So, I know there are a lot of people out there who hate reading mushy stuff about how happy someone is in a marriage. Well, good thing I am not writing this for them. This post is for those who like to see what I have been up to and to see if I am truly happy. It is also a selfish post so that I can write down all the wonderful things about being married and all the trials of working a full time job.

First things first: Marriage is hard. But it is not the hard that makes you want to quit, or makes you wish for the end to be near (like school), it is the kind of hard that when trials come up you must now try and get through them with another person. And that other person did not grow up as you did and may have different way to solve problems. It is diffucult to find middle grounds when both parties think they are right. But compromise is something Brandon and I have been practicing since we have been together. Case in point: I don’t like watching South Park…in fact, I HATE watching South Park. But I watch it with Brandon because I know he enjoys it and wants to share that enjoyment with me. And in turn Brandon will watch Big Brother with me and laugh at all the comments I make (as if the house guests could hear me).

Other hard issues that we had to get through were: getting insurance, finding a full time job with benefits,  getting my name changed and his name added to bills, consolidate credit cards, find time for each other and become adults. Luckily for me Brandon has been an adult for longer than I have so it was easier for me to jump into it with someone who knew what he was doing. And I think it is kinda fun to get cards in the mail with your new name on them.

So other than little road blocks that stress us out a little bit, marriage is everything I hoped it would be. Which is saying a lot since I have always been a hopeless romantic. I have not went through the list with Brandon that I am about to share with you. So if it is embarrassing, I hope he will be okay with it. So here it is, a list of things I love about Brandon:

Brandon knows I hate falling asleep with no one by my side, so he will bring his Nintendo DS and sit in bed with me and play it all night until he gets tired just so I don’t feel alone. (sometimes for HOURS)

If I am sleeping and he can’t, he will shine his insulin pump in my face, and when I wake up and look at him, he says: “Oh! You’re awake!!” (with a HUGE smile on his face)

He will always make me dinner when I am too tired to cook. (which has been a lot lately)

He always takes out the trash, and when he sees me doing it he makes me stop. (oh, shucks)

He is very clean and anal…two characteristics that I needed in a husband. (we are two neat freaks)

Always cleans out Lily’s cat box so that I don’t have to. (and believe me, it is not fun)

Likes watching movies with me (we have become somewhat obsessed with movies).

Makes the BEST curry in the whole wide world.

He works SO hard from early morning all the way until late at night. ( and NEVER complains about it)

He does an awesome job handling our finances and we should be able to have money when we retire.

Buy bags of Reeses and puts them in the freezer.

Does dishes when I don’t get to them.

Always wanting to teach me math, or share cool concepts that he learns each day (mostly coming from Atlas Shrugged)

He places 8 post its around that house that say “I love you”.

Always has me pick out his church clothes.

He texts me all day long, even if he is busy.

He will rub my back after a long day at work. (everyday)

So there are just a few reasons why I am so happy in my life right now. There is so much more that Brandon does to make me happy. I am so glad that we found each other and decided to get married for time and all eternity. I am so excited to have him me my eternal companion and to live happily ever after for… forever.

Okay, so now on to my new job. I am now working for Kelly Hawkins Physical Therapy on Charleston and Valley View. I work full time (9-6 M-F) and get benefits). I am a technician there and I put heat or cold pack on patients, do ultra sound or electric stimulation on problems areas and them massage them. It is a fun job because I get to meet so many different people and help them on their road to recovery. The comments I get from the patients are what gets me through the day. They are all so sweet and it makes my job easy. The only down side to this new job is that my body doesn’t seem to be keeping up with me. My RA is flaring up and it is getting harder and harder to wake up in the morning and get ready. I enjoy the days when Brandon is home because he can help me get ready. I haven’t a clue what else I can do to get better, but I hope to see my doctor again soon so that I can continue working at my job with no pain.

So there is my new update. My new job consumes my life and there isn’t much time for fun. But whenever we get a spare moment, Brandon and I make sure we spend time together, and thats how a marriage should be. I love my new job and I love being married. My life is going great right now and I hope it only gets better.

So, Brandon and I have started a new business called “Sort It Out”. It is a professional organizing business and we go to people’s houses and help them get organized. We are super excited about it, so if you or someone you know could benefit from our business, please visit our website at www.SortItOutVegas.com

Thanks!

