 6am and have to fight Portland traffic by 7:15 in order to make it to my class. It's pretty much non stop from then on!
~Internship! As part of the MSW program I have a year long internship where I am required to log 167 hours per term. That makes for 17 hours a week. So I am in class all Monday and then Wednesday and Thursday are full time internship days. Friday usually finds me at some kind of training meeting and Tuesday is my erron/ homework day. I haven't found much time to update my blog or spend time on the Internet.
~reading, reading, reading! Grad school involved more reading then I was expecting. I was often reminded of my days rooming with Jesse who was a English major...I have to read more then that. My usual weekly reading is about 150-200 pages per class. That adds up to about 500+ pages! I'm a slow reader too.
~writing papers. Jackie can attest to this. She said a few weeks ago "It seems like you are always writing a paper" and I am! I have turned in 7 or 8 papers between Sept 30 and Dec 1st. The average paper was 10 pages in length, the last one was 15! I was talking with a friend applying to grad school and he reminded me that in undergrad we would have one paper like that all term. Oh well you get used to it!
~being sick! I feel like as soon as the term started I was sick. I ended up with a very bad sinus infection. The only reason I got this taken care of pretty fast was because I live in Oregon and you can't buy anything besides Tylenol sinus or Theraflue over the counter. So Sudafed, Advil cold and sinus....all require a prescription here in Oregon! I called up to see if I could sweet talk the doctor into giving me some without me coming in....that didn't go over so well. I had to give the nurse all my symptoms so she could tell the doctor and the doctor insisted he needed to see me that my symptoms didn't sound good. So I went in, somewhat disgruntled as I had to leave my internship about 2 hours early and drive from Portland down to Corvallis, and when I said all I need is some drugs to hep clear up my sinuses the doc said....well bonus you get antibiotics too!
~being tired! As if grad school wasn't enough to make a person tired I found out on my impromptu doctors visit that my thyroid level has been way off for the last year. I have been on medication for hypothyroid since I was a sophomore in high school. This is the first time my level has been off so far that I required the highest level of thyroid hormone they make! Sweet! So that helped me not feel so sleepy all the time and run down.
~visiting family. I'm sure many of you have read their blogs and know the details. There has been the addition of a new baby to the family and a few complications with mom's health along with that. Birthdays, Halloween,and Thanksgiving and lots of fun in between.

Wish I had some pictures to share...but I don't. I will have to steel some from Jackie since most of the fun outings have involved her boys. School is all done now and I came to C* for the weekend and I may be staying longer because there is 4 inches of snow and the forecast is for it to stick around and maybe continue snowing!

I'm back in bloggosphere

2008-09-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

I was somewhat dismayed to visit my sisters page the other day and notice that it says under the link to my blog that I havn't posted in 5 weeks. Pretty sad. I have lots to say but right now I'm just doing a short post. We are currently in the process of canning about 120 pounds of peaches! We got a lot done in the 3 hours we worked this morning and I'm sure we will get even more done after lunch. I'm excited to have my friend Kacie coming to visit for the week and my aunt and uncle from Deleware following that visit up! It will be a busy time as I prepare for my masters program to start. In relation to my masters program starting I have been considering going private with my blog. I have enjoyed having it be open and having friends find me through it but I'm leary with starting work in the social work field. These people will know more info about me then my former work...and thus will likely be able to google me and find my blog if they really wanted too. So I'm going to waite about a month and then go private. I will invite people if I have your email address. If you don't know if I have your email...send me one and then you will know I have it!
Hope everyone is enjoying summers wrap up. I love fall but it is always hard to let summer go.

Start your engines

2008-07-27T21:15:00.000-07:00

This week has passed in a whirlwind and I have had good intentions of updating my blog, but best laid plans and all that. The driving crue, of which I am a part, departs in a few hours. I spent the weekend looking at housing in the Portland area. It was a discouraging trip. Before I went up I had looked on various online postings and tried to get some idea of price range and location. I had high hopes of finding housing around the $600 range. It became clear once I was up there however that unless I found someone to live with the price range would leave me with undesirable housing. I was either going to live in a total dump, or live in a just above dump status in a scary neighborhood, or someplace semi decent that was in the $700 range. Needless to say I'm exploring other options.
I have been trying to get up to visit the YSA wards and get a feel for them and meet the housing coordinators and the likes for the past three weeks. The first attempt was a poor choice of weekend and we had some family stuff so I decided to stay and planned to go up next sunday. During the week I got a call from the new relief society presidency and they asked me to teach the lesson for the coming Sunday. I thought ok that still leaves me with two weeks before our beach trip I can just go up next sunday. Yeah....about that. So I get a call the night before the sunday I teach, can I come in and meet with the bishopric they want to extend me a new calling. Side note: our student wards here got a make over about a month ago. Instead of two "student" wards that included marrieds without kids and anyone 18 an up attending school we now have a YSA ward, and it got combined into one ward. ok end of side note!
Anyway I got in and I'm thinking maybe since they asked me to teach I will get called as a teacher. Oh no, the relief society president happened to know I played the piano back in the day...so I got called as the relief society pianist. This took some restraint on my part. My first impulse was to laugh, and in fact that was my brothers first reaction when I told him. Once upon a time I could play most hymns without much difficulty...enter school and work and no piano for me to practice on for the last four years. I had a serious phobia of playing with people singing, in fact I just have a phobia of people. I may come off friendly but deep down I'm still scared of you when I'm talking. I got called as the relief society pianist when I was at Ricks, way back in the day, and then had to play in sacrament a few times. I believe I didn't sleep much the night before I had to play if I remember correctly. Then on my mission I was the only one who could even remotly play the hymns in wards and so the germans didn't care if I botched the chords they just liked having some background music for a change and it bolstered my confidence. See the thing about the church is you are surrounded by talented people and especially going to a church school and having piano majors and super skilled poeple that can play the songs in their sleep it makes you feel stupid when you are asked to play. So post mission I had less fear but I still don't volunteer to play because I know that my skill level isn't as high as others. This was a long tangent..props to you if you are still with me here. The point of this rambling is that I accepted the calling but found it funny. I think the Lord is trying to get me ready for doing things that scare me in the coming months. Kind of warming me up slowly.
So along with the calling to be pianist they snuck in a assignment to give a talk. That's right that would be another week in a row that I couldn't make it to Portland to check out housing! So we are down to the wire here this last week and I was determined. Forget that calling I mentioned, housing was taking priority. I go up and I have the times all checked out of the different YSA wards and I'm psyching myself up to be agressive and overcome this deepdown scared child that is afraid of talking to people....and then this morning I got a call from a friend up there who I had emailed on Saturday....foiled again!!!! There was a regional conference for the YSA wards in Portland. Every single one of them was meeting in Vancoover. I just had to laugh. Oh well my friend was kind enough to help me out with housing info and was going to check to see if anyone was looking for a roommate so one of the main purposes of going up was taken care of. I just didn't get to get a feel for the wards. Sigh...sometimes it just feels like everything is conspiring against me.

I drove back down this afternoon with all Jackie & Zach's gear and the trailor is packed and the dog is freeking out thinking we are leaving him and last minute preperations are in full swing. I don't know if I will have the chance to post while I'm back there because the internet connection is not reliable. I will get emails and internet access on my phone though so keep in touch! I will be checking blogs! I'm excited for this trip and I feel like this is the begining of the big changes ahead.

Harward Family Reunion

2008-07-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

The first ever M. E. Harward family reunion was a big sucess! I personally had tons of fun. It was enjoyable to see cousins that I don't get to see all that often and play with all their kids and just hang out and enjoy one another. Jackie posted a bunch about the family auction and i would have to agree with her post about how talented our family is. The items auctioned off were mostly hand made and they were all donated so that the proceeds of the auction went to help fund next years reunion. I was lucky enough to get a quilt made by my aunt suzie. I feel really lucky to have the keepsake and am looking forward to having it on my bed when I move in September. I was eyeing the quilt before the auction and I was hoping to be able to get it. The starting bid was $75 so I didn't know if it got up too high if I would be able to justify getting it. I need a new bedspread since I will have a full size bed when I move in the fall and all my previous bedding is for a twin. My parents were super awesome and they got the quilt for me! I will have to post a picture later. The auction included such amazing hand made items including: kids rocking chair, baby blanket, quilted wall hanging/ doll blankets, kids aprons with amazing fabric such as disney princess and pirates and clowns, doilys, decorative tiles with vinal sayings...and the list goes on. Here are some of my favorite photos depicting the many fun activities going on at the cabin during the weekend reunion. Sadly I don't think anyone got a picture of the firework viewing. We went to newport and enjoyed quite a spectacular showing. Playing games: Jayme, Virginia, Grandpa & Maxine playing polish poker The great grand kids Playing horseshoes: Cara & Megan The marshmellow fight reenactment of the battle of bunker hill! Kids down by the river The whole gang that showed for the reunion Silly Harward clan Madeline, Katie, Mark show their marshmellow shooting abilities Making dream boats (explained below) Here is a video of the launching of our dream boats. Every family had at least one dream boat but most of the kids made their own, so this video doesn't really do it justice. I wish I had a video of the legend that my mom told that goes along with the dream boats. The dream boats were something the Harward sisters did when they were little. Apparently their uncle told them about some river fairy's and the great granddaddy crawdad and the dream boats were to be homes for the fairy's. It was a fun activiity and everyone seemed to enjoy carrying on a little tradition from our parents.

I'm back...sorry it's been so long

2008-07-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

I was sitting in church the other day thinking to myself how I felt like I had been so out of touch during the last few weeks and only seen people on sunday. When I got home I fell asleep because I was exhausted and forgot to take my cell phone off of vibrate like I usually do when I get home from church. Later that evening when I went to bed I noticed I had about 8 missed calls....weird for me. A good friend of mine had been trying to get ahold of me, along with some other people, and there was some concern over the reason I had been so distant for the past couple of weeks. So I feel compelled to apolagize in general to anyone out there who may think I have been unfriendly by not calling, emailing, posting on your (0r mine for that matter) blog. My past few weeks have kept me out of cell phone, internet, and general contact with the technological world. I probably haven't been as busy as some of you inbetween my camp trips but for some reason I was just so tired that the thought of getting on the internet was overwhelming. I'm back now! I will attempt to catch up and get emails out and calls made but please don't think I don't value your friendship because I have neglected you in the past few weeks. It wasn't intentional!

I really should be eating lunch and cleaning the house right now so I will have to post all about girls camp and out family reunion later. I had so much fun with the family that attended the first ever M.E. Harward reunion. It was a blast!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-06-25T05:00:00.000-07:00

Long ago...

this was my roommate Amy's favorite picture of me. I just found it in a letter stored in one of my memory boxes.

Despite the fact Brian is holding a knife to me...he says I look like the scarryer person in this picture...you decide

This was one of the many Jeremy Johnson's our appartment enjoyed, sadly he is married now. Quite possibly one of the funnest dates I went on while at Ricks. It was a dance where you roommates asked someone out for you. It was pretty fun getting together and deciding who we were going to ask for each other. We were all dressed up in scrubbs

The Happenings

2008-06-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

I realize I have slacked on the postings lately. Ah well...life is life. A great variety of things has been happening around our house lately. Jayme and Virginia moved home just in time for Jackie and her family to come down and Josh to graduate. The full house was fun and crazy. After Josh graduated we had a brief lull and then we were up to visit Jackie for Keegan's big fourth birthday party. He was quite the b-day boy; he got a scooter and was so very proud of it that everyone who walked in the door after he opened it got to hear about it. He also got a t-ball set and a baseball helmet, which he wore most of the party. From the birthday party on I feel like I have had something going on almost every day that disrupts any rhythm I may have been trying to get into. It's been a fun ride though.
I got called as the relief society secretary, so no more mission prep lessons to prepare...instead all kinds of other stuff to follow up on and worry about. I had meetings and visits and all kinds of new things to think about in my normally boring weekly routine. It's nice to be getting more involved with the sisters, as opposed to the 18-20 year old guys taking mission prep. We have had a few fun family outings that have kept me busy as well. We had a fun trip to the coast and did some shopping & had a day down at the Alsea cabin doing tons of outside work to prep the cabin grounds for our upcoming family reunion. I also got ringed into doing camp. I was mysteriously put in as a name for a tent mom....hmmm wonder how that happened (beware of mothers in young women's presidency's). My mom failed to mention this little idea she proposed and one day I got a phone call saying "So we hear you would be willing to be a tent mom"....oh really...news to me. Of course it was fine...just a bit shocking. So I said sure I could probably do it and they said "Oh well we have a few possibilities we will get back to you"...next thing I know the camp director is calling me and telling me she heard I was going to be a tent mom and she needs me to come to a meeting. There was a serious lack of communication going on here! Despite all the lack luster communication skills I did end up getting enough info to make it to the first meeting with my unit. I get to be a tent mom for the 1st year camp girls. Camp starts tomorrow and so I have been running around getting various things together for the last few weeks. I was in charge of doing secret sister assignments and helping tie dye socks for our unit (rubberbanding 30 pairs of socks is not very fun in case anyone was wondering). My unit didn't have a certification leader and so I ended up getting some of those responsibilities foisted on me along with my other tent mom duties. Also somehow they decided to call me to do a "talk" at the Wednesday night fireside. This assignment remains a puzzle to me. I don't live in an area where the population of Latter Day Saint members is small...there are a lot of people to pick from and frankly I have never been one to stand out as a great orator...in fact it scares me to death to get up in front of people and talk...so why they called me...no idea! Should be interesting though since I have no podium to hide my shaking body behind. When I return from camp I will be sure to report. Hope you are all enjoying your summers!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-06-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

This time last year...

