Its a sad day

Today is a sad day for sure. I had to take these pretties to UPS and send them back.

I was very excited picking them out and awaited the sound of the door bell every morning to see if they had come. I even scored a great deal on a new "lucy" running top that was more than 50% off. I was super excited to start running again. You see, I get runners high VERY easily. I get a huge feeling of accomplishment when I finish a tough run. Living in Provo we didn't have easy access to a treadmill and I don't really enjoy running pavement. Mostly because the majority of Provo likes to run outside. I thought being out here would really get me back into the swing of things. I had all sorts of plans. But once I slipped on my brand new shoes and top, I started to doubt if I should really be doing this. My body isn't as young as it used to be I guess. Nowadays when I run I tend to get injuries fairly easy. Then I have to stop running to recover and I have to take a lot of time off, I get frustrated and can't do any other exercises because of it. So after a lot of going back and forth, I made the decision to quit. So I traded in those cute shoes and bought some omega oil to help improve my joints instead. Guess its all about the long run.

Confession Time

I have a confession.

It’s quite pathetic really.

Since being married for almost a year and a half I can count the number of times we’ve eaten at our kitchen table on 2 hands.

It’s currently being used as a desk, a closet and a filing cabinet. It’s a weird habit that just happened. I guess we really do love our coffee table!

Creating Balance

When Gabe and I were living in Provo we each had our own responsibilities to take care of during the day, he had school, I had work. And as soon as our responsibilities were taken care of for the day we loved to just relax and hang out together at home. It became very hard to get out of the house and do anything after about 4:00. If I had any errands to run during the week, I would get them done right after I got off work and then rush home to hang out with Gabe. It was a great way to end every day. The time we spent at home together became such a necessity for us and I started to strongly associate being at home with Gabe as relax time.

Well, this takes us to today. The first week out here Gabe was working really long hours every day, 12-15 hours. And I had so much time on my hands I didn’t know what to do. Now that things are all settled and organized, we get to enjoy the beauty of this job, almost an unlimited amount of time together. This was one of the main reasons that we wanted to come out for the summer. I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want to do. I love baking. I would love to get better at cooking. I love fashion and would like to pursue that more. I love health and fitness and would like to develop better habits. I love painting and would like to expand my etsy shop. I love my religion and would like to build on my testimony. I love the outdoors and new places and would like to spend more time exploring and site seeing. I love reading and would like to read more books.

But I have become unmotivated. Whenever Gabe isn’t out working, I just want to embrace the time we have as a young married couple and take advantage of every minute. But even after he leaves for work, I still sit around and “relax.”  The sun sets and I’m getting ready for bed and I look back on my day and I feel so unproductive. I love the fact that we are so blessed to have all this time to get to know each other better and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I also should realize that I can still do things while Gabe is home and still be spending time with him. I am becoming a dull person and I would really like to develop my personality more. I saw this on someone’s blog yesterday and it was exactly what I need to help balance my time better.

I think this will help a lot. Lets give it a shot!

San Fransisco!

As you all should know, we made it safely out to California. As was expected, this first week has been stressful getting settled, organized and getting all of the technicians trained. We celebrated my birthday last weekend by going out to Outback Steakhouse on Friday and watching a movie and then Saturday night after Gabe got home from work we had some cheesecake. We didn't bring any wrapping supplies so Gabe got creative with my presents and hid them around the house and then we played the "hot and cold" game as I found new clothes under couch cushions and in cupboards. It was very sweet :) This week has been really really busy working but we did find some time to squeeze in some fun and make the trip out to San Fransisco. There is a pluthera of photos:

Our first hippie sighting, which was later followed by a gay parade sighting.

Alcatraz in the background here. We hope to make a trip out there sometime this summer.

I was hoping that in this building they would show how to make the chocolate or have chocolate samples or statues made out of chocolate... But they didn't. Chocolate to come later though :)

Here is where the chocolate tasting begins, probably the best chocolate shake I have had in my life.

The view atop the San Fransisco Bridge. Beautiful, but oh so windy!

The famous Lombard Street. It was a lot smaller than I had expected!

San Fransisco was such a cool place to visit, we LOVED it! There is so much to see there and I have a feeling we will be going back to visit quite a few times this summer. There is so much culture there and so much to see. It was a blast!!

Sick day 9 and counting

This is what my first week in California has consisted of:

Adios Amigos!

