Yeah, I know...

Yes, I realize that I have already posted on the excitingness that is my office. After all, if you had finally been acknowledged as a real person by your employers after four and a half years, you would be pretty excited too. Anyhow, now that I am all moved in, and (mostly) set up I thought I would post a few pictures of my really cool office.
This first one is my door decoration, giving some privacy and setting a fun mood. In white are some fun interpreting cartoons, and surrounding those are some Demotivators, (found at http://demotivators.com/)


Next, we have the view from the doorway. On the right you can see my dysfunctional mouse, attached to my old computer that runs on Windows 98. But hey, it runs, and it is for me to use! Yay!!
In the back corner I have most of my work related books, and a shelf I installed the other day. If I ever get rich I will put in a microwave and mini fridge in that corner too... Happy thoughts :D.
You can also see my new bit of artwork... I LOVE sunflowers, and rather like Monet... so the combination is perfect.

This shot is from the back corner, just so you can see my awesome bit of fake bamboo and my work table. Yup, believe it or not, I actually do work when I go to work :) Unbeknownst to my boss, there is a lot more to interpreting than just flapping my hands in classes, there is a lot of outside prep work to do. It is enough to keep me busy.

The pictures make the room look a lot bigger than it really is, but I like the coziness that a small room provides, and this is perfect for little 'ol me.

Can I just say it again?

YAY!

Craving a fix

Hi. My name is Christy, and I am a baby-holic. 

Well, I probably would be if there were such a thing. It is amazing how much like an addiction baby holding can be. Every Sunday at church I sit and listen to the babies coo and cry, and almost physically crave that snuggling that makes you feel all warm and gooey inside. I probably get a ridiculous sappy smile on my face every time I see those little bundles, and then I get depressed because I can't hold them. Pathetic, I know. One of these days I am half tempted to tell the compassionate service leader that the compassionate service I need is a baby to hold during Sunday School (the only hour I don't interpret).

There is almost nothing I love more than to snuggle a new born baby, and over the holidays I was finally able to get a fix. First, last week I got about a half an hour of snuggle time with my friend Angela's new son David (first pic), and then just last night I got to snuggle my cousin's two week old son Collin (second pic) for about five minutes before I had to get to work. Just long enough to tantalize and make me crave even more. 

Fortunately for me, I have some slightly older cousins who like to play with me sometimes and keep me happy and sane.

Starting off on the right foot

What better way could I have decided to spend the first day of the new year than by getting out and going snowshoeing? My first real chance to play with my snowshoes was a smashing success. I went out that afternoon with my aunt, and we went about 3 miles up one of our favorite hiking trails. Not as far as we usually hike, but it took almost two hours, and was far enough to work up a good sweat! That is a really good workout! It was beautiful too. A different type of beautiful than you normally get in the regular hiking season, but still breathtaking in its own right.  Now I am going to have to do some searching for good places to go around home, cause I have got to keep this up. 

However, next time I go, I will definitely be wearing a double layer of socks... my heel started rubbing enough that I could feel it about half a mile up the trail, and by time I got home, I knew I wouldn't be wearing shoes any more than I could help it for the next few days. Even so, it was fabulous, more than worth the blister!

Marley and Me

I saw a trailer for this movie a while ago and thought it looked like something I would want to see. Something family oriented, sweet and funny. I went with my sister and my folks to see it on Monday, and have to admit, it suprised me.

Not only was it family friendly, it was family focused. Family values all through it, not something you find in many movies these days, even in the good ones. It was funnier than I expected too. Having had dogs, and having seen the previews, I knew some of what to expected, and granted, some of it seemed to be played for gags, but just a bit. Not too much. Mostly it was good, sweet fun and I now have a new movie to add to my favorites list. It was so good I went and bought the book right after we got out of the theater. I think I will start reading it tonight :)

I have to admit though, I didn't think it would make me cry. But it did. In a good, cathartic way. And I still want a dog.

Looking back

2008 has been a pretty good year. All together, I have enjoyed the last 12 months and all the adventure they brought. My cousin sent out a Christmas letter for her family showing the top ten memories from the year, and liked her idea. So, I am gonna copy, kinda. Perhaps not ten, but I figure it is a good way to wrap up the year and count up my favorite blessings :)

Spring break during the last school year, the High School history department took a group of students on a whirlwind tour to New York, and Washington DC (plus some other fun sites). I went along as a chaparone/tourist and had all kinds of fun. We did everything we possibly could in one week, from touring the Smithsonian and the Capitol building to visiting the Statue of Liberty and going to Wicked on Broadway. So much fun!

Right around Mothers day I treated myself to a brand new bicycle. Before that I had been riding a mens' cruiser that was admittedly too tall for me. Although I would ride it almost all over town, I always felt like I was going to fall over if I had to stop and wait at an intersection. But, my new bike is as short as me, so no more falling over (unless the dog trips me up... lol). Plus, like my lawnmower, it is retro, and very cool looking. I think my car misses me...

Just after summer started my stake led a Treck for the youth, camping at Martins Cove and pulling handcarts over Rocky Ridge. I was asked to go along as the interpreter. So, I got to dress up all funny and look just as silly as everyone else, and go along for a good long hike. It was a really good experience, not something I had ever done before, and a great chance to get to know the youth in the area even better.

This year I really got sucked into hiking. I have always been a walker, but mostly I stuck to the roads and just walked around town. This year I started going out on the trails... and sometimes off the trails :) Climbing to odd high places I could see and taking off whenever I got the chance. Hopefully this is something I will keep doing through the years, because there are lots of places I want to hike.

End of summer brought us up to Washington for a family reunion with my dad's side of the family. We had a great week of camping, good food, and good times with family. We spent lots of time playing rook (of course), hiking (yay!) and talking/laughing. You just can't help but laugh with these people, they are fabulous! Luckily we do this every two years, so it won't be too long before we all get together again. I just wish it were yearly!