And this year..... he is imitating a picture...don't ask

Things to celebrate....and some thing not to celebrate!

2008-06-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

Today is a big day in the Glasmann household, today is the day the last Glasmann graces the local high school! No more getting up to say family prayer before Josh heads off to seminary at 5:45am! No more Josh stressing out because he may not get an a++ on some test! Josh is on of about 20 valedictorians in his graduating class. That doesn't make the accomplishment any less though! We are really proud of him. Josh graduated with a 4.0 and plans to attend BYU-Provo in the fall. Way to go Josh!!

Some other things to celebrate this week:
~Jayme and Virginia finally completed all their obligations in Utah and made the long trip back to Oregon.
~getting the moving van unloaded and things put in storage or in their room...as the case may be.
~ Jackie, Zach, Keegan, and Kayden down for the whole weekend!
~Josh getting ordained an elder!
~ A sunny warm Sunday after weeks of cloudy, rainy 50 degree weather!
~finally getting my b-day present, a new phone. I got a blackberry which is nice because I can email and all that jazz while I"m out and about. If you don't have my number and you want it send me an email and I will give it to you.

And because the good always comes with the bad...some things not to celebrate:
~The price of gas
~the utter chaos created by 10 people in a house with three rooms and two bathrooms....I think I counted 8 towels in the downstairs bathroom today.
~The dog Riley getting sprayed by a skunk last night.
Here we are all sitting inside with the windows open watching a movie and all the sudden there is a strange smell....Jackie noticed it about the time I was going to say something and we identified it in time to shut the windows before the house was engulfed in skunk smell. We have never, ever, in the 30+ years that Harward/Glasmann's have inhabited, and roamed all over, this property seen a skunk. Perhaps it has something to do with the weird weather...or something. Anyway the dog was relegated to the out of doors until we could get something to eliminate the smell. Our family is a fan of mythbusters and so the first thing to come out of every one's mouth after the dog got sprayed was "Tomato juice doesn't work". Great...but what does? So I go to the wide world of internet to find out the answer to my question. I got a host of links for my google search and decided to go straight to the most official looking, which happened to be animal control. Now I did get a handy recipe that worked wonders. However since they were dispensing a recipe that worked apparently they felt at liberty to insult the average web page visitor. I mean does anyone have cause to go in search of a recipe for getting rid of skunk smell unless they have been sprayed? Allow me to quote the website (with my comments added):
"So. You or your dog or even a part of your house has been sprayed by a skunk (no ya think), and now you want to get rid of the smell. How do you eliminate the odor once you have been sprayed by a skunk? Well, first of all, you or your dog should have know the warning signs ahead of time. (Seriously, is there a course you need to put your dog through as a puppy cause if so we missed the boat on that one) A skunk will give many clear signals before it sprays. If threatened, it will stamp its front feet, arch its back, and shuffle away. If you don't leave right away, it will turn its posterior toward you, raise the tail, and release the smelly mush, a sulfur-alcohol compound, from the special glands near the rear. This spray not only stinks, but burns and can cause temporary blindness if it is sprayed directly into the eyes. (ok I will be sure and review this information with my dog so that next time he comes in contact with a skunk he will recognize the warning signs...thanks for sharing) Since you didn't take heed and got sprayed (seriously...amazing), here is how to get rid of the smell:
(this really does work but you may want to save yourselves the insult and just write it down somewhere for future reference. That way if your dog wanders off and gets sprayed you can just make the stuff without the insults ticking you off further)

*1 quart 3% hydrogen peroxide
*1/4 cup baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
*1 teaspoon liquid soap or dish detergent
mix these together and bather (shampoo in or rub down) the spray victim thoroughly. Be sure to use the mixture immediately after it is created, as it is unstable. Rinse with tap water afterward, and repeat if necessary. For spray in the eyes, flush with water as soon as possible.

The spray victim in happier times!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-05-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day Hike
~Bald Hill~
Following the Leader

Sisters

Kayden

Heading to the trail head

Another year older...and wiser too....

2008-05-20T15:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to me!
I realize it's been a while since I have put anything of any substance on my blog. I just haven't had the blogging spirit lately. On my birthday I was pleased to receive many an email and text, and in the process realized I haven't really been doing much by way of the Internet lately. I just haven't been sure what to post about....life seems so repetitive at the moment. The beautiful weather allowed for some nice outside time. I was able to get in a few walks, albeit short, with my mom and enjoyed doing some work outside. My dad has most of the garden in and has been hard at work outside. I have been running a lot of errons and doing work around the house.
This past weekend was busy but fun. I enjoyed a evening out on Friday with my friend Katie who treated me to a movie for my birthday. Saturday we had the Harward clan out for a belated birthday bash for my grandpa. We had Hawaiian haystacks...Alla Jessica. It was a little different concoction. Perhaps worthy of Ollie's tasty Tuesday. I am well known with my former roommates for my zesty Italian chicken crockpot recipe. (Heather will note the crockpot part is important as I also have a zesty italian chicken grill recipe which we spent the better part of ten text messages confusing each other over) Once I made the recipe here at home and my mom thought it might be good for Hawaiian haystacks. So I decided to try it out on the family. When I make the zesty italian (crockpot) chicken I usually add one can of cream of celery and about 3/4 a block of cream cheese and 3/4-1/2 soup can full of milk over about 3 chicken breasts with a package of dry zesty italian dressing mix. To make the sauce thinner for haystacks I decided to add 1 can of cream of chicken and 1 can of cream of celery and a whole package of cream cheese and then 1 & 1/2 packages of dry italian seasoning. I also used canned chicken, but only because I was too lazy to pull out and shred the real deal after it cooked for the family party. It turned out really yummy. We had a bazillion toppings for the haystacks and grandpa and Maxine went all our on the Hawaiian theme and brought Hawaiian music & shell lays for people. Here is part of the celebratory clan.

My mom and her sisters had fun pictures taken during one of their sisters weekends and had decided to give their dad a framed picture for his birthday. My mom and I decided to make a fun picture matte to go around the 5x7 picture they had decided to frame. It turned out nice. We made two versions so we could see what people liked best. Here are pics of the finished product.

My birthday was very relaxing. We had a delicious dinner of steak sandwiches and homemade boardwalk fries and fruit. It was so filling I think we all felt sick the rest of the night. When we had cake I could only eat a small piece because my stomach was still so full from out dinner several hours earlier. I'm supposed to be getting a new phone for my b-day, assuming we ever make it over to the store. I will be switching to an Oregon number since I now know I will be in Oregon for the next two years...no sense in keeping the Utah number. So just a heads up there if you have my number...it will be changing soon. My birthday this year was pretty low key. But it's hard to compete with last year. Last year I spent my birthday in Cali with one of my best friend and we spent the day at disneyland. These are my reminiss pics....good times Thanks Jess!

Thanks to all my great friends for the calls and notes. I have been so greatful for my friends and I think in lou of any exciting news in my life I'm going to start highlighting some of the many great people in my life...so beware...

Wordless Wednesday

2008-05-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

Fun in the Sun (at least the last time we saw it)There is rummor that it is supposed to be 90 tommorow...so I thought these sunny pictures were appropriate.

Freaky Friday

2008-05-02T01:00:00.000-07:00

This post is for Jackie...probably the only other person who will appreciate it as much as I do. Keegan put on these martigras beads my dad brought back from New Orleans before bath and we were trying to take a picture but every time we would go to take one he would pose like this!

ABC's of Jessica

2008-05-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

ABC's of Jessica

A- Attached or Single? Single
B- Best Friend(s)? Jesse & Katie
C- Cake or Pie? Cake
D- Day of Choice? Friday
E- Essential Item? um...toilet paper? No Idea?
F- Favorite Color? Yellow
G- Gummy Bears or Worms? Bears
H- Hometown? Corvallis
I- Favorite Indulgence? Naps in the sun, indoor or out, both are beautiful.
J- January or July? July
K- Kids? nada
L- Life isn't complete without? Family
M- Marriage date? Good Question...guesses anyone?
N- Number of brothers and sisters? 2 Brothers 1 Sister & one that I call sister...but it's complicated
O- Oranges or Apples? Usually Oranges
P- Phobias and Fears? Being Center of Attention...hate it.
Q-Quote? "Life isn't about faceing the storms but rather learning to dance in the rain"
R- Reason to smile? Do I need one?
S- Season of choice? Spring/Fall
T- Tag two people? Melonie & Katie B.
U- Unknown fact about me? I hate peanut butter
V- Vegetable? Asparagus
W- Worst Habit? not sure
X-ray or Ultrasound? depends I guess
Y- Your favorite food? cheese
Z- Zodiac Sign? Taurus

Taking Shape

2008-05-01T16:44:00.000-07:00

Well after much time in limbo land I'm pleased to report the future is taking shape. Th picture above is of the Portland State Main Campus sky bridge. I got an email from Portland State's Masters of Social Work program yesterday saying I have been accepted for Fall into their 2 year MSW program!! Obviously I'm pretty excited. I had been a bit anxious the last few days before the email came knowing that I should be getting word any day. The thing I was most afraid of was surprisingly not rejection but getting onto the alternate list again. I wanted to either hear yes or no so I could get some semblance of closure and move on with plans. When I saw the email address I was like....can I handle opening this tonight? I realized when I opened it and it was acceptance that I really had prevented myself from making any plans in that direction and that now I had all kinds of things I could plan. That in and of itself was a relief. I have all summer to enjoy myself knowing that come September I will be a full time student. I was accepted to the 2 year program where they recommend no outside employment due to the fast pace of learning & the internships. I'm excited to enter this next step and even more excited to stay in Oregon with it looking like Jayme and Virginia moving back in June.
Sorry it's been so long since I posted. I have been playing house...by that I mean taking care of my mom and pretty much taking her role. I have been making all the meals, doing grocery shopping, cleaning, and making sure my mom gets to all her appointments and does her physical therapy (which usually involves her telling me how much she hates me as I cheerfully count off how many more reps she has left). We have managed to get the kitchen all moved back in and almost completely decorated, this has been interesting with my mom still recovering from knee surgery. Today I was holding up a metal thing we bought to go on the wall and I was standing at the very top of a 8 foot ladder asking my mom what she thought of it and she said "I think it looks good there, here let me hold it and you see what you think"....yeah right! Things stay pretty busy with physical therapy appointments and doctor appointments and the like but I haven't really been up to much. It has been nice to have the experience of helping care for my grandpa to compare to my mom's recovery process. I think having experienced it twice before makes me more understanding and patient with her recovery process compared to the rest of the family.

Through a Childs Eye's

2008-04-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

My mom came home from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. She is doing great and harassing me about torturing her when I put her through the physical therapy exercises. If she thinks I'm bad she will have a new perspective after she meets with the real physical therapist on Monday. So the relief society sisters wanted to bring meals for my mom and last night a very cute family who my mom works with the wife in young women's brought us some delicious beef. I'm not sure how she cooked it but boy was it good. The kids all know my mom from presidency meetings and stuff for young women's and the five year old boy was very concerned and wanted his mom to tell him what had happened to my mom. So she told him. The kids all brought my mom little cards and drawings they had made when they came out with the meal. It was way cute. The five year old boy's drawing is amazing! You just have to see it for yourself. His mom told him that the doctor had to cut my mom's knee off and put in a new one so she wouldn't hurt anymore. Here is what the little kid thought.

The doctor is the one holding the saw and the blue thing next to the saw is my mom's leg. Seriously is this not the cutest picture. It's just so funny...and shockingly not too far off from the truth:)
Well the beautiful weather has left Oregon and now it's unseasonably cold and we could have hail and possibly snow tonight. All the cherry tree's are in bloom....sadness. It will really kill Oregon's and hurt farmers if it freezes tonight. It's been a rough year for Oregon's farmers & fishermen.