So I guess it is time to update everyone with what has been going on since my last post (Graduation Day).

A week after my graduation, my sister Shilo came out for my wedding. That week we finished up last minute wedding plans and hung out.

Finally the day of the wedding came and went. I was so stressed out and the day went by so fast. Other than a few problems with the venue where the ring ceremony and reception was held, it was a magnificent day.

Directly after the reception Brandon and I took a limo to the airport and flew out to Los Angeles. After arriving in LA, we rented a car and drove (what seemed like 10 hours) to Avila Beach, CA. It was close to midnight when we got there, and I can’t even begin to explain how exhausted we were.

The next few days were nice. We got to relax and watch some movies. It was about 60 degrees and windy so we couldn’t go to the beach, but we found other things to do (Let’s just say that I could get to blockbuster with my eyes closed if I wanted to).

We came home on Tuesday June 3rd and immediately started remodeling our condo, and have been working on it non stop ever since. We have new carpet in the living room, hallways, guest bedroom and master bedroom; new tile in the kitchen and bathrooms; and new wood floors (that my wonderful father put in) in our office. We have all new furniture (mostly from ikea and target), and all new light fixtures/fans.

All together it is looking really nice in here, but I seriously cannot wait until it is done. Brandon and I both HATE unfinished projects, so it is killing us not being able to have everything done.

We have taken a few breaks from the remodeling to go to my cousin’s wedding in California and to blow up fireworks for the Fourth of July. Both of which were quite exciting.

I think that is about all the new news I have. Hopefully I will be able to blog more regularly now that the house is almost done. -The End.

Well, today was my college graduation. I received my Bachelors Degree….but for some reason I don’t feel like I accomplished anything. It could be the fact that I am getting married in two weeks and am distracted by that, or the fact that I know I didn’t try as hard as I could to get straight “A”s….either way I am not very proud of myself.

Sitting in the crowd, next to hundreds of other students getting the same degree as me, kinda made me feel a little less special. I think I like to be unique… that is what drove me to be things like a phlebotomist and a personal trainer. So for me to know that there are so many other 23 year olds with my education or more is rather depressing.

I have been thinking more and more these past couple of weeks about going to grad school, but I think it really hit me today. I KNOW I can get my masters…. I just might take a little longer than some people but I think it is a goal in which I need to achieve.

I guess the lesson I have learned lately is to keep going. If I know I can do something…why not do it? What could be the worse thing to happen?… Will grad school completely take me over? If so at least I can say that I have tried it. But just sitting around, wondering if I could ever become a grad student, is something I would never be proud of myself for.

So, I intend to jump in with two feet. I want to make my parents proud, make Brandon proud, and most of all do it for myself, and hopefully I will finally be proud of my accomplishment.

Ok, so we have TONS of pictures from this trip, but unfortunately, I am not “blog savvy” yet, so you will have to wait for the pictures….which I promise, will make these stories a LOT more funny. So here it goes:

So, a few weeks ago Brandon and I decided to head out to Arizona for his MTC companions wedding. Apparently traveling to unfamiliar places stimulates the brain…so we were excited to get stimulated. So on February 15th at around 2pm, we headed off to Arizona.

On the way to Arizona we saw some disturbing billboards. There were a couple of billboards explaining that “Meth Kills” and “Stove tops are not for Babies”. Apparently Arizona has a problem with Meth addicts and parents who stick their children on stove tops for punishment. What a nice start to our trip.

So when we were driving to the place where we were staying, we called up Karma (the woman taking us in for the weekend) and asked her how much longer it would take to get to her house…she said about 15 min. So we kept driving…and driving…and driving…until we were in a place completely pitch black and we had been driving for 25 min. We called Karma back and realized we missed the “short cut” and we wouldn’t be there for another hour. Man, that was a LONG drive.

We finally reached our destination and there waiting for us was pizza. We realized that we weren’t that tired so we drove to the movie store to rent a movie.We decided on The Manchurian Candidate and The Lady in the Water. When we got back to the house we watched the Manchurian Candidate and ate popcorn. After the movie we decided to get some rest for the following day.

