Skiing

For as long as I lived with Lisa Harris, which was about five years, I kept promising her that 'this winter' would be the one I would finally make it to Tahoe to go skiing, and it never happened. Until this year. I have gone to Northstar at Tahoe twice in the past month, and it was AWESOME!

The first time I went, I took Lisa Despain with me. She snowboarded while I skied. I ended up getting a lot of runs in while she was practicing on the bunny slope (this was only her third time, and she'd never taken a lesson). One of the best moments was getting on the lift, and looking down to see Lisa parked on the slope, then yelling at her to make good choices. In the afternoon, we both took a lesson. My intermediate ski lesson ended up being private, and I learned some good things, like remaining balanced. Of course, I ate it HARD, twice, and nearly broke my thumb, but luckily that was the end of the day.

The second time was with Jessica Schuler, and I went to the top of the mountain while she took a first time snowboard lesson. Once she was done, she hit the slopes with me, and she had a blast. It was great to see a friend experience joy doing something that I also love.

Anyway, now I have the skiing bug and want to go again SOON!

FAIL

Yes, my poor blog has been neglected for a few months. In my defense, I am taking 18 credits and still working. Perhaps I will blog on Saturday after Jessica and I get back from our skiing/boarding advendure.

Isn't it ironic?

I am friends with many people from the mission on Facebook. Most of them have stayed in the Church and are doing well, and this makes me feel happy for them. There are a couple, though, that seem to have taken a different path over the past ten years. I don't begrudge them anything, or think they are horrible people, but I do find it interesting to see. So here are summaries:

1. A girl who my companion and I taught (she was 12 at the time) at the request of her recently reactivated mom got baptized. After I came home from the mission, the mom ended up getting sealed in the temple with her new husband. Cut to now - neither of them are active, and I'm about 99% sure that the now 22-year old girl has a girlfriend. Guess that means she's getting more action than me. LOL.

2. One of my companions, who, on our last day of the mission was told by our mission president that he "wasn't worried about her" no longer goes to church, and lives as if she never did. The only reason I bring this up is because my mission president worried about me all the time, and in fact, almost sent me home for health reasons. Yet, here I am, ten years later, still active in the church (albeit sometimes I feel like I'm only hanging on by my fingernails), and the one who he wasn't worried about isn't.

My parents

I am really thankful for my parents. More than that, I am glad to see my mom so happy for the past ten years. Having a righteous priesthood holder for a bonus dad is awesome, and it's even better because he is both nerdy and funny at the same time. Both my mom and Guy like to give me advice, which I don't always welcome, but I'm sure glad they are around to dispense it. So thanks, parents, for  opening your home to me and letting me go a little mad sometimes.

Flu shot

I  should have written about this last week when it happened, but oh well.

On Sunday the 4th, over dinner, we ended up talking about medical stuff, and it came up that I hadn't gotten my flu shot yet. November is very late in the season, especially since the vaccine take about a month to be effective. Anyway, my mom got so mad at me that she was rolling her eyes saying, "I can't believe you haven't gotten a flu shot, Ms. Asthma." She was legitimately angry with me, and told me I should go get one ASAP.

Cut to election day - I am out at a client, and they just happen to have a guy coming out that day to administer flu shots that day. I went into the kitchen and the guy says to me, "You want a flu shot?" My reply was, "Yes, but I don't work here." I then told the secretary that my mom yelled at me for not getting it, and she went all mom on me as well. She was like, "WHAT?" Then, the admin services director basically forced me down into the chair to get the stupid shot. She says to me, "You'll thank me when you don't get sick."

So, I fill out the paperwork, which takes longer than the shot itself, and then the guy administers the shot, which, surprisingly didn't hurt. It did hurt afterwards, however, for like 2 days. I told the client that I didn't like them anymore because they hurt me, even though they were only trying to help. This is all my mom's fault. :)

Girls night

Today was Lisa's birthday, and it was low key but we had fun nonetheless. Us three who used to live together met up for dinner at Eddie Papas. I need to apologize to Despain because my gluten free food took almost half an hour to make, and she was sitting there getting hungrier every minute. After we had dinner, the restaurant gave Lisa free beignets with a candle, as well the customary cotton candy, which we ate a couple bites of then dunked in Despain's glass of water. Tasty!

After that, it was time to hit the mall to look at some cute (and completely hideous) shoes. I ended up getting a pair of black mary-janes, while Lisa resisted many pairs of stilettos and Despain shot down every pair of shoes we handed her. Excuses ranged from 'too shiny' to 'I don't like that little silver thing.' Oh well, you can lead a horse to water...

We hit the rest of the mall rather quickly, but did make sure to stop at Sees for a free sample. Our last stop, much to the annoyance of the sales people, I'm sure was at NY&C. We tried in super adorable matching drivers jackets, but opted out, since they cost more than $100 on sale. Pretty much, I just danced through the store while Lisa actually got some cute pants. Then we had to wander around the parking lot since we parked on two different sides of the store. The end.

P.S. you're welcome Jessica Schuler. ;) glad you got in and out unscathed!

Epic. Effing. Meltdown.

All day today had the four of us in the office working on one client report, which, to put it mildly is a mess. My boss has been working on it all week, I missed a couple days of work with a cold, and he really wanted to send the draft back to the client this afternoon so the client could do some damage repair over the weekend. We met this morning as a team to divvy up the work. I got the letters and footnote wording, my coworker Bryce got the job of footing the report, my boss was continuing to work in the management discussion, and Paul got the task of nailing down on particular footnote pertaining to what sort of investments the client had.

Cut to 5:00. We need to meet to figure out what all has been done. We sit down to talk, and I have done my portion, Bryce has done his, my boss is super stressed, but has managed to complete what he was working on. Meanwhile, Paul hasn't finished what he was assigned. My boss tries to explain that he wanted the footnote done today so we could push it back on the client. I believe the words he used were, "I want results." Anyway, my boss wasn't yelling, but he was clearly irritated, and Paul just exploded. I mean, like Mt. Saint Helens. He calls my boss an a-hole, tells him f*** you a few times, asks my boss why he's the one being kicked in the behind. Then he proceeds to spend two full minutes screaming and ranting in his office throwing stuff and repeatedly ignoring my boss' orders telling him to leave. If we were a big company. His butt would be fired, but we're sorta stretched for time right now, so we will see what Monday morning holds. Awkward!