Wednesday...but not wordless

2008-04-16T14:54:00.001-07:00

So I'm on my dad's computer at the hospitle and I don't have any pictures to put up, but it's been a long time so I thought I would update. My mom had knee surgery on Monday and is doing great! I have been fielding phone calls and keeping people informed in the mornings and then coming up to see her at the hospitle in the afternoon. She is doing super and will head home tommorow. The poor dog is very confused by her absence. The other day my dad came home and then came back up to the hospitle and when I went home after him the dog thought my dad was in his outside lab and sat outside the door wagging his tail. Poor guy, he is going to go crazy when she comes home tommorow. My mom is up and doing great and caring for her is far less intensive then caring for my grandpa as things are not complicated by blindness. Her pain is under control and hopefully we can keep it that way when she goes home. So far so good. I havn't been up to a whole lot that is exciting. This last weekend we had Jackie and family down for a little belated birthday celebration for josh. We had the most beautiful weather and had a great time at the beach. Jackie's blog has pictures and I need to steel some from her. We threw around a football with Keegan and a frisbee. The dog was really good and was just chasing the frisbee back and forth as we threw it but not biting. But then we decided to go ahead and throw it with him and it was cheap plastic and it ended up in pieces because it cracked. It was really fun hanging out at the coast. We went to the undersea gardens and that was really fun too. It was beautiful to have 75 degree weather...but now it's supposed to snow. Oh well.
I will have to post some pictures later. Hope you are all well!

Wordless Wednesday part 2

2008-04-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

This is the picture I wanted to post today...but I couldn't find it earlier...so here it is now. This is um...sophmore year (is that right Katie?) halloween costumes. Katie & I were speedbumps. I recently got this from Katie's scrapbook. It's not the best quality but it's all we have to commenmorate our speedbump costumes.

Wordless Wednesday:Temple Square

2008-04-09T16:21:00.001-07:00

My haircut pictures...and more utah pics

2008-03-31T18:43:00.001-07:00

This sort of gives a view of the layers. This is driving in my car with Kate and Amber is taking the picture in the back seat.

At the wedding with Heather- shows it straight

Me and Amber

This is just too funny not to post...I made them plates of food and shoved them in their hands and then they were like inhaling the food...hillarious.

Very tired...shows off my layers though. These are just some that show my hair. I took the first one myself..hence the funny angle of my face..he he

Some Pics from Utah

2008-03-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

This is the night before the wedding in St. George. We were just being silly

This is the day of the wedding and Heather getting her hair done.

What to do while waiting for the bride and groom after the seeling...hmm tackle some kids on the lawn.

Terrah and Candy waiting patiently

The bride and groom emmerge...and Heather celebrates finally getting hitched

Terrah, Heather, Amber, Jessica- FDL reunnited...if only Alyson weren't in the MTC

Heather's boquet...beautiful!

The Candy Table...yummy and fun

A picture to remember...love it!

The beautiful flowers on the tables...pre massive wind storm:)

The tables pre- storm

Waiting for the ring ceremony to begin

Heather and Amber after the ring ceremony...and about two seconds before the wind knocked over that massive picture I love and half the flowers and forced us to move inside:)

The tables in the storm...and Heather posing as bridezilla. It was actually really hard to get this picture because she kept laughing when she would pose that way. It went from 73 and sunny to mad thunderstorm and gail force winds in like the thirty minutes it took to have the ring ceremony. Oh well..it was still fun.

Hold Please

2008-03-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

Ok I'm going to attempt to recap the many crazy thoughts, feelings, and adventures I have had in the past month. No guarantee this is going to make sense...but this is more for my own personal record anyway. This is somewhat of a journal for me and I think of all my posts this one is a bit more journalesque.
I have been thinking back over the experiences I have had in the past year and especially the spiritual journey I have undergone as I have tried to figure out why the heck the Lord prompted me to uproot myself, leave my friends & my job, and move back to Oregon...and stay with my family. Now I love my family (so family don't take this wrong!)...but I am not the type of person who would normally be living at home at this point in my life. I'm not comfortable just hanging out and not knowing when I'm going to leave home...it's been a internal struggle. I like being home, I know I'm welcome, but...I feel like at my age I should be out on my own. So In the past year as I have researched different options and prayed about moving forward with them it has been really frustrating to get the answer "That is a great plan Jessica...but not right now." I feel like in the movie Galaxy Quest when Siguorney Weaver's character says *Hold Please* and poor Tim Allen is just left hanging.
For those of you who haven't seen this movie... let me paint a picture. Ok so it's a spoof on all the Star Trek movies and these washed up tv show actors from the tv show Galaxy quest end up in real life alien stuff when they think they are doing a gig...anyway. So Tim Allen's character is down in dire peril and he is trying stuff but it's not working and so he asks his crew, up on the ship, to help him out over this little com link thing. So it comes down to one guy needing to work this machine that is dangerous and he is nervous so he tries it on a monster first and the monster turns inside out and explodes all over the crew in the ship(less graphic then this sounds I promise). Time Allen is like...come on guys...and one of the aliens is like "but it turned inside out..and exploded" and Tim Allen says "WHAT??" and the girl talking to him on the com link says "Hold Please", I feel like that is the answer I keep getting *Hold Please* And I feel like there is a lot more going on behind the scenes then I am aware and while I'm down here in the action there is a lot of behind the scenes stuff going on and so when I keep asking for info I keep getting this *Hold Please*...not a flat out no or go ahead proceed, or make up your own plan...just *hold please* That is the best way I can describe the way I feel.

This is the longest post I think I have ever written so for those of you who are not interested in my journal ramblings here are the highlights (the long version follows)
Utah trip:
~wedding in St. George for old roommate- tons of fun and beautiful weather
~haircut/ music/ and general fun times with old roommates, also lots of Cafe Rio!
~loved seeing the nieces and Norma, Ward, and Jayme
D.C. trip:
~all work no play!
~OK there was a shopping trip for my cousin Robin and a nice lunch with my aunt. No time or energy for a repeat of last time's shopping trip.

Now on to the long version:
I arrived back from my Utah trip safe and sound, although somewhat exhausted, after my whirlwind trip. My new care did nicely and I loved driving it! It was really too short, and saying goodbye was immensely depressing! I think I have been blessed in my life with a generally positive attitude about life. Being back among my dear friends and old work environment where I was so greatly appreciated was so refreshing and I confess I felt pretty depressed not knowing when I would see them all again. I have been wanting to take that trip to Utah since October....and I made it in March....hence you can see my depression. I wanted so badly to say I would see them all again in the summer, but honestly I don't know what I'm doing in two weeks so how can I plan that far in advance. I'm so grateful for the knowledge that Heavenly Father is guiding my life, but it has really been a growing experience to not have a plan I could really move forward with. I keep trying to do my part and work out several plans...weigh my options...make them a matter of prayer...basically try and move forward with my life in a way that I can actually explain to people what I'm doing. All of this seems to be to no avail as I keep getting the answer *hold please*. I was immensely frustrated with this before my trip to Utah. I just kept looking for what I needed to be doing because I felt like I was in this limbo and I just kept feeling wrong about moving forward with anything I was exploring and I felt like a failure. Shortly before I left I decided there were three options I needed to pray about.

One...it was one of those cases where all the options were good and I just needed to press forward and trust that the Lord would stop me if I was headed in the wrong direction. I hadn't felt that way thus far but I decided I needed to explore that option and pray about it and let the Lord know I was willing to move forward and pick my own option if that is what he was saying...just to help me feel good about moving forward. Two...none of the options were right and there was some other direction I should be heading in and I just wasn't seeing it..in which case I felt like I was in serious need of help from the Lord to direct me. Third...I was doing exactly what he wanted and while the options I was praying for were good they were not what he wanted me to do at the moment. In which case I needed to pray for peace with my situation because I was having some serious anxiety. So after I decided this I expressed my desires and my reasoning and what not to the Lord and asked for these things. After I prayed I got a feeling of peace and again the impression that my own life was on hold but I was doing what he wanted right now. I thought...ok I'm not sure what I'm doing right now but if I have this peace then I know I'm where I'm supposed to be. So we painted and it was super busy and then I left for Utah and on the way down my dad called to say my grandpa was wanting to do knee surgery like the day after I got back from my Utah trip and was I willing to go. All of the sudden I could see why some of those options were not what the Lord wanted me to do. I remember a feeling of relief washing over me as I was driving...thinking ok that's why I wasn't supposed to get a job and all that other stuff. So I missed out on the choir thing I was a part of for Easter but it was a small price to pay. I was definitely needed back here with my grandpa. Having that knowledge made it easier to bear explaining the unexplainable future to everyone while I was in Utah, plus I still had the peace I had prayed for. I had tons of fun staying with Norma and the girls and it was nice to be there when Ward was in the hospital because I felt like I could help out. It was so sad to say goodbye to the girls...I have always been around them and it's weird that I'm so far away. I spent a lot of time with my roommates and Heather's wedding was so fun. I didn't imagine being so involved in it when I wanted to go down. I thought having only lived with Heather for a short time that her friends from the mission and for before would kind of be more who she would turn too and I was prepared to take a back seat and just be there for the sealing and reception and hit the road. It was so fun to be so involved. We were with Heather the night before she got married and then helped while she had her hair and makeup done and then after the sealing we were with Heather and E.J. lots and it was just wonderful. It was a good feeling and I'm so glad I was able to go. I think I held heather's bouquet for half of the reception because she kept handing it to us so she could do something. People kept asking if I had caught it and I was like...nope she hasn't even thrown it yet. The next post will have some pictures from the wedding. I absolutely loved Heather's reception. The colors were so here and so fun and she had a candy table and her wedding pictures were beautiful. I took a picture of one because I wanted to remember it for when I get married and have wedding pictures. Besides the wedding I also had fun with Amber and Kate. Kate helped bring me up to speed on music and I came back with quite a selection of things to try out and see what I liked. Kate cut my hair. I cut off about 4 inches of all around length..so just a nice big healthy trim. Kate was reluctant to cut off too much length...but then again so was I. It's fun having it long again. She layered my hair beautifully and cut some bangs that fall between chin and lip. It just makes a nice accent if I want them around my face. I love it. I will try and get some pics up. My hair was straight in the wedding pics and while you can see the layers it's always longer when it's straight so it doesn't look shorter. Amber and I had some great talks and just a good time together on our road trip and stuff. Amber and Kate have this grand plan that we should all move in together for the summer. The plan sounds great to me...but as I just keep getting a *hold please* answer I'm not sure what's going on until after April.

My time here in D.C. has been full of caring for my grandpa. I have loved spending time with my aunts Jill and Myrene and of course my grandpa. I arrived on Tuesday and went immediately to the hospital to take the night shift. I figured I was still on Oregon time and I was fresh so it would be fine. Last time I was on the floor every night and this time it was a cushy set up. I had a bed in both the hospital and the care center...not that I got a whole lot of sleep in it but still much better then the floor. The first night was pretty easy stuff and I went home and slept...got up in time to shower and head back over again. That was pretty much my routine the whole time he was in the hospital and care center. I was with him from about 7pm to 9am and then I would drive home, eat, then sleep until 4ish and shower and eat and head back over. So there wasn't much action to report on this time. My grandpa's wife headed off to Florida with some girlfriends on a trip they had planned long before the surgery and so it was just me and Jill from last Monday till Friday evening when his wife returned. My grandpa is doing pretty good. He is still in considerable pain. The pain medication was a tricky thing because the first one they gave him made him throw up...all night! I was the lucky one who got to be there to deal with that....which was fine. Now I know that some day when I have kids throwing up I will be just fine to clean it all up. It's always good to know what you can handle. Then the other pain medications made him a bit delusional. I don't really want to post about that on here...but there are some funny stories! We got a handle on it for a few days there but now he is still in pain and the doctor took the staples out today and is testing his blood to make sure there is no infection. When he was in the hospital the nurses didn't change his catheter bag and it backed up and overflowed and then he got a little minor infection...they got rid of it when he was transferred to the care center and things looked ok but now there is some question of infection again, only this time in the knee as his knee is in pain and a bit hot to the touch....so we are praying for the best. I did get out for two days and do some nice stuff and I had all Saturday to sleep and relax. I got to go shopping with my aunt and cousin and we helped my cousin go get a hair cut and get some new outfits and then today I had a little adventure with my aunt myrene. We went out to lunch and had a great chat and then since it was raining and not conducive to strolling the monuments we just drove through Kenwood and looked at the cherry blossoms...it was beautiful. I only wish the weather had been nice so we could have been out walking.
Now I head back home and a little less then two weeks before my mom has her knee surgery. Then after that....the wide open future...perhaps I will get taken off hold, but who knows. For now I'm content to know that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and that the future will take care of itself.

Jetting around

2008-03-17T09:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I have been remiss in my blogging duties. I will have to get an update up once I get someplace and stay there for a few days! I have been in Utah for the past week. I had the most wonderful time and I will have to write about that later! While I was in Utah I found out that my grandpa had decided to have knee surgery and was scheduling it for today...and that I would need to fly back pretty much as soon as I returned from my trip. I got back from Utah on Thursday and did my laundry and I'm packing it all up today and I fly out tommorow morning. I'm happy to help and excited to see family back there. I am a little sad that it means I will miss Easter here with the family and I won't see Jackie and family for quite some time again...
It's nice to be able to help and I feel like it's coming together why Heavenly Father kept telling me no, just waite, to all my previous attempts to make plans for this time. I have been pretty tired since I got back from Utah but I'm sure once I get back east and get into the care routine I will get my energy back. It sounds like I will have the night/early morning shift again and that means I sleep during the day and then hopefully I will have time to get some blogger updates.