Yep, you heard the rumors right, we are moving to California for the summer! We had a very difficult time deciding whether or not we wanted to go out for another summer, but we finally decided, what the heck, we're young we might as well go take a vacation and have some fun even if we don't end up making a lot of money. It was hard for me to decide if I wanted to go or not because I feel like we have established ourselves so well in our current apartment. It feels like it is our home, and it feels weird to be leaving it. I don't know if we will be able to get back in the same apartment when we get back.
Originally we weren't planning on going out again for the summer because Gabe thought that he would need to take some spring/summer classes at BYU, but turns out he is right on track (yay Gabe!) and he doesn't have to. We then started thinking about maybe going to Oklahoma to try and sell instead or even going back to Kenai Alaska where we were last year. We thought it would be cool to go back to Alaska, and we would be able to "do it right" this time and take more pictures and go explore more, but Im pretty sure that our car wouldn't make it up there and we would be moving around all the time again. It just wasn't the best environment.
A couple weeks ago Gabes boss called him to let him know that they were opening an office in California that they wanted him to be lead tech over and we jumped at the opportunity. He will get a salary, I can relax by the pool, its less then half a day away, and we will be in permanent housing the whole summer. Or so they say! The city we were first called to was Modesto. And then they changed their mind and told us we were going to Manteca. And then they changed it again yesterday and said we're going to Stockton. I think that Stockton is the place we really should be going, because we were told thats where they found housing. But who really knows if its final?! But really, its about a week before we leave, they SHOULD know by now.. The apartments they were looking into in Manteca were really really nice, and I was looking foward to it A LOT because of the pool and the all around luxury of it all, but I heard it was a hick town and there wasn't much to do there. Now that I know, or think, we are going to Stockton, Ive been looking into what the town is like and I think we will like it. It sounds like there is a lot to do there. AND... its right by 2 large shopping malls :) Right down the street. I think I will do just fine!
It will be super interesting to see what this summer brings us, its always a huge surprise. I expect that Gabe will be pretty busy at first getting everything organized and then hopefully we'll have a bit more down time to go see the sites and spend time with each other. While Gabe is out working during the day I plan on working more on my etsy shop. I haven't added anything new lately because I have been super stressed out about getting everything ready for the summer. But that is my main focus for the summer is to get my etsy shop a 'rockin. I really enjoy painting and wish I had more time for it. We leave in about a week from now. Gabe is finishing up the school year with finals all this week and we will be making our rounds to say adios to as many people as we can. Stress is high, believe me. But I try and get rid of it by daydreaming about days on the beach. It works pretty well, I hope this will be worth it!

I'm a winner!!!

I have been very excited, I won two things on facebook within a week of each other! In all honesty, I have been putting off blogging about it because I was hoping I would win something else…. cause three would be so much cooler than 2. The first thing I won was a hair treatment at my favorite salon. Every month on their facebook page they have giveaways for services and products. The giveaway was actually something different than I ended up getting. It was for a Brazilian blowout, which I thought was a morrocan oil treatment. I would assume it’s a common mistake to mix the two up..? They sound similar, right? As the end of the giveaway was nearing, there was only 3 other people that had entered so I thought I had a pretty good chance. I got a facebook message saying that I had won and I was stoked. Then I realized I didn’t want it, because it was for $50 off the Brazilian blowout. (Its normally several hundred dollars.) It wasn’t something I would use, so with some convincing, my wonderful stylist got me a free morrocan oil treatment instead. And it was so wonderful! On a side note, I would highly recommend morrocan oil if your hair needs some TLC. I definitely noticed a huge difference in my hair.

The second thing I won on facebook was a workout DVD. Its called Physique 57 Volume 1 Arm and Ab Booster. I check their facebook page everyday for workout motivation and one day saw that they were having a trivia giveaway. I looked up the answer and later got a message saying I had won. Yippee for giveaways! I have been entering quite a few giveaways lately and am hoping maybe Ill win some more soon. But once you start entering so many it gets really really easy to lose track of what ones have been entered. 

I have recently started coupon clipping as well and am loving it. There are a few blogs that I check every day that tell me what sites have what coupons and where I can find good deals. Have you seen the previews for the show starting on TLC called “Extreme Couponing?” It looks insane. There was a lady that went to the grocery store and got $650 worth of food for only $6. Insane right? I highly doubt I will ever get to that point. In fact I KNOW I won’t. There is not enough time in the day. I was pretty excited about a deal I got a couple days ago though. Walgreens was selling my favorite bronzer for buy one get one free and I used 2 manufactures coupons for $5 off each product. It would have been $28 before coupons, and I paid $3 after coupons. Woot Woot! Gabe was super proud of his wife’s newfound coupon clipping hobby. Coupons are a blessing to this budget living girl!