A little point that I forgot to mention is Karma’s daughter has 2 kittens….FROM HELL! They are the most craziest cats I have ever known. Well, late at night whilst I was sleeping, I heard my door pop open but no one came in. I was wondering what the heck it was, so I stepped off the bed and “REEEER!” I step on a kitten! That freaked me out, but I grabbed Tiger and threw him out. I then closed my door again and hopped back into bed. Not a minute later I heard a noise from under the bed. I got extremely frightened (I am afraid of things…many things….too many things) and turned on the light and looked under the bed. Sure enough there was Tink, under the bed looking like she wanted to rip my eyeballs out. I took her and threw her out..then I closed my door and place my bag in front just in case they tried to break in again.

Now it is the next morning. We wake up, get ready and look up places to go in Phoenix. Apparently the “Heard Museum” is a wonderful attraction, so we decided to go there before the wedding. As we drove over the the museum, we noticed some statues outside of it….Native American statues. Brandon then said “Man, that would really suck if it were all Native American art”. And what do you know, it was. So, before even walking in, we decided that we didn’t care about that and decided to leave.

So we decided to go to a contemporary art museum that we saw on the way over. That was swell, and we took some pictures…not of everything though because we “weren’t allowed to take pictures of partially owed art work” - said the creepy lady walking around telling people to stop doing whatever it is they are doing. We started to get hungry and left.

We made our way over to the Mesa temple where I dropped Brandon off for the wedding. Although the Dairy Queen across the street was calling my name, I decided to ignore it and go to the visitors’ center. Inside I met some lovely sisters and saw some beautiful paintings. When I was done I decided to go back into the car, and there I fell asleep. Brandon then returned about an hour later and made fun of me because I was a bit confused after I woke up (ya know, all groggy and what not). Anywho, after that we drove to old town Scottsdale aka: “if you love southwestern art and Indians, this is your place to go”. Needless to say, we got bored really fast, so we headed over to the reception.

We got to the house where the reception was and said hi to his MTC companion and wifey. We then made our way to the food table and got some Mo-Mo food. Brandon thought that the yellow sauce for Hawaiian Haystacks was mustard….how embarrassing. So we commandeered a table and began eating. Brandon noticed that some J-Pop was playing and got all excited. Whoo-hoo. Well, let me remind you something it is February…..and this reception is outside….and I am in a dress. IT WAS FREEZING! After drinking some amazing punch, we started to entertain ourselves to keep us warm. Those pictures are quite hilarious. So, we decided to leave since it was freezing, we didn’t know anyone and we wanted some Cold Stone. So, we said goodbye to the newlyweds and headed to the nearest Cold Stone. Apparently Google maps likes to tell us that businesses are in neighborhoods. So after a slight detour, we made it. We got our ice cream and headed out the door when “WHOOOOOSHHHHHH” A HUMUNGOUS fan turned on and scared the crap outta me! (I ran to the car). Brandon was following behind laughing his head off.

Whilst eating the ice cream, we took a drive around AZ (Which Brandon was super excited about…) and then we made it back to the house. We met Karma’s granddaughters (so cute) and watched Lady in the Water. I liked the movie, and Brandon thought is was ok. After that we played with the kittens for a little while and then went to bed.

We woke up Sunday morning and got ready for the drive back home. I can’t remember anything funny about the drive…it just took forever and there was a bunch of Dam traffic. Oh and the fact that we got pulled over for…get this….driving TOO SLOW! haha! Brandon and I thought the speed limit was 55 and there was a cop following the car behind us so we decided to cruise at 55. Once there was finally another lane, the cop got behind us and pulled us over. Apparently we were driving 10 mph under the speed limit and slowing down traffic. Thanks to my perfect record, we got off the hook and he let us go. Man, that was embarrassing.

So we finally made it home, without tickets and without an accident. It was a fun trip and here is a recap on what we learned in Arizona:

1. Meth kills most of their population

2. Arizonians like to put thier children on stoves

3. They are obsessed with Indians

4. They are obsessed with Southwestern themed everything

5. It is cold in February

6. Their Cold Stones like to scare the EFF outta people when leaving

7. The signs on the road don’t really mean what they say.

Despite all of this, we will go back someday. It was a fun trip and I am excited to upload the pictures. Thanks for wasting ten minutes of your time!!

So my wonderful fiance made a website for me. I am not sure what I am doing yet, but I am sure it will come.

Thanks for stopping by, stay classy Las Vegas.