Painting, Painting, Painting

2008-03-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

Things are really shaping up with the paint going on the remodel. We got to start painting Saturday morning. My friend Katie joined us to help put on the primer. We got the whole place primed before lunch and then things dried enough for the living room wall (the part in between the great plastic barrier)and the wall where the sliding glass door is in the kitchen to be painted with the base for the cool effect we are doing on it. We also got the ceiling painted on Saturday.

It was nice to get so much done but we were pretty tired at the end of the day. By the end of the day it sure looked a lot more like a room. On Sunday we taped off the ceiling for our little FHE activity (we can't do it tonight because everyone has a meeting). Things were all ready when I woke up this morning and my dad and I started paining on the color. Now it may seem like a lot of different colors but when you see the finished product you will understand. We have this really cool tile on our kitchen floor and we matched the paint to the tile. The cool effect matches the tiles and ties in with the accent wall and the light blue/grey is just because we can't have white...or something. We are still working on the bellagio effect we are doing on the living room wall and sliding glass door wall but you can see the first coat. It's a weird metallic that looks light from a distance but when you get up close the silver really reflects and it looks darker. We aren't sure we want it quite that dark so we may try applying it and ragging it off instead of using the trowel like the instructions called for. We will see. Here are some pics of the paint. The tape and paper are still up but you can get the general idea.

Things are shaping up for my trip to Utah to go as I had hoped. It looks like I will be leaving on Wednesday. I'm pretty excited to see so many people down there.

Thursday Thoughts

2008-02-28T17:29:00.000-08:00

This week we have had some unusually warm weather. The weather man said rain...and instead we had some morning fog and beautiful sunny days in the afternoon. We made he first trip of the year with the top down on the mustang just the other day! Sweet! I had the blessing of working outside most of the week. I was topping trees on the farm for the early part of the week and it was nice to be outside working. As I was working on topping the trees the quote came to me "Raise a child up in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart far from it." Now many of you don't know anything about how to raise Christmas tree's so let me enlighten you. Most trees don't grow up with nice pretty Christmas tree shapes and nice pointy symmetrical tops like the ones you think of when you picture a Christmas tree. I was out working on helping the young trees to develop a proper top. You have to cut back branches and help the tree know which branch should grow up straight instead of out. Sometimes trees have two leaders competing or the leader that is growing up isn't centered and so you have to cut it back. Anyway...I think you get the point. I was working on some trees that had obviously been in need of help in the past but this year the work was paying off and the leader we had been training was doing pretty good and all I had to do was cut back the competing leader or pick a bud that would help the leader stay centered when it grew taller this year. There were also some trees that had been neglected in years past or were just too old to help fix and that is when the quote came to mind. I thought about the way trees really get their shape early on and after that they just require some trimming and sheering and pruning (depending on the type of tree of course), and all this lead me to think about that quote. I thought how interesting it is to think about a child breaking a habit and how much quicker they are at it then adults. My niece Sara just gave up sucking her thumb in 1 week! Way to go Sara! Spiritually we are still children and malleable clay in the Lord's hands but if we don't submit ourselves now we may not come out looking like a very nice tree in the end. Anyway...thoughts from the trees.
I'm very excited to report that the kitchen remodel is moving along and ahead of schedule. We have this little schedule that the contractors gave us showing how everything was lined up and when they were doing what and at the weekly meeting they let us know they are ahead. We were originally scheduled to paint on the weekend of March 7th. I've very excited to report that we are supposed to start painting Saturday morning at the latest, there is a possibility we could get in Friday night depending on when they get the texture up. The sheet rockers have done a really good job and we have been impressed; they are also very entertaining, singing and talking our ears off with stories. The lead carpenter on our job wants us to try and be done with the painting by Wednesday and they are going to see if they can get the cabnet guys moved up earlier! Things are really taking shape.

Here are some pics from before sheetrock and after.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-02-27T09:21:00.001-08:00

Why you should never let your roommates play with your hair while you watch a movie!

For Jesse! A Childhood Memory

2008-02-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

I figure if Jesse is going to get back at me I may as well make it worth it. For those of you who don't know my dear friend Jesse, despite what the pictures I posted may show, she is one hot mama! Seriously she is beautiful, and one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Which may cause some of you to ask...what is she doing being friends with me, well I don't know but I sure am glad.
Ok so I was going through some old photos on Sunday and scanning them in and this picture totally brough back a vivid memory. I don't know if we were visiting California after we had moved to Oregon or just spending the whole day with the W* clan but I remember all of us jumping on the trampoline at their house and then a really cool lightning storm started. It was the kind of lightning where it was jumping from cloud to cloud and not toward the ground. Anyway I'm pretty sure we got banned from the tramp because of the lightning and we obviously couldn't go swimming...so we busted out some makeup and painted each others faces. I think this picture just says classic childhood. Kids are so amazing the way they find joy in the simple things. When I was working at ACAFS it always amazed me the way parents would bring elaborate toys in for their kids and the kids would get bored after an hour on a supervised visit and they would gravitate toward the simple toys we had and make up some really cool game. Imagination is amazing.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-02-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

One of my best friends through the years!! (I'm working on scanning in some old photo's but these are already digital so they will have to do!) Meet one of my favorite people...Jesse!

Fun Over Pres. Day Weekend With Family

2008-02-20T23:01:00.001-08:00

The Poll on My Hair

2008-02-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

Ok In case people are wondering the reason I made a poll about what to do with my hair is that it is really long and I'm going to have my old roommate Kate cut it when I go to visit Utah. I was talking to Kate and I gave her all these options and she kept saying...yes, yes, yes....but that didn't really help with the decision. Anyway your imput is welcome, but of course I have final say as I have to live with the results. I'm going to put up another poll because by bangs I meant longer bangs, not the ones like I used to have. I'm going to put up some old pics of how my hair has been in different stages so you can get a better feel :). So far my mom and sister have decided layers with perhaps loner bangs. So there you have it, that's what it's all about ( now do the hokey pokey )

Hold the applause...here is the update

2008-02-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

It's always hard to know where to start. I don't feel like my life is all that exciting, but I do actually do things....it's just hard to make them sound exciting sometimes. These past few weeks have been busy with construction at our house. The kitchen was completly demolished last week and then after that they put up the new beam, wired all the new lights, put in the new sliding glass door and window, and the initial inspections are done and now they are putting in insulation and then the driwall guy starts friday! Whew. It's moving at a pretty good pace. We are in week 3 so pretty much half way. Mom and I looked at paint and then ran it by everyone and it's all picked out and purchased so we are ready when the drywall guy is done.

So what have I been doing? Well....
*Trips to the Alsea Cabin to fix the water heater (or rather to take care of a tree that had fallen down while my dad fixed the water heater)
*Trip to Deleware for my cousin Lora's wedding! It was so fun to see so much of the Glasmann family and hang out at the beach house. We had beautiful weather. I have to scan in the picture and mooch some off my dad because I didn't remember my camera so I will have to post on this later.
*Lots of online care shopping in the evenings leading up to the eventual purchase of my 2005 Toyota Highlander Limited!! (more info on this later)
*Working in the lab on a few samples for my dad
*Helping my limping mother (yep threw that in there for ya mom) run errons, prepare for the whole family being here, clean, and pick out last minute things for the kitchen.
*Dinner with my old work buddies in Portland.
*Some online job investigating.

It's all sounds like it wouldn't take up so much time but you know how that goes. I have enjoyed spending some evenings with friends and having lunch with my visiting teaching girls. I had the opportunity to help my friend Katie make some flower arraingments for her house and that was very enjoyable. It was fun to do an arraingment with flowers that someone else had picked out because a lot of the things were different then what I have worked with before, even though I was a little unsure about how I could make them work the arraingments turned out really cool. Sorry, no pictures.
It seems like I have been really tired these past few weeks but when I stop and think about it I'm not sure why. My dad doesn't have all that much work for me to do so I have been trying to figure out if I should get a job or if there is a way I can reactivate my subsitute clarical worker status for the school district. I think trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do has been a little stressfull. I feel like I need to stay in Oregon until I hear back from Portland State in April. I also feel like there is a lot I can do to help out my mom while the kichen remodel is going on and when she has her knee surgery...so I guess that is where the stress comes in. I feel ok when things are busy and hopping but when they slow down I doubt and find the need for reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. I'm grateful for a loving Heavenly Father with whom I can communicate and recieve guidance. Last week as I was preparing a lesson I found an old notebook I had used when I was trying to figure out some things in Utah and I had made myself a list of goals that I wanted to work on. It was interesting to review that list and see how coming back to Oregon has definitly helped me work on a lot of the goals that I didn't do so well on while I was still in utah. I felt like that was a little answer meant to give me peace.
As for my new car, I love it! I loved my 4Runner....a lot! I was in no way dissatisfied with my old car but I had been wishing for a 6cylender now that I wasn't doing so much around town driving. Anyway my brother Josh got accepted to BYU and as were were discussing his situation it became apparent that it would be nice for him to have a car. At this point my dad started joking about buying my car and then giving it to Josh. After a lot of that joking I said if he was serious I was ok with that and I would start looking for a new car. Well, he was serious, so I started looking. I did a lot of research and decided that I wanted something 2005 or newer and made a list of priorities of things I wanted and things that would be nice, but not necessary. When I found the 2005 limited it had everything I wanted, but didn't necissarily need, and it was in my price range. The only thing the 2005 didn't have was rear air with seperate controles. Anyway I went to go look at th 2005 and test drove the 2005, and the 2008, and then I decided that as a driver there was pretty much no big difference except for price. The only major differences in the 2008 would have affected my passengers in the back, mostly 3rd row, which wouldn't get used that much. So I decided that it wasn't worth the price difference when I'm not using the back all that much at this stage of my life. So despite the fact it wasn't my first choice of color the 2005 was pretty much perfect for me. So far it has gotten great gas milage and everyone who gets in talks about how it looks brand new on the inside, even though it's a 2005. It's a certified vehicle so it still had warrenty coverage and all kinds of nice perks. It's got leather interiour, heated front seats, 8way power adjust driver seat and 4 way front passenger seat. Reclining 2nd row and 3rd row seat. Auto climate control, auto/day time running lights, fog lights, remote adjust mirrors, auto ajust rear view mirror, tow package, sun/moon roof,....and lots of other technical stuff that is pretty cool. It's fun to drive and quite, and it has the super speaker pack...so it has amazing sound.
We just had Jayme & Virginia, and Jackie and her family down here for Presidents Day weekend and Jayme's birthday. We had a great time. I think Jayme was a little dissapointed that we ended up at the outlet malls in the evening on his birthday but we did go to the beach in the morning. We had great weather both days we went to the coast and we had fun at the cabin. Mom and Dad treated us to some amazing meals! Thanks! I will post a slide show later.

Funny Color Test

2008-02-15T20:25:00.000-08:00

What's Your True Color?

My Result: Blue

You're blue — the most soothing shade of the spectrum. The color of a clear summer sky or a deep, reflective ocean, blue has traditionally symbolized trust, solitude, and loyalty. Most likely a thoughtful person who values spending some time on your own, you'd rather connect deeply with a few people than have a bunch of slight acquaintances. Luckily, making close friends isn't that hard, since people are naturally attracted to you — they're soothed by your calming presence. Cool and collected, you rarely overreact. Instead, you think things through before coming to a decision. That level-headed, thoughtful approach to life is patently blue — and patently you!

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=colorogt&c=50652

These are fun....but set up to describe pretty much at least part of anyone. I have taken the actual color test and I am pretty much every color...funny. I think I was one point more in blue and then even in yellow, red, and white.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-02-13T13:36:00.000-08:00

Update is coming...but in the mean time, meet my new car!
My 2005 Toyota Highlander
It's nameless at the moment...feel free to sugest.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-01-30T10:06:00.001-08:00

We have had snow the past few days. This isn't a picture from this storm...but it's still snow from this year. And I'm pleased to report that my application to Portland State is in, we are all moved out of the kitchen, and ready to head back for Lora's wedding!

