Hey everyone!

I just want to say that last week was amazing. I don’t want to jinx anything, since there’s a lot of paper work that has to be done, but if all goes well, I will really be a teacher! When I interviewed with the principal of the middle school, she basically offered me a position there on the spot, which was amazing to me. I am so excited, but there’s a lot of side stuff, so it’s not technically final yet.

Anyways, my birthday is coming up in about 2 weeks, and Jared had a really great idea for a gift… a customizable messenger bag because I’ve been envying his for awhile. He found this great website because one of his co-workers has this brand of bag and loves it. I am so excited, and this will be great if all the teaching stuff falls into place!

But alas, I cannot have my cake and eat it too. I have a predicament. I like TWO of the bags that I designed, and I need help… so leave me a note and tell me what you think!:

Bag Number 1 (Orange design):

Option Number 2 (Pink design!)

I know you can do polls somehow on these websites, but I am too lazy to figure it out right now. I promise I am really excited about either- so I want to hear your ideas! These are the only options though… if you don’t like either, just say “I hate the orange one less than I hate the pink” or whatever. You can go to their website and design your own for yourself!

Hey all y’all! I’m working on my Texan-ness.

First, it’s been awhile since I’ve shown off my two favorite men…. so what better than showing two of their pictures off?

What good looking guys?! Who couldn’t love these faces?

Well, life has turned around since my last entry. Funny how little things like that happen at the moments you feel most hopeless. The great news is that I had an interview yesterday that went fantastically well that has led to an interview tomorrow. It’s teaching 7th grade, not high school, but really, the most important thing for me right now is to continue teaching. Plus, I haven’t had as much experience with middle school, so maybe (assuming I possibly get the job) I really will enjoy it more now that it’s my class, not some other sadistic teacher’s. I just feel so lucky that I got these interviews; I really needed that self-esteem boost!

The downside now is 1) if I don’t get hired, and 2) the teaching certification process! They are 6-8 weeks behind, so I had to do some alternate steps to insure that I will at least have a temp license to allow me to teach.

I also have continued trying to be crafty! The ladies in my ward get together every month or two and do a “card camp” where they spend the evening making cards. There are 3 card styles, and we make three of each of those styles, meaning we leave with 9 cute cards! Here are the three cards I made yesterday:

Not too bad, right? I am happy that they turned out so well! and it’s a lot cheaper than buy cards like this in a store… woo hoo! 🙂

Really, Jared is the one who should tell this story, but I gave him nearly a week to write this in his blog and he hasn’t, so I am claiming it!

Sunday morning, about 3:30, I was dragged from my dreams by a strange coughing sound. I’m sure you’ve all had it, where your alarm –or whatever the noise is– is incorporated into your dream, so I was really struggling to wake up. Anyways, I finally am conscious when I realize the noise is little Stevie coughing or choking. Almost as soon as I realize this is a dangerous sound to be hearing, I hear Jared cooing, “Oh, thanks buddy, thanks a lot!” Over and over again.

I turned on the light, and Stevie had thrown up all over Jared- and he was taking it so nicely! No screaming or grossed out sounds; just a really nice “Thanks buddy!”

haha.

Obviously, it’s not funny that Stevie was sick. Or that before he threw up on Jared, he threw up on the sheets, and then afterwards two more times on the bathroom floor. Or that all in all, we were up with him for 2 more hours afterwards before he (or we) could get back to sleep. But Jared’s reaction was just so funny- that he could be so calm about it all, as if the dog was just cuddling with him or giving him kisses. I was very impressed with his behavior–I don’t think I would have reacted nearly as well.

(No dogs were hurt in the telling of this story. Stevie was fully recovered by Sunday afternoon.)

In other news, I went to the doctors office again on Monday about the headache stuff–no luck. And she still doesn’t want me to have any sort of pain medication for my headaches for at least a couple more months! I’m so frustrated with doctors. growl!

I did get my Professional Educator License for Utah last week- Upside (kind of): I paid $177 and sent in a copy to the Texas board (and am working on getting BYU to send official transcripts there) to get everything settled to teach in texas! Downside: there are no teaching jobs immediately available for my qualifications in a 45 minute radius. We’ll figure something out though!

First of all, I just want to thank all of you for all the nice comments you always make on my projects and musings. It means a lot to me, and I love hearing from all of you. I am excited to finish my chairs soon- hopefully this week!

This weekend was a really big turn around point for me, in a couple aspects of my life. I know that I am not “fat” or anything like that, but I haven’t been feeling well with my headaches, and I haven’t been feeling happy about myself. I am the heaviest I have been in several years, but I didn’t want to do anything about it. So I am starting a new diet regime. Not as much to lose weight as it is to help me try and eat healthier. I did the South Beach diet 2 years ago and I felt really great, physically and mentally. I had more energy. I slowly let myself slip more and more (like, there’s nothing wrong with ice cream, but it’s not good if you have a big bowlful every night). I also had a strong impression that this was a good thing for me to do last night when I was able to see Elder Bednar talk (more on that in a minute!). So I start today!

I also really feel more in tune with the gospel. I’ve been struggling with a few things lately. However, two situations have really helped me focus on the big picture. The first one was working on my talk. I went through a lot of church materials and read my scriptures a lot to prepare for the talk, more deeply than I have done in a long time. Doing this brought back a lot of memories I had forgotten. I also prayed so I would be receptive to what might need to be said for those in my audience. In the end, I felt so confident and prepared when I went up to give my talk (it was long… 15-18 minutes… hehe) and I have never felt like that before. I know that because I spent more than a couple of hours on my talk, I was blessed. Even if the general message wasn’t directly what I needed, getting back into deep scripture study and the discipline of writing was what I needed.

I think this first part with the talks also really helped me with the second part of my weekend. Elder David Bednar came to the Austin stake last night and did a fairly informal Q&A for two hours. I won’t go into the details of everything I heard last night, because I know that not everything I got from it was directly something Elder Bednar said, and a lot of it is very personal to me. However, I want to say that last night, I KNEW that Elder Bednar was truly an apostle of the Lord. He radiates of so much goodness and calmness… a calmness and surety that you don’t often get to see in the world today with all the bustle and confusion. I know he is truly a great man and loves God and has devoted his life to serve the world so they can also come to know and love the Lord. I also knew, without any doubt, that the church is undeniably true, and has more truth to it than any other source on earth. It was a truly amazing experience that I will not forget for a long time.

When my mom came down, she helped me get started on recovering the dining room chairs we have. They started off looking like this:

You can’t really tell from the picture, but the seats are getting kind of threadbare and a few stains. We definitely aren’t complaining as we were gifted them, but we wanted to update them a little…

Here’s the new look!

Woo hoo!

It’s a fun project, but I only have half the chairs done because I had a cold and/or allergy issue the past couple of days, but it’s a great start! I feel so… crafty! useful! handy?!

It’s all… so not me! I cook, I clean, I craft… Is this the start of a new Elisabeth?