Scattered throughout the summer were several little home improvement projects meant to keep me busy. While they were nothing as dramatic as my kitchen, they were enough to make me feel better about my trailer. I finished tearing out the carpet (it was orange) in my bedroom and replacing it with tile (peel and stick, but nice quality). I put in a rock border around the outside of the trailer that only needs a little more done before it is totally finished (I want to do my deck first). And I made some pretty good progress on my bathroom. I repaired the subfloor, replaced the flooring (the old stuff was the same as what was in my kitchen, bleh!), installed a new bathtub, and am mostly done with the cabinets - I just need to finish the staining and varnishing... (I had hoped to get some of that done over Christmas break... but alas, 'tis not to be.)

So, maybe it is only significant to me, but I find it amusing that I blog. I thought only smart, funny people wrote blogs, so I was just a phantom reader. Then I wanted to start leaving comments and harrassing my friends, so I got an account, and really, one thing just led to another. Mostly it led to trouble. Obviously. But I love being able to keep up with friends and family, and since I am lousy at personal communication (email, phone calls, actual conversations...), I rely on facebook and this, and do much better at pretending to be a somewhat normal person.

This year the school district I work for has finally decided to offer us something we can actually use. Three months free at the local gym. I have absolutely loved being able to go to the gym every morning before work, it helps me start the day off right. I bought an eliptical several years ago, and was pretty faithful at using it several times a week, but it really doesn't give your body any kind of variety. Now, even though the facilities are not wonderful, some of the machines are really worn out, and it is small, I am able to mix up my workout. Free weights, machines, treadmills, circuts, and classes keep me on my toes and my muscles continually fatigued - ibuprofin is my friend!

Christmas has also been wonderful this year - my brother came up to visit, and filled the house with beautiful music and just made me happy. I also got a chance to sleep in a bit, playtime, snowshoes, an office, lots of love from my family, and a chance to see old friends again.

Other, random good memories from the year: Adams family reunion, a new prophet, a new president, I got hooked on NPR's science friday, started running, and (miracle of miracles!) went on two dates.

Overall, a good year I think.

Oh the joy!

You are going to think I am very odd and random, after all, this post is about something I finished more than a YEAR ago. Lucky for you, you don't have to read it if you don't want to. But, I finally found a picture of what my kitchen used to look like before I destroyed and rebuilt it. There are few things that I am truly proud of, but the results from this project STILL make me grin like a 1st grader at Christmas time and I wanted to share the joy.

Here it is, in it's full glory. Complete with particle board cabinets that had soaked up 20 years of grease and grime and were unfit to even touch, much less store food and dishes in. I think I stored my gardening supplies and tools in there instead. The counter top had this odd yellow wood like pattern that was chipped all around the edges. Worst of all was the floor. Genuine 80's peel and stick tile that had lost its stick in some places, and had something cemented on it from days of old. Scrub as you might, there was no helping it. I think the thing about this pic that makes me laugh the most is the cereal wall - a remnant from my time in college. I put it up hoping it would help, but it really didn't. And I was just too lazy to take it down. It certainly couldn't make the place any uglier!

Once I decided to remodel, things went remarkably quickly. First to go were the upper cabinets, ripping them out was a JOY. Soon after that, the lower cabinets went, and as soon as I figured out how to shut off the water the sink was out too. I tell ya, demolition can be addicting... the funny part is that I was able to dispose of all waste materials in my garbage can. No trips to the dump for me, just take a hammer to it and smash it to pieces... kinda like my old bathtub... but that is another story. Then came the hard part. Taking out the flooring. I really didn't want to lay anything over top of it, so it had to come up. I tried chiseling it off. I had to give up that idea after blisters formed before I got even one tile finished. Then I tried scoring it with a utility knife, pouring acid on it, and then chiseling it again with gloves on... that was a bit easier. But not much. Made for a VERY good workout. I got almost a quarter of the way done with the floor using that tactic before I wised up enough to do a bit more research. It is amazing what you can learn on the internet. Turns out if you use a heat gun and warm up the tiles, they peel right up with minimal use of the scraper. Well, a blow dryer works just as well as a heat gun, and so even though it was the middle of the summer and I had no AC, I blasted away with it. Finished the rest in one night. Amazing!

After that came the real work. Rebuilding. Luckily my dad did most of the construction, with just a little help from me (moral support and tailing off is really all I am good for there). But once we got everything installed I got to be useful again, and get to work staining, varnishing, and trimming everything. The fumes are strong, but the results are worth it. Don't you think?

Personally, I am rather impressed with our work. All that is left to do is get some paint on the walls and ceiling. I just hope the rest of my projects turn out as well.

Ready to go!

Hooray for fun Christmas presents! Christmas was pretty darn good this year, but I have to say that this is the best part :) I got hooked on hiking this last summer and the only thing I was sad about was that it is kinda hard to go in the snow. In the past I have done cross country skiing, and absolutely loved it. But that hobby has fallen by the wayside lately. Then my aunt told me about the joys of snowshoeing and she piqued my interest. The more I thought about it, the more intriguing the idea became until I decided that somehow, I would try to learn this winter. Now, with all the lovely new snow, and with my brand new snowshoes (aren't they pretty!) I am ready to go and have lots and lots of fun (I hope!) Now I just need to con someone into going with me as I experiment and figure out what I am doing. I did take them out for a test walk, just once around the house, and that was kinda fun, but I am thinking that it might be a good idea not to go too far off the beaten path all by myself... lol :) Knowing me, I would walk right into trouble. But, some way or another though, I have every intention of getting out and having some great fun this next week!