Monday Miracles-Our Prophet Dear

2008-01-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Last night as I returned from my brother's recitle I got the news from one of my former roommates who lives in utah that our dear prophet Gordon B. Hinckley had passed away. I was filled with a mixture of emotions as I recieved and processed this news. President Hinckley has been prophet for most of my youth and early adult life. It's hard to imagine not seeing him in conference and partaking of his spirit and wisdom. While I was experienceing sadness at his passing I was simultaniously thinking how wonderful for Pres. Hinckley that he is no longer seperated from his wife. I am so grateful for the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I can't imagine living without the knowledge that we can be together forever in the eternities. I am also grateful for the knowledge that preisthood keys remain on the earth and that with Pres. Hinckley's passing there is not chaos and concern over who will preceed him. How comforting is the knowledge that God has provided us with order and that we can all gain our own witness of the truthfulness of each prophet's calling. I know that God leads his church today through his prophets who are called and ordained. I have come to a knowledge of the truthfulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ through personal revolation and I am so grateful for the blessings this knowledge brings into my life. As I was reflecting on Pres. Hinckley's last words to us in the october general confrence I found it interesting that he focused on the restoration. Pres. Hinckly ended his address by saying
"To you, this day, I affirm my witness of the calling of the Prophet Joseph, of his works, of the sealing of his testimony with his blood as a martyr to the eternal truth. Each of you can bear witness of the same thing. You and I are faced with the stark question of accepting the truth of the First Vision and that which followed it. On the question of its reality lies the very validity of this Church. If it is the truth, and I testify that it is, then the work in which we are engaged is the most important work on the earth. I leave you with my testimony of the truth of these things, and I invoke the blessings of heaven upon you. May the windows of heaven be opened and blessings showered upon you as the Lord has promised. Never forget that this was His promise and that He has the power and the capacity to see that it is fulfilled."
How exciting it will be to see Pres. Monson take the mantle of prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!!

Now you see it....Now you don't

2008-01-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

Life has been a bit hectic around the Glasmann house the last few days. The kitchen remodel is imminent! The outside room, which used to be called "the dog's room", has been named "the brown room" and is set up as the temporary kitchen. It seems like every time I have turned around for the last few days my dad has been removing or demolishing something. He seems to be enjoying the demolishing....just not the pack/clean up. Everyone has put in time in helping to clean things out and move things to their new temporary homes. Should be fun washing things in the bathtub for the next month or so. It's been an exhausting project but it's nice to have our part done and look forward to the changes that are coming. It's interesting to see it all open and to imagine the walls ripped out and the ceiling vaulted. I'm sure there are more pictures to come as this event is pretty major around our house. Here are some of the temporary kitchen (before it was fully set up) and of the kitchen when my dad was ripping out cabnits and the likes.

Wordless Wednesday

2008-01-16T16:37:00.001-08:00

The Moyle Harward Family Heritage:

I finally got my clock!! I must say it was worth the wait. I got some cool features, like the shells in the crevice coated in the resin and the thermometer!

Life in general...

2008-01-16T15:37:00.000-08:00

I realize it's been quite some time since i wrote actual words on the blog. It's just so much easier to post pictures:). So an interesting phenomenon happened to me today on facebook and after I had a good laugh over it I decided I should probably keep people up to date on what I'm doing, even when it's not much.

I keep in touch with most of the people from my former work, ACAFS The Family Academy, on facebook. When I move back to Oregon there were 3 other people from my work that moved up to the Portland area at almost the same I came back. It was really quite funny and we joked about starting an ACAFS in Oregon. Those of us here in Oregon have been trying to get together but for one reason or another it hasn't worked out quite yet. To make a long story short. I got a message from one of my former co-workers talking about how we should get together soon and when was I going back to help open up the new ACAFS in Lehi. This message took me a few minutes to process. First off I didn't know they were ready to open the ACAFS in Lehi. Secondly, nobody ever talked to me and told me they wanted me to come back and help with it....not even a soft offer or joke that could have some basis of truth. So here I am laughing and wracking my brains to come up with an explanation for this rumor and after a few more messages and some of my own back to people I got a message from one of the former coworkers here in Oregon who I hadn't even been messaging with and the title was "I think I started a rumor:)". All my former coworker had said was that she had been visiting Utah and Kaydeen & Jay, my former bosses, had mentioned that they were getting ready to open the site in Lehi (for those who know how my former work operates you realize "getting ready" could mean another 6-8 months) and they wished I was there to help out. So this former co-worker mentions the conversation to another former co-worker and so on and so forth. Isn't it just amazing the way the rumor mill works! I mean no harm was done but, wow, false info sure did spread fast.

So here is what I'm up to in general:
* working on getting my re- application process going for PSU
*finishing up the outside room that will house our temporary kitchen and packing up the existing kitchen
*doing various projects around the house
*working for my dad in the lab
*setting goals and pondering my existence

It is awfully hard to explain what I'm up to, but I do stay busy. I havn't yet applied for a job and don't have plans to return to ACAFS. I have mixed feelings about applying for a job and I'm trying hard to figure that out. My dad had a big project that I was going to help with and it fell through as the well they drilled didn't have anything and they had to pull out. My cousins wedding is in a few weeks and our kitchen remodel begins and then my mom has knee surgery in April. I feel like I can help out a lot here as my mom's knee limits some of the things she can do but I don't want to be seen as a slacker for not having a "real job". I have always liked working and believe in working hard. It just seems like when I think about looking for a job it doesn't seem right and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's a sign that this rumor started about me going back to ACAFS?? Who knows It's a confusing time for me and I have really appreciated the guidance of a loving heavenly father. As I pondered things this past week and went to the temple with my mom I felt like I got some initial direction and as I pondering the matter and seeking further clarity lo and behold there is a ces fireside on just the topic that had come to me in the temple. The title of Earl C. Tingey's fireside was "Simple Truths from Heaven: The Lords Pattern." It was a great talk and when they get it up in word format I will try and put a link. Right now if you go to the LDS website www.lds.org you can watch the video of the CES fireside only, it generally takes them about two weeks to get up the word/ PDF format.

It would be getting more personal then I wish to get to tell you the impressions that came to me when I listened to this talk but I do wish to say how grateful I am for the omniscience of God and the power of the Holy Ghost. I was thinking on the way home from the fireside....I bet Elder Tingey has been preparing this fireside for weeks, and I only prayed about those specific things on the way home from church...wow.
I do have a lot of small goals I have set for the new year that I hope will help me to achieve my larger long term goals and I feel like this talk helped give me some guidance in the short term goals. One of the things I thought was interesting about Elder Tingey's talk was that he said we should ask those who's opinions we trust to give us heartfelt guidance as to things they things we could do to improve our self, whether it be attitude, behavior, appearance...or any other category. So I'm putting it out there to all of you. I feel like the people who comment on my blog, and therefore are the people I know read my blog:), are all people who's opinions I trust. So comment away!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-01-09T16:58:00.001-08:00

I've been scanning old photo's. These aren't the most flattering of pictures but I had them all in this order on my flash drive and it was fun to see the progression.

Pre Kindergarten 1980 somethin

One of my senior pics 1998

Ricks Graduation 2000

Summer 2006

And this year:

Wordless Wednesday

2008-01-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

Flashback: Yep that's me.

Monday Miracles

2007-12-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

Ok so there aren't many good things that go with Monday....Wordless Wednesday, Talk Tuesday, Thankful Thursday....I have seen all of these on other people's blogs but nobody has given me any good ideas for a monday title. All of you quick witted people out there you need to put your head together and come up with a good title for a monday post and get back to me.

One of my friends here has been saying that every good thing that happens that she notices is a "christmas miricle" and now that christmas is over she is still doing it because she is in the habit. The other day I had to give a talk in sacrament meeting at church and I had my own little miricle to be thankful for. I got the call that I needed to give the talk on Christmas Eve, yeah not the best time. Anyway so the events of christmas settle down and I start kind of researching and thinking about what I'm going to talk on because I knew Jackie and Zach were coming on the 27th and I wouldn't have much time to work on it. I was totally stumped. I think I experience the stupor of thought refered to in the Doctrine and Covenants. At first I thought ok I have been working with my missionaries on the atonement of Jesus Christ I will talk on that.....it just wasn't happening for me. So then I thought ok how about Faith.....again things were not coming together. So Friday rolls around and I'm going through topics and still nothing is working out for me. Finally on Friday night as I was thinking after my evening prayer I had the thought that it was close to new years and lots of people would be setting goals and perhaps I could talk about goals. Saturday I started to explore this topic to see if there was anything I could say about goals and all the sudden it just came together. It was my own little miracle. Sunday I got up to give my talk and tons of people came up to me afterwards and thanked me and said they had really needed that topic. I thought...don't thank me I was going to talk on the atonement. It was a reminder to me that Heavenly Father is mindefull of each of our needs and that often he will inspire others to do things that will be answers to our prayers.

The topic was also good for me because I'm terrible at writing down my goals and that was definitly and emphasis in all the research I did. I hope everyone has a Happy New Years Eve. We are having our traditional fondue party...should be fun. As I have been reflecting on all the fun things that have happened this year it has also been fun to look back at the years past and see how things have changed. Here are some old photos I was going through today.

Me & Jackie at Niagra Falls in 2000

After I was set apart as a missionary by President Blake 2001

Before I went into the MTC w/Jackie on Temple Square in Salt Lake City

With the family on Temple Square before I went into MTC 2001

Freshman/Sophmore year roommate Jenny outside our dorm room at Ricks 1999

Christmas Eve and Other Stories

2007-12-27T11:03:00.001-08:00

We gifted a few digital picture frames...here are some of the fun older photos we found looking through old pictures

2007-12-27T11:02:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T10:34:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas Holiday. I know we sure had a lot of fun here at the Glasmann house. Christmas day was pretty laid back as we didn't have any young kids and half of our family was elsewhere. Jackie and her family were in Idaho with the other grandparents and Jayme and Virginia just couldn't make it back this year. Josh and I held down the fort here. One of our family traditions is to have a Christmas Eve party with some of our friends and have lots of yummy food and then do some funny little skits or songs. Following the funny songs, rain or shine, we all pile into the back of the pickup truck and go caroling out here in the country where nobody ever comes. Every year has it's memories...there was the first year we began singing "Like a Light bulb" to every place in Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer where you shout something out, hasn't stopped since. I recommend trying this, it's pretty darn fun. Then the year we began singing "O Christmas tree" with only those words....we couldn't remember the rest. That progressed to singing "O Christmas Tree" in every language we could possible think of, which was pretty diverse considering the various places people served missions. I believe we have sung it in English, Cajun, German, Spanish, Danish, Japanese......and that's all I can think of at the moment. And the ever infamous year when we began singing "O Holy Night" on the way to visit Foleys, the longest coldest ride in the back of a truck with four people sitting on you....but well worth it and way fun! Now this is no regular version of O Holy Night; in this version you hold out every place possible until you are the only one singing and you run out of breath and then you move on. This can last for some time. Allow me to demonstrate....." O Holy Night the stars where brightly shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
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It is the night of our dear Saviour birth. Long lay the world in sin and error piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
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neing till he appeared and the soul felt his worth ( we don't hold this one out....we have to draw a line at sacrilege some where)....any way you get the picture. So we continue this. While this may look like you hold it out for a long time it's nothing compared to the chorus. "Fall on you Knees" can last for a very, very long time! I'm talking the soda burp in Elf when you laugh and stop laughing and he is still burping and you laugh again and he is still burping....yep that long.
These traditions just keep piling up on top of one another every year until we have so many funny things to do in the back of the truck we are unbelievably silly before we ever get into the truck. This year we couldn't remember the order of the 12 days of Christmas and one thing progressed to another and we were singing 12 geese a laying 11 geese a laying 10 geese a laying 8 geese a laying.......and one big fat goose in a pear tree! Ok so they were singing and I was laughing.
This year we had the ultimate caroling experience as my dad rigged up a wooden frame around the back of the truck and put lights up around the frame and then plugged it into the cigarette lighter. It was truly awesome. So awesome that a drunk man pulled us over. No you read that correctly he pulled us over. He followed us for a long time and then he started swerving and flashing his lights and turned them off and so we pull over, if nothing else to let this scary driver pass us, and he gets out of his car with a big bear can and says "Man I love what you guys are doing I just think it's so awesome you totally have the Christmas Spirit".....then he walked up to my dad who was driving and gave him a big hug and wished him a Merry ******* Christmas.....we were all a little shocked at that but we sang him We wish you a merry Christmas anyway and then drove off. Ah the memories we have to cherish.

Christmas Eve always makes it feel like Christmas time to me. By the time we are done I'm always in the Christmas spirit, not that I don't have it before hand but ya know I'm pumped by the time the party ends. Christmas day was low key. My dad always booby traps the stairs so we can't get up Christmas morning. This year his back was bothering him so he lined the stairs with all my mom's shoes. and then threw pillows at us as we tried to come up the stairs. It was pretty funny, and harder to get up then you might think. When you step on a shoe it kind of moves out from under you and makes the path slippery. The dog couldn't get down to greet us he was a little disturbed. It was a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all enjoyed your traditions as well. The greatest gift of the season is the chance to reflect on the birth and life of our Saviour Jesus Christ. I teach mission prep in my singles ward here and my last lesson I challenged all of my missionaries to read a slew of scriptures I gave them concerning the atonement of Jesus Christ and to reflect on their testimony of the Savior and then write themselves a letter. Naturally I have to do the challenge too....that's part of being the teacher. As I have been rereading these scriptures it has reminded me of the wonderful foresight of our heavenly father in creating a way to save all who are willing to "look and live". The Saviour is truly a gift in many ways.

