The Clyde

I have always wanted a new "old" house. I found this floor plan/blueprint from the Sears Catolog cira 1921-1926. The interior would have to be updated and the craftsman style is one of my favorites!

I love built-ins, the clean lines, the dark and light wood combination, and colors are fun.

I want a house to decorate and have fun with!

Phone and Father's Day

My phone died last week! I was a tad bit annoyed at the time. My touch screen stopped working, I could recieve texts but I couldn't read or respond to them. I could compose a text but I couldn't choose a contact so it could be sent. When it came down to it I could answer an incoming call...that's it. Kinda lame, if I won't to just answer a phone I would have a landline!

My wonderful Mother came to my rescue and offered to let me have her old phone. Being unemployed I really could not refuse the offer. And why would I want to my Mom had a cooler phone than me! All it took was a quick trip to the AT&T store down the road and now I have a slightly used and much appreciated iPhone 3G. Dad says I'm an iPhone addict. I'm not really, I'm just trying to figure it out how to use the phone..... In all actuality he is the addict and is in denial! He takes his iPhone 4 EVERYWHERE. Love you, Dad! I have found some very useful Apps: LDS Tools, Gospel Library, MyFitnessPal, Flixter, Pandora to name a few. How did I live without this little peice of technology for so long! It is a necessity! Satuday I babysat for a family in the ward. I had never been to their home. I just went to LDS Tool found them in the ward directory, which provided me with their address and map! How easy! Then I used Gospel Library at church on Sunday. It was the first Sunday in a really long time that I had my manual for Relief Society(I ALWAYS forget it!)

FATHER'S DAY!!!

This was probably the 3rd time since 1994 that I was with my Dad for Father's Day. I had a lot of fun getting things ready to celebrate this year. I found some cute ideas for a banner, cupcakes, and glass soda bottles @ www.amandaparkerandfamily.blogspot.com This is how mine turned out:

The banner in the kitchen.

IBC Cream Soda.

These were for cupcakes but we had cheesecake!

Most days I feel like this.....

but I usually refrain!

My 1 month anniversary! Of what you ask....

Today is my ONE MONTH ANNIVERSARY of being unemployed!

And can I just say it seems so much longer than 1 month or 4 weeks or even 31 days. Now don't get me wrong, there are some definite perks!

• I don't mind sleeping in until 7:30 or 8 in the morning. (1)
• Nikki takes me for a walk/jog every morning with moments of franticly hunting for birds, rabbits, and the odd snake. (2)
• I love spending time with my parents; Bob-O and Jan are "Super Cool Cats." It's nice to be with family.
• Saving money! I save a ton on car maintenance: gas, oil changes, tune-up, what have you.
• I have time to read!!! I have missed this aspect of my life.
• I'm pretty much caught up on my Hulu queue.
• I can stalk... I mean "follow" my friends on facebook.
• I can work on some unfinished projects.

But, isn't there always a but! I feel like I am on a forced vacation I wasn't ready to take. There only seems to be uncertainty. I'm waiting, hoping, praying to be called up from Juniors (3), but until then LIMBO!

Unemployment was not my first choice as to a reason to relocate. As many of my friends and family know, I wanted to be closer. West Texas is just to far from them. When I was offered the job in Texas, I told Heavenly Father I could do anything for 2-3 years. After working there for about 2 years I started looking for jobs closer to home. I began looking into Grad Schools. At the 3 year mark I thought, "Well, I guess it's going to take a little bit longer than 3 years and I continued to search. Then at 3 years 3 months I was laid off. It was almost like Heavenly Father said, "You said 2-3 years. You haven't been able to find something on your own. So, here's a little jumpstart!" I truly believe that it is a blessing. But, there's that but again, it isn't easy! I have internal conflict.

The fun, easygoing part of me says: "Live it up! Who knows when you will be in a situation like this again! You have NO RESPONSIBLITIES, have fun! Go to Utah, go to California! You don't have anything else going on. You can apply for jobs online from anywhere!"

The practical part says: " You have bills to pay and unemployment will only go so far. You need to stay focused and work harder at finding a job. What are you going to do about Grad School? You know you need to go. Make a decision! Get in gear! You can't go on a trip you don't have an income!"

I try to have a schedule. I try not to sleep in too late. I try to keep myself busy. The activities that I do throughout the week are: walk Nikki, job search, waste time on faceboo, research masters programs, crafting, read, cook dinner 3 nights a week (4), play Wii/Wii yoga, got to the temple 1 to 2 times, go to church, and hang out with my parents. I do watch a bit of TV and Hulu. For 2 1/2 years I didn't have TV, now I find myself doing mindless watching while job searching! I have to do something so I don't fall asleep while filling out job application or searching another website for job openings.