I plan to post pictures later and catch you up on all the pre Christmas chaos. Amidst shopping and wrapping, which were all done before Christmas Eve this year (a huge feet for our family) we managed to get the outside room painted and ready for the kitchen remodel.

Happy Holidays to everyone! I'm looking forward to Jackie coming and the new year! I wish I could spend it with all of you, but as distance separates most of us I'm grateful that I can at least read about all your adventures!

ReCap

2007-11-28T13:53:00.000-08:00

As I was so kindly informed by Ollie...it's been a while for me. I have meant to post things a few times but the picture up loader wasn't working and so I got frustrated and gave up. Sorry. So I'm back from my stint on the east coast. I had a great time hanging out with my grandpa and staying with my aunt Myrene and her family. Myrene took me to see some great art exhibits in Washington D.C. and hiked the billy goat trail with me. I sure had a lot of fun. Plus I came back with a whole new wardrobe courtesy of my grandpa. I came back a little over a week ago. Since then it's been one crazy ride. I got home and was very sick for the first little bit. As soon as I recovered I spent some time helping out one of my friends who was going through a rough patch. I also helped paint my mothers bathroom...and if I do say so myself it turned out quite nice.

After the bathroom painting I moved on to cleaning out and washing the majorly disgusting walls in what our family calls "the dog's room"...even though no dog inhabits this room anymore. For those of you familiar with our house the room I'm referring to is the room off to left when you are walking up to our front door through the breeze way. This room was traditionally the workers room to eat and generally just sit their dirty selves down during Christmas tree harvest. When we moved to Oregon and took over the house the room turned into a place for our dogs to sleep and for the rain gear to be stored along with a bazillion other things. Over the oh 14 or so years that we have lived here this room has gotten pretty darn dirty and has never been repainted since my grandpa originally built the place. As my mother is planing a kitchen remodel beginning January 3rd and the "dog's room" is to become the temporary kitchen this situation needed to rectified. So I spend almost and entire day cleaning up the room so that our friend could come and fix the wiring and redo the sheetrock before we painted. My mother was having great doubt about eating in the room....ever. However, I'm pleased to report that after I scrubbed the walls for about 6 hours she is definitely feeling ok about eating in there. I will take some pictures when it's all finished. I took a before picture...but you will have to wait. Right now the sheet rock is up and it's mudded and the new heater is in along with the new plugs. Apparently the day I spent in Eugene with the missionaries they decided to move the sprinkler control box and all the wires up through the attic and down into the garage....so it's still a few days out now. Once they do that then the texture will be sprayed on the walls and then we paint! Sweet. All this must be done pronto as we have to get ready for the kitchen stuff soon. So in between running around doing all of these crazy things I apparently was feeling very crafty this past week. Before Thanksgiving I made a grand total of 6 flower arrangements. I have pictures to post later.
here is the one I made for my mom's bathroom

Thanksgiving was so wonderful! Here are a few things I was especially grateful for last week:

*fires in the fireplace

*surprise visit from Jayme and Virginia

*playing with my nephews

*good food, good company

*friendly, warm, loving relatives

*great friends

*the blessings of the restored gospel in my life

*beautiful land! It's so good to be in Oregon!

*good health

*places to go out and walk and play outside

I have loved reading about all of your holiday festivities and I hope everyone is doing good and looking forward to Christmas as much as I am. This past Monday we did Family Home Evening on the purpose of Christmas and how it is a time to celebrate the birth of Christ...ya know not Santa. Then we made advent calendars with Keegan. It was really fun. I found the ideas on the Internet and they were quick and child friendly. We looked up scriptures to write on the paper chain countdown while Keegan colored his Christmas tree advent calendar. It was really fun. This week I'm helping out at the community creche exhibit the church puts on. I went to help set up and decorate tomorrow and then I get to receive creches as people bring all their cool nativities tomorrow...and then I get to be a hostess on Friday and Saturday. So I ought to be busy this week.

Here are some pictures from this weekend:

Here are pictures from FHE when we made advent calenders

Tagged by Ollie

2007-11-27T22:50:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged

Here are the rules:1. The player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves - try to find 6 you haven't already posted about. 2. At the end of the post, the player tags 6 people and posts their names, and then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment, letting them know they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog for the rules.

1. I struggle when it comes to arts and crafts. However I do have a hidden talent that not too many people know about. I love to make flower arraingments. I think I picked it up from my aunt Rosie when she stayed with us while my parents were gone when I was little.

2. I often have a fear that I am invisible. I like a quote from the movie Elizabeth Town that says "I'm hard to remember but I'm impossible to forget"

3. I really hate seafood! I have tried pretty much everything....except sushi and octopuss. I have always lived on a coast so it's not because I havn't had good seafood....I just plain don't like it.

4. As a child warm peanut butter triggered my gag reflex. I'm serious it made me vomit! But my mother...being a mother...made me eat it anyway. As a result I really don't like Peanut butter to this day...especially if it's a peanut butter sandwich. Can't eat um. I probably won't make them for my children either. I pretty much only eat peanut butter when it's with chocolate these days, and even then only in small amounts.

5. I have a massive movie collection. Not really sure how it came about but now that I have so many I just have to keep adding to it. There are still lots of movies I don't have but..if it's new and it's not rated R I probably have it.

6. I spent most of my childhood in the doctors office. I had clogged tear ducts for most of my early life. I had many a set of tubes put in my ears and yet I still ended up with ear infects all the time. I had childhood epilepsy and my brain was pretty much in constant seziour state from kindergarten to 4th grade. As a result I was very uncordinated and I wasn't allowed to play sports so I still can't play them. I have ruptured my ear drum at least 6 times that I know of due to ear infections, interestingly enough the last time I ruptured it I was 18 and at EFY. Apparently I have a high pain tolerancy. My most memorable childhood injuries: I once scrapped all the skin off one side of my face on the playground at school. I cut my knee open to the bone and when I came inside crying my mom told me to sit down and be quite because she was on the phone ( yep had to throw that one in there for ya mom). I hit my eye on the chair and nearly broke my nose/ shattered my eye socket while we had a babysitter:)

I tagged Jesse, Katie, Marlies, Ephrium and Melinda, and Jayme and Virginia

2007-11-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

So I retook the quiz after Katie posted that she took it and got the same thing. I was suspicious because Jesse, Katie, and I had all gotten the same one. There were some question I could have answered two ways so i just answered the other way and this time I ended up as Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice....funny. Oh well at least we now know there are otheroptions now.

Beware of the WDC2nd Singles Ward

2007-11-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

I think I have run into more old friend in the Washington D.C singles ward then any normal person. So my first Sunday I was half asleep as I had been up all day and then all night helping out with my grandpa. I went to church that first Sunday and sat down on a row by myself not really all that aware of what was going on around me. I was alert enough to glean good things from Sacrament Meeting but toward the end I was pretty bushed. So the ward has a tradition that after Sacrament they have all the new move ins and the visitors stand up and introduce themselves. Apparently this ward has a high turnover rate as they take in a lot of the interns and the likes. So I stand up to introduce myself...along with like 25 other people no joke...and as I stand upd directly in my line of site is my old mtc seat buddy and district leader Justin Lamb. So I was able to put my jaw back in place and introduce myself and then we both scrambled to get to each other and catch up. Justin and I keep running into eachother in the most random places. One time he was behind me and my roommate in the Del Taco drive through in Provo, and he lived in SaltLake at the time. Anyway that was totally random and fun. I seem to run into Justin once a year...so who knows where we will meet up next year. After I saw Justin I also ran into someone who looked really familiar and after we stared at each other for a few minutes we made the connection that we had lived across the hall from each other in the BYU138th ward. Unbeknownst to me this began my 138th ward mini reunion. I was much to tierd to stay after Sacrament so I said goodbye to Justin and Lynn and headed off to brave my way through the confusing streets of D.C./Bethesda.
Fast forward to the following Sunday. This time I am much more allert and plan to stay for the entire sunday block. Well Daylight Savings threw me off a bit so I arrived just in time and quickly took my seat before they began. I didn't really see anyone when I walked in but Justin saw me and gave me the nod/wave. I was kind of pondering life during the sacrament and I had closed my eyes, mostly because I get destracted easily and I wanted to think. So I was in one of those states where you are alert to the things around you but kind of in your own world...well the sacrament gets to me and I knew it even though my eyes are closed and so I opened my eyes and took the bread and then looked up to give the obligitory smile to the priesthood holder passing the sacrament and just about had a heart attack because the person passing the sacrament to me was no other then Eric Cragun....who I had sort of dated while in the BYU 138th ward. Ah my you just never know who you are going to meet these days! Apparently Lynn had spread the word that I was in town and so all the 5 other members of the BYU 138th ward that were now in the WDC2nd ward were already aware I was around but I had no clue they were around. It pays to be awake when talking with people...you remember to ask things like so who are you still in contact with from the old ward. So watch out should you ever attend the WDC2nd ward....you just never know who you will meet.
If only I were at home I could scan in pictures of these people...but alas this was before I had a digital camera and so my pictures of these people are old school prints. Perhaps I will post some old pictures later.

Quick Trip To Bethany Beach

2007-11-03T17:07:00.001-07:00

I left....and now I'm back! Back in Baltimore that is. We made our quick run down to Delaware to visit the family beach house and see the beach restoration project in Bethany Beach. We arrived Friday night and walked up to see the beach at night. Our walk was pretty quick though because the storm surge from the hurricane farther south was causing a heavy northeast wind and we were sandblasted in the face. There was a lot of laughter but not much of a view. The next day was still windy and cold and the water was up high because of the storm but I did manage to get some pictures of the beach restoration. Now most of these aren't going to be too interesting to those of you who don't know what the beach looked like before so I will post the pretty ones first and the restoration ones later. We had our Groto's Pizza the first night, ate breakfast at a local spot, and grabbed a cheese steak on our way out....hard life I know! The trip was quick but the cold windy weather wasn't conducive to spending time on the beach so it was just the perfect amount of time. We got to walk the whole boardwalk and stop at several other spots to see the beach restoration and then we visited a family friend, the Ryan's, and then it was time to go! I really enjoyed myself though!

Ok on with the picture parade.....remember pretty ones first so be patient family!

Stormy Beach. This picture is taken from the end of the board walk just up from our beach house.

I liked this picture. Again off the board walk by our house..but this time facing Bethany so you can see the restoration in the background. Notice the orange fence...yeah.

The waves crashing...straight out off the boardwalk from our house.

Ok friends this concludes the pretty picture section. While some of them may be pretty after this...most of them are just to show the new dune and beach restoration at Bethany so if you aren't familiar with this area...probably just scroll fast:)

This was taken from the first sussex shores board walk after beathany beach ends. Nice hump huh...wonder how long that will last. So now you can see where sussex and bethany public beach come together quite nicely:)

Looking toward Sussex Shores from the last Sussex boardwalk before 5th street

And Looking toward Bethany Beach from the last boardwalk before 5th street

Ok now we are by the Addy Sea....where Jill and Buzz like to kayak. This is Myrene walking back over the dune to get to the parking

Still at Addy Sea- this is the big Vally between where the beach entrance is and where the back side of the dune is! It's huge!

Standing on the dune by Addy Sea looking toward Bethany

From here on out the pictures are off of the bethany board walk (or walking off the boardwalk onto the dune). I started at the end furthest from down town bethany...you will be able to tell when we get to downtown by the clock.

The messed up waves...this was for dad:)

This is the beach between the dune and the ocean at Bethany

I'm standing on one of those white benches...you can barely see the ocean from the boardwalk!!

Yes that is the ocean you can barely see out there...and Robin helping you to scale the image:)

I liked this one because they are standing on the peak of the dune and you can see the roof and the light post from the boardwalk area in the background....that's how high the dune is. Plus Myrene and Scott show you how freaking cold it was when I took this picture!!

From South Bethany looking back toward the clock and Sussex

Where is the clock? It's like Where's Waldo...can you see the clock...oh there it is.

OK I'm tired of putting these pictures up so I'm sure you are tired of looking at them. I still have more so when I get home the family can review and satisfy their curiosity. I was just snapping away trying to get good views of the dune and the beach and what not so i ended up with a lot. I put most of the good ones up but I have some that aren't zoomed in as much or visa versa. So when I get home we can do a slide show. Love you all!

Great Falls Overlook Pictures

2007-11-03T16:39:00.001-07:00

Great Falls...one of my favorite pics

More Great Falls...just not as zoomed in.

My aunt Myrene and I at the great falls overlook

The peaceful canal where the toe path is and the bardge goes down

And slightly to the right....the patomic river.

Zooming in on the great falls....which was a little low on water but still impressive

The bardge getting ready to go down. You can see where the water level is if you look close because there are leaves in the water.

The bardge going down as they release water out of the loch to equalize the waterlevel.

The bardge

Pictures

2007-11-02T11:35:00.000-07:00

Ok here is a sneak peak. This is all I could get to upload in the time I had. It looks like blogger is having some trouble with their picture uploader right now. I'm sure if I try tommorow when I have lots of time it will work perfect.

The beautiful view along the boardwalk out to the great falls overlook

Just me hanging out in "grandpa's pad" upstairs in my aunts house

Update from the East

2007-11-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well after five days of sleeping in a chair or on the thin backpackers mat I brought in for the last two days I'm pleased to report that my grandpa is home from the rehabilitation care center and I have resumed sleeping at night...and in a real bed too! I enjoyed learning some more about my grandpa's youth and some other things I didn't know as we chatted at night. My aunt had bought an xm satelite radio for my grandpa and everynight we would turn it on the the music of the 40's and he and his roommate Mr. Brooks just loved listening to the old music. I got to hear lots of stories that went along with the songs. It was a good time. I'm glad I could be there to help my grandpa out and have a chance to get to know more about him.

Now that he is home it has really cut down the stress for everyone, including my grandpa. The morning he was to be released it was all I could do to keep him from going awall on me. Before we even headed to breakfast, they open the cafeteria at 7:30, he was asking me..."ok now what do we need to do to get this checkout procedure rolling". I barely kept him at bay with the response that I had no authority to check him out and we had to waite for his wife Suzanne but we would have the nurse get the ball rolling. Once he was out and in the bright sunshine, it really was beautiful the day he was released, his mood was very cheerful and he looked good. He requested a stop by my aunts house to say hello to Eli my Aunt Jill's dog who was staying in Baltimore with my Aunt Myrene while Jill was on a cruise. Once he had seen the dog he seemed content to go get settled in and he has been doing fine since. Now that the stress level is down my aunt Myrene has been showing me the sights. We are heading down to the beach to check out the beach restoration and have our beach food. It's going to be a quick but satisfying trip as my cousins have some homework projects we need to get back for. I'm just looking forward to a walk on the beach and a cheesesteak sub. I will be sure to post pictures as I get them for my curious family awaiting the new look of the beach after the restoration.
This morning we went and hiked the toe path along the canal by the potomac river. It was so pretty. I have some great pictures from it. It was a nice little walk and we have plans to make the traditional glasmann treck on the billy goat trail once my aunt jill comes back up on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to the fun plans they are making for me. Now we really only stop by to check up and say hi to my grandpa but the care taking role has been relinquished so it's quite a bit more relaxed. Hope this finds all of you doing well. I miss everyone! I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Harward side of the family for Thanksgiving.
I am having trouble getting the pictures to upload right now and we are heading off so I will post them later. I got to watch them do a demonstration of how they use the lochs to let the bardges go down. that was pretty fun, I don't remember seeing that before...who knows I probably did when I was little. Anyway I have some picture of that as well as the beautiful overlook of the falls I will post later.

Hanging out in Maryland

2007-10-28T10:02:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I made a very hasty departure to Maryland. I don't think I even really had time to let anyone know where I was going....so sorry. I'm running on very little sleep while writing this so I hope it makes sense. Thursday I got a call from my mom while I was in institute and I stepped out to take it as I figured she wouldn't call unless something was urgent. Turned out to be a good thing as the call was to ask if I was willing to go to Maryland the next day to help care from my grandpa jay. I said yes and then spent the remainder of the day running around trying to get all my ducks in a row. I ran to the chiropractor and had some blood drawn at the doctors office and then ran home to pack. By the time I managed to get all that accomplished it was time for bed and then I was off at 4am for the airport. So you can see why I didn't have time to let any of you know.

Now that I'm here I technically have more time, but since I have the evening watch over my grandpa I sleep during the afternoon hours when I could be calling all of you. The first night here I came from the airport, dropped off my bags at my aunts house, ate food, and then rushed over to meet my grandpa's wife and relieve her for the night. The first night was a rough watch. My grandpa was supposed to be going in for a repair on the knee replacement he had done about 13 years ago but once they got in they discovered he had a fracture of the femure where it meets the knee cap and that severe bone degeneration required a whole new knee replacement. So the surgery was unexpected and he was not prepared for this challenge. My grandpa is legally blind and has the begining stages of alsimers disease. So you can imagine how this could complicate a already complicated situation. By the time I flew out he had been out of surgery for four days and I arrived the day the moved him into the intensive rehabilitation center. The first night in the center was extremly difficult for him. He kept sitting up (now mind you he can't get out of bed at this point because he doesn't have a walker) swinging his legs over the side of the bed and trying to go somewhere. I would ask if he needed to use the bathroom (he acutally couldn't get up out of bed to do this but it was the only reason he would need to sit up) and he would tell me no....they I would ask where he wanted to go and he would be very confused and say he didn't know....then that he needed to get to where his bed was for the night. I spent a lot of the night reminding him he was in the right place and calming him down and helping him go to the bathroom. What little sleep I did get was sitting up in a chair as the rehabilitation center doesn't have a place for a caregiver to sleep. The next day I came home and went to sleep and slept most of the day away, ironically I don't think it even amounted to 8 hours of sleep though. Last night was much better as my grandpa was able to use the walker to get to the bathroom and he was more aware of where he was and what was going on. The nurses are all very kind and bring me pillows and blankets to pad my chair and keep me warm. It's been a really good experience and I feel like I am really helping alliviate some of the stress that my aunt and my grandpa's wife feel.

I'm not really sure how long I will be needed out here but I will keep you all posted. So far the plan is for two weeks. I attended a singles ward here in Bethesda today and ran into someone who was in the MTC with me and someone who lived in the Elms with me, small world. It's hard to do much since I'm up all night but I'm hoping I can go to some activities while I'm here. I was only able to stay awake long enough for sacrament meeting today....we shall see.

I was loving all the fall colors in Oregon before I left and it's fun to be out here where there are even more leaves turning colors.

2007-10-15T17:14:00.001-07:00

I thought this was kind of fun...not sure I agree with it but still fun.

Take the Quiz here!

Fun at the Coast

2007-10-10T10:00:00.001-07:00

Tillamook

2007-10-10T09:52:00.001-07:00

Beautiful Coast Pictures

2007-10-10T09:50:00.001-07:00

Official Diagnosis

2007-10-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

Good news folks. The chiropractor said I can officially tell people my head is back on straight. I told him I didn't think people would believe me. He told me if they didn't I could just tell them he said I'm well adjusted...lol. i'm glad my chiropractor has a good sense of humor. I keep trying to get my photobucket account to upload my slideshows and it's not working. So more pictures on the way soon. I just applied at the school district today to be a clerical sub. I will let you know how that turns out.

Up to No Good

2007-10-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

A Picture Preview:

It's been so long since I posted on my blog it's hard to know where to begin. I feel like I have been explaining what I'm up to so often but there are so many of you so far away that don't get to hear this explanation...sorry. So here it goes.

First of all I did not make it off the alternate list for Portland State's MSW program. Now you may think this would disappoint me and I would be sad I had moved away from Utah, but you would be wrong. I feel really peaceful about being back in Oregon. I hesitate to say what I'm considering for fear that my former employer may be reading this blog and gloating (if so I expect a call). I'm actually considering doing a counseling program. I'm preparing to study for the GRE and from there I will take things further. I think the whole process of coming back has been really good for me. I loved ACAFS and wouldn't mind going back some day but I think I need to be doing something different in this phase of my life. So now I'm just trying to figure out what that something else is. I feel like the Lord led me back here and I feel good about being here and for now that is enough for me.

What have I been up to? Well, everything and nothing. I have been working for my dad in his lab, he has lots of samples that need work. The dog has recently become my shadow in the morning. Both my parents have knee issues and my dad isn't supposed to go on long walks with the dog anymore....so that leaves me. My morning routine has been very inconsistent, for reasons I will expound upon later, but the one consistent thing is that when I finish eating the dog knows that I will take him for a walk. So Riley has taken to following me around when I finish eating, even going so far as to bark at me while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth this morning. So the dog and I have been doing lots of walking which I enjoy.

Upon my return I decided that my migraines had escalated enough that I was willing to see a chiropractor to see if anything could be done. I have been having neck pain and feeling like my neck is out of joint or something when I get a migraine...which I have been getting about once a week in the past few oh months. So my mom made me an appointment with a chiropractor she had gone to and I went in for an evaluation. I went in and they did some X-rays and then the doctor is showing them to me and explaining things and he says "So basically your head isn't on straight"....I just shook my head and said "Well that's not really news". My neck is so out of place I could see it on the x-ray, which disturbed me since I'm not trained. As an interesting side not my head is leaning to the left...I am from Oregon after all. So all this has lead to many appointments with the chiropractor and a fairly busy schedule. However it has reduced the neck pain and I have only had one migraine since I started and that one was easily controlled. Super!

So so far I'm figuring out what the future holds, working for my dad, walking the dog, and getting my head put on straight. Plus I have had some mighty fine adventures. I helped Jackie move into a new place in Portland. My dad shot a deer...in the first ten minutes of hunting season. I visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium with my mom. Finally made it to see Tillamook Cheese Factory and some other fun stuff up in that direction. And I'm helping my mom with the kitchen remodel she is undertakeing.
Fun pictures to follow in a slide show.

corn, corn, corn

2007-09-04T19:00:00.001-07:00

pirate mini golf in bethany beach

2007-09-03T18:10:00.001-07:00

Professor Hacker Mini Golf Course

2007-09-03T17:50:00.001-07:00

Beach Bums

2007-09-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

I was noticing when I got online to catch up that I seem to have missed a lot in the past two weeks. I have been on a perpetual vacation since my last day at work on August 10th. Don't get me wrong...it's been great! It hasn't been without work but it's been nice to have a brief time of relaxation. So here is what I have been up to:
I spent my last few weeks in Utah running between work, the Glasmann family reunion, and friends houses. I had a lot going on and I decided the best way for me to handle it was not to really plan but just to let it happen. This may not work for some people but it worked out pretty good for me. Normally I like to plan things out but I knew I had so much going on that I would stress out if I tried to think about getting it all done and this way I just enjoyed it as it came. I have already posted some of the pictures from the Glasmann Brewer Camp shindig. We had a blast. I hope we get some of the pictures soon that involve the massive marshmallow fight. We had this nice catered dinner and all the sudden they bust out the PVC pipe and marshmallow's and it looked like it had snowed when it all ended. There were like 100 people with marshmallow guns. We tubed the river a lot and everyone got a chance to tube to Glasmann hole....even my mom went.
I have already written about my work party so I won't go into that. It was lots of fun to reminisce and realize how far ACAFS had come in the time I had been around to see it grow. I miss the funny stories and sometimes it amazes me how much knowledge I have of child custody arrangement's. The other day as we flew back I was watching these two little kids get onto our flight and say goodbye to their dad. I was like...hmm sad they don't get to see their dad again until spring break because this year Thanksgiving is the custodial holiday....and that's when I realized I am officially weird. Seriously though I do actually miss some of the drama....but not too much.
Once my mom came down to Provo she helped me pack up and clean and we were out of there in no time. We had time for some nice dinners with Jayme and Virginia and we got some pedicures. We also made it to visit some of my friends from high school who are in the Provo region and wanted to see my mom before we headed back to Oregon. The drive back was well timed. We didn't hit any traffic and made it through Portland with no major traffic, a big shocker!
From here on out it pretty much turns into a blur or action. I got unpacked but no decorations are up. I managed to get my possessions put away and the furniture rearranged before my parents moved into my room because my Grandpa Jay was staying with us and he slept in their room. I got to sleep on the bottom bunk in Josh's room because Jackie and her two boys were also visiting. It was a full house. We continued the party that began in Ogden with the Glasmann reunion. We had some nice walks including a windy one on the Oregon coast. Keegan was a big helper when I picked about 100 ears of corn in our garden. Keegan got a little ambitious at the end and stopped waiting for me to point out the ears that were ripe and started ripping off whatever he could see, but overall he did good.
We flew with my grandpa Jay back to Maryland and drove to our beach house in Delaware. It was a long day but there is something about arriving at the beach that makes it all worth it. We had a really good time and enjoyed torchering those who couldn't make it back this year with pictures of all the fine beach foods we were enjoying! Custard, beach fries, cheese steak subs...yum yum. I took second in the annual mini golf tournament this year. Josh got the first place goyder(not sure how to spell that) award, Zach won last year and named it the goyder award because the poor golfer has the largest adams apple known to man...seriously it's not natural. I do believe Zach's speech gives credit to the national foundation for iodized salt to help other children from developing this massive goyder. All in all we had a blast and it's sad to be back to normal life. I always enjoy spending time with my Glasmann relatives. I was thinking that one of the great things about my Glasmann heritage is that the Glasmann's are so welcoming. I was thinking about the difference in family get togethers and I love that when the Glasmann's get together there is so much mingling. Everyone shifts around and chats with everyone else and tries to make sure everyone is looked after. I don't get to see my cousins on the Glasmann side all that often but when we do get together it's always enjoyable. Hope you enjoy the slide show. I had so many pictures I had to make a slideshow to encompass the adventures.