Things are getting a tad bit boring. I hope I find a job soon!

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1-In Midland I had to be up at 5am Monday-Thursday.

2-A couple of days ago, Nikki pulled a snake out of a hole in the green space. I was pretty big!

3-Juniors is the minor league of hockey

4-I made Stuffed Peppers for dinner last night. They were delish!

Oh yeah, I have a Blog!

Hello my few friends who may occasionally check my blog to see if I may have on the slim chance updated my blog. Guess what!?! Now don't have a heart attack, I'm BLOGGING! Shocker, I know.

As, some of you may know, recently upgraded and downsized my laptop to a netbook, the HP Mini. My previous laptop, a Dell Inspiron, was purchased with my tax refund in 2004! My Dell saw me through many a research paper, PowerPoint presentation, and Facebook time suckage. Over the past few years said Dell has had a few set backs. There was the virus-not sure if it was viral or bacterial, but Dell was never quite the same after that. I tried to help him out by upgrading his memory, but he still wasn't happy. Next I noticed that Dell was having a hard time getting up when it was time to get to work. I hope that by alleviating some of the burden on Dell's aging mother board I might get some more quality time out of him. So, I decided to remove as many unnecessary files and programs as I could. I stored all my school work, pictures, music, what have you on an external hard drive(a much needed backup) along with a more mobile option of 3, yes I said 3, flash drives. This is not to say that I have enough to fill up said flash drives but I have everything meticulously organized on them. One for pictures, one for undergraduate/misc school work, and the third for current work, church, and my random thoughts and ideas. Initially this idea was inspired! But in no time Dell was back to a FIFTEEN TO TWENTY MINUTE SNOOZE! I felt this was uncalled for! I don't even get such luxury.

With much reluctance I began to research my computer options. I really wanted a Macbook. But in this current economy I was not ready to go into so much debt for a new laptop. So, I look at other laptops. After 7 years of hauling Dell around on my back; through airport security, through the terminals, on airplanes, in cars, and all over the University of Utah, I decided I no longer wanted to carry around such weight and bulk! When what to my wondering eye should appear (oh yeah and the remembrance of a suggestion from the old man himself...no not Santa, my Dad) the Netbook! I didn't want to relive some of the mistakes I made with purchasing Dell. So I decided to custom build my netbook. And the HP Mini was the best option for the price. I upgraded to 2GB of memory with a faster processor, and the full Windows 7. And guess what, when I did my taxes this year I actually got some money back! Thanks to taking a class last year! And were did that money go toward you ask? My new HP Mini! I was able to cover about half of the cost.

I have had my Mini for about 2 weeks now and have thoroughly enjoyed the time we have spent together. It has been an adjustment to get use to a smaller screen and keyboard. The keyboard is only something like less than 5% smaller, but it still has taken some getting use to. I absolutely love how lightweight it is and the 10 HOUR battery! With this new technology I have reclaimed my desire for trying this blog thing again. I hope I can be more diligent about posting and maybe just maybe I will have a record of my goings on to share with the world! (or maybe just a few of you who I love and/or care about!)

My Mini

Oh, and check out my new background and fonts! I was playing around with blogspots new templates.

The reason why....

This was my friend Crystal's first time to Utah. I was fun to see Temple Square through the eyes of someone else who hasn't driven past every day for years on the way to work or school! Plus my attemps to be artsy...my new camera has pretty good zoom and takes a good picture!

Sleep Emailing!

Some of you know about my crazy trip this weekend. For those of you who don't, Some friends and I drove to Utah for the weekend....left Thursday night drove 16hrs and returned home Sunday, actually arriving in Midland @ 7:30am Monday! I know it was insane, and really never want to do that fast of a trip again but it was fun and for a good cause! I went to work today @ 8:30. It is a good thing we were busy or I might not have made it through the day. I had a message on my phone after work to send out an email to our Midsingles Group about the next couple of weeks of activities. So, I've heard of Drunk Dialing and texting....But have you heard of Sleep Emailing? Did you notice the length of the scroll down bar on the email? Can you tell that I typed exclamation marks? How exactly did I press shift 1 that long? And what was I excited about? I woke up singing Grease "Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee" (We listened to the soundtrack yesterday on the drive!)