Family Reunion and Beach Trip

2007-08-20T23:09:00.001-07:00

Oregon Trail

2007-08-20T11:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I have had time for an update. Here I am back in Corvallis, OR. I'm all settled in and pretty soon we are heading back to Deleware coast for a two week vacation. It seems after such a busy summer of work and events I am having a nice long break.

The weeks before the move were sureal. It didn't feel like I was leaving. I kept having farewell dinners and parties and it just seemed like another get together....right up until the Friday before I left. I drove back to Oregon in caravan with my mom on Tuesday morning about 5:30am. Friday was my last day at work and we had a farewell lunch for me and the other long term employee who was also moving to Oregon. It was a fun time and they gave us some pretty creative and meaningful farewell gifts. I got a brick from the house I worked in with a plaque on it thanking me for my service. While the brick may have seemed strange it was meaningful as Jay had put so much into the house and I felt like I got a peice of the house I had helped move ACAFS into. I was also given a beautiful clock with an inscription on the back that said "It's only a matter of time..." which has significance because they never stopped joking about me coming back to ACAFS later. My favorite was the framed mapquest directions from Corvallis back to Provo...just in case. I also got a Oregon survival kit which included a umbrella, rain poncho, swim goggles, and swim cap....so if it floods I'm set. Saying goodbye and leaving work made it all start to sink in. I wasn't going to be going back to the beautiful old house...and seeing all the people I normally interact with daily. When I went home and started packing it sunk in with my roommates too and so from Friday on I was a bit sad. But once the packing and cleaning were done I was on the road and now here I am....in Corvallis. I plan to backtrack and put some blogs up about the family reunion and explaine more about what's been going on but I wanted to let everyone know I'm here safe and sound. So far I have been kept busy and I feel good about the decision to move here...even if it's not clear why. I feel good about waiting to really get into figuring out things until we get back from our trip back east so if you are wondering what I'm doing, join the club. I will keep you posted as I figure out what I'm doing here in Oregon.
Much love!

Summer Activities & more of the same

2007-07-26T17:43:00.000-07:00

While there is much to say on the subject of Harry Potter....I don't want to spoil anything for those of you who may not be finished yet. Suffice it to say, well written, intriguing, and the end of a wonderful series. Harry Potter has always made me think of the summer and I enjoyed reading it over the Pioneer Holiday (a bonus too living in Utah- Pioneer Day is a state recognized holiday!). The past week has seemed very busy. I think the fact that I kept staying up late reading Harry Potter and then going to work, coming home late and reading more Harry Potter made the week seem even longer because I wasn't getting much sleep. I feel like I need another break, even though I just had one. Reading Harry Potter wasn't the only thing I did this week though....

My roommates arranged a trip down to a little town south of Provo called Mona where they have a pond with some fun rope swings. We had a good time. I didn't go off the rope swing but I did get in the water and despite the fact it was mucky and smelly it was pretty fun. Hopefully we will get the chance to go again before I leave. Here are some fun pictures. They had built steps to a platform way up in a tree if you were feeling adventurous. That's one of my home teachers doing the back flip....amazing.

I also went to the Kamas Rodeo with my roommates and some other fun people. It was definitely a small town rodeo. I'm not talking Philomath Frolic small town....I'm talking...hmm maybe Alsea small town?...It was fun.

I missed out on the tubing expedition due to my work meetings on Saturday but it looked like they had a lot of fun. I got home from work and there were a bazillion tubes in our living room. I would have much preferred tubing down the Provo rive to discussing the most recent problems in one of our precedent setting supervised visit cases here at ACAFS. Poor Kaydeen has been on the phone most of the day dealing with the new sanctions we are having to place on this case....ah I love my job! Work has been really busy this past week and I think it may finally be sinking in for Kaydeen now that I have put the August calendar up that I'm leaving in like three weeks. Weird.

The other day I got a text message from my boss Jay and we were both in the office. I was confused and so I opened it up and the text said "Are you sure you don't want to be a psychologist too?" I laughed and said.."Who knows, anything is possible" It is nice to know I'm appreciated. I think that is definitely a hard thing about leaving. I'm going from where I feel confident and my efforts are appreciated out into the vast unknown where I have to start all over again. I know whatever is meant to work out will work out if I put forth the effort but I also know it won't be without trial....daunting.

My roommate Amber is moving out this weekend...heading North to the thriving metropolis of West Jordon. This impending event has brought me to reflect on all the fun memories I share with my roommates. I have truly been bl est and I appreciate the friendship I have shared with my roommates. I have always enjoyed my roommates throughout the years but my experience since moving to FDL has been first rate! It saddens me that we are all heading our separate ways but I now these are people I will stay in touch with for years to come. I appreciate the welcoming nature of the roommates I have had these past two years. I have always been included in events and despite my busy work schedule my roommates have never failed to include me and try to plan so that I can attend! Thanks girls I love you all!

Thoughts from Arizona

2007-07-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I drove down to the Arizona Mexico border with my friend Kacie. Kacie was in the army in Germany while I was on my mission there. I helped reactivate her and then she came to Utah and lived with me for a year before going on her own mission to the Philippines. Kacie got back about two months ago and was living with my sister Norma trying to figure out what she wanted to do. A few weeks ago she decided that she was supposed to go home to Arizona....the only problem was getting all her stuff there. We ended up driving a big yellow Pensky truck for the 13 hour drive and then I flew back after getting her situated. The whole experience was eye opening for many reasons.

As I helped Kacie drive home we ended up out in the middle of no where and drove through part of the Indian reservations out by Grand Canyon/ Lake Powell area. It was surprising to me how many of the people were living in poverty. Most of the houses were run down and two room small houses. It was so sad to see that the people are either squandering the money that is dispersed to them yearly by the tribe counsels or that the tribe counsels are not taking care of their people on the reservations.

Taking Kacie home also provided me with the eye opening experience of seeing a completely different family setting. I have seen a variety of families interact as I have stayed with friends and visited homes as a missionary but this experience was so foreign to me I just didn't even know how to act. I mean it wasn't negative....just foreign. It made me incredibly grateful to have been raised by the parents I have and for the wonderful things they taught me. I appreciate the way my parents taught me to interact with everyone. My home was always filled with guests and we have taken quite a few people into our home over the years. I also realize that my parents frequently brought us with them when they visited other people and so I learned how to interact and adapt and be courteous in others homes. I don't think I really appreciated that until I got older. I appreciate the way that my family is so close and that I always feel welcome when I come home or when I visit one of my family members. I think I could go on and on about the things that I appreciate about my family life but I won't. I just wanted to say that seeing such a different lifestyle and family style made me appreciate the things that I have grown up with.

As I prepare to make the move to Oregon in August I think it was good for me to be reminded how lucky I am to have a family that supports me in whatever decision I make and will always welcome me home. I have been receiving bribes and many persuasive arguments from my boss and friends to stay in Utah. I have been having a lot of anxiety over it lately. My boss recently asked me if I would be enticed to stay if I got benefits and a large pay increase. I was like...please don't entice me I know it the right thing to go back to Oregon but it's not clear why I should go back anymore and things like this are just making is so much harder to go. I am really just going forward with faith at this point. I feel like there are a lot of logical reasons to move but more logical reasons to stay. The only thing that helps me find peace is that I keep getting the answer that I need to go back to Oregon and step away from the situation before I can really decide what to do. So I don't know what's in store for me but I'm excited to embrace some changes. I'm excited to start getting back in shape and spending some time with my family and hopefully meeting some new friends. I could use all the prayers I can get when I move home and start new so please remember me in August.

Tonight I had dinner with a family who lived in Germany while I was on my mission. My companion Emily Metheny just got engaged and was looking for their address to send them an invitation and so she called them up. It was sure fun to reminisce and talk about where everyone has ended up since the time I served in Bamberg. It's amazing how life brings great friends back into your path in the most amazing ways. It was comforting to have dinner with them and think back on how sad I was to leave Germany and yet how many wonderful experiences I have had since them. I know as I go on to Oregon I will look back and feel the same way.

I don't have any Arizona pictures so I thought since the trip made me so grateful for family I would post pictures of the family I love so dearly.

On the left: Jayme and his wife Virginia at Jayme's graduation in April. Jayme graduated from UVSC in History Teaching. He is taking a year off to work and apply to grad schools while Virginia finishes up her masters degree.
On the right:The family at the beach last summer (2006). My parents are on the far left and then my sister Jackie and her husband Zach and their son Keegan, then Norma and her 3 girls and husband Ward, then me and Josh are bringing up the far right side. All the Glasmann girls have matching shirts.

Jace is close enough to family I thought I would throw one of him in too since he informed me he reads my blog...he is my brother in law's brother. This is from his visit to Utah just a bit ago:

Norma and her family: Husband Ward and her three girls (Morgan in Norma's lap, Sara in the middle and Hailey on the far right)

Jackie in the hospital right before she had Kayden with Zach and their son Keegan who can also be seen in full pirate attire (courtesy of uncle Jayme) on the right

And below we have my mom and little brother Josh freezing their butts off in Bryce Canyon when we took a trip in April and it snowed. and then my dad with the most recent addition to our family our dog Riley.

Happy 4th of July

2007-07-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

Happy 4th everyone. I enjoyed a relaxing day and in attempt to be patriotic while doing my laundry dyed one of my white shirts red by washing it with my red blanket. Isn't that just so patriotic of me. Here are some pictures from the barbecue at Norma's.:

We had about 5 different people bring fireworks and the show lasted almost and hour! Quite a bit of loot as you can see.

My brother Jayme on the left and his friend Chris on the right-our masters of ceremony

The barbecue gang chowing down

Here was my patriotic nail job. I went and got a pedicure with my roommate on the 3rd so I felt compelled to have something patriotic painted.

The onlookers:

Ariana (left) my niece Morgan (right) A bunch of people:) Me

We had a nice barbecue and enjoyed hanging out. It was especially nice to spend some time with Jayme and Virginia as I don't see to much of them. I'm moving home to Oregon soon and leaving behind half the family here in exchange for seeing the other half more often there but it will be an adjustment for my nieces who are used to having me around. Hope you all had a happy fourth of July!!

It's really late...

2007-07-03T01:42:00.000-07:00

It's nearly 3am and I just finished cutting and glueing about 60 little visiting teaching assignment cards to go put on people's fridges. I had some strange helpers.

I enjoyed the entertainment. I just had to share these lovely posed pictures. And say that I believe my roommates and I need to start a quote board again. We have had some keepers lately.Can we say creepy?.......

Memorable quote of the night from Alyson Thacker: "Why don't you ask her if she is deaf?"

Joining the google gang.

2007-07-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

I've decided since I'm blogging at all I may as well post my blog on here as well as MySpace. I like that you don't have to join or jump through hoops to allow people to view this blog if they aren't members

This week has been pretty crazy for me. My roommate Amber took out her endowments and at the post dinner party I was the only one to eat something that gave me food poisoning and an hour later was sicker then a dog. I spend the whole evening and night with severe stomach cramps and other lovely things. The endowment was wonderful but I don't have happy memories of the dinner. I have done a lot of fun things with my roommates lately but that was not one of them!!

Here are some of the fun things I have been up to lately:

Camping up by mirror lake with Amber and Alyson. The pictures above are of that . We camped with Amber's family and then went up to Amber's house in Oakley Utah, a very small town, and went four wheeling and swimming in the diversion and visited the horses and cows.

Manti Pagent- We drove down to Manti and visited Amber's old stomping grounds in Ephrium. We ate at Fat Jack's pizza and it was not as good as Amber remembered (we weren't that impressed). The pagent was cheezy but you know a pagent is always fun. The highlights were: ~the 5 year old kid who ran around instead of falling down with everyone else during a dramatic scene...the people in front of us didn't appriciate our hysterical laughter. ~also the man with the handcart rolling down the hill determined not to let go....he rolled 4 times but danged if he was letting go of that handle. Aside from concern for him being hurt we were laughing pretty hard.

7peaks water park- I spent the whole day at the waterpark with my 3 neices.

Sara my 5 year old neice went down the scariest tube slide with me and loved it. I told her it dropped us straight down and went really fast and asked if she still wanted to do it and she exuberantly shook her head yes so we did. When we got to the bottom I expected tears but instead got giggles and "let's do it again". I burned the bottom of my feet really bad due to the hot pavement and my high pain tolerancy...yeah anyway. Here is a nice picture of my pain.

My sister Jackie had her baby on Wed the 27th of June. Jackie had a baby boy and I believe the final agreed upon name is Kayden Joseph Beattie. Kayden was what they wanted to call the baby but they couldn't agree on the order if it was the middle name or the first and what the other name was going to be. He is adorable in the pictures and I can't waite to see him.

Hope this finds everyone well.

Jessica