School is starting this week

Well for me at least, Allison has already been taking classes for the past couple weeks now. I am excited, but still trying to figure out my classes while trying to get a full time job so that we can have health insurance. It is a very tricky time when it come to planning but, we are getting though it and having fun trying to make different plans.  I like plans and trying to figure stuff like this out.

We also had a little visitor this past week, here is a little picture I drew of him

We haven't seen him in the past few days or seen any real signs of him, so there is the chance that he is a vagabond and was just passing through.

Also of note I got Allison's birthday present a little early, I also told her about it.  We will be going to a Josh Groben concert in October, she is pretty excited.

Digital Woes or: How I learned to stop worrying and embrace first world problems

This is a semi conclusion to last weeks post from Allison.

This has been one of those weeks that as it is happening you feel frustrated, confused and all-together lost.... AS IT IS HAPPENING.... after the fact, it becomes ridiculous and silly and almost un-eventful.

Allison and I both had cell phone issues recently.  She mentioned her's last week and her new one came in sooner than expected, which rightfully distracted her from her papers for awhile. But she ultimately finished her papers and felt good about how they turned out.  She loves her freedom for the next couple of weeks but wasn't exactly knowing what to do with all her extra free time that suddenly appeared.  Luckily, being a librarian, she found books to read. Her phone on the other hand caused her to buy her first ever app so that she could easily transfer over data and such from her old phone.  Not having the soft keys respond to touch was causing her much misery. Everything in the end worked out fine, and she is happier now with her new phone.

We had a few good days with no real troubles, but then my phone had some issues on Sunday, the screen went pixelated and couldn't work properly.  Now, I enter into the land of the troubled phone.  I had to get a replacement phone and lost all my texts and a few other things, but it is kinda nice and refreshing to have a clean phone that runs smoother and has a battery that lasts longer. It is funny how much we rely on modern technology.  There are so many things that 5 years ago we didn't have to worry about and now for a fair number of us, say 55%, have a smartphone and somewhere around 87% of us have a cell phone in general.  These numbers keep growing and so does our dependence on technology.

Don't get me wrong, I love where we are heading in terms of technology and the future looks bright. If I was better at math I would have stayed an engineer instead of focusing on art, I still dabble in technology and making things though.  I just can't wait until we get hover boards and holograms. Simpler days weren't that long ago. Back when I had to worry about weather or not my mom made corn for dinner or if I was going to be able to earn enough money painting fences to buy a new video game and a new bunch of comic books. Ah, the good old days when I used to record tv shows with my vhs player... now we have the internet and channels broadcast their shows and save them online, and I have a job where I get regular money every two weeks, and a phone that is faster and more reliable than my computer was when I was in high school.

Last Saturday our car randomly shut off at a stop light on the way home.  It has never done that before, We had to push it into a parking lot and then called Allison's dad.  While talking to him we tried turning it back on and it did start up.  It hasn't done it again and we are hoping that it won't again.

Ah Technology

This past week was an interesting one. We got some new upstairs neighbors and they were able to get the internet figured out and back up and running on Monday. So we were without internet for about a week. Thankfully we had our smartphones which we were able to use instead.

Sort of.

My phone has decided it hates me (not really). For the past couple weeks I’d noticed it doing some weird things. For example, it would take screen shots in the middle of the night, I would wake up and see that it was searching for people, and this morning it turned my alarm off a split second after it started ringing, as it was flipping through different app panels. It’s possessed. Not cool. Thankfully it’s still under the one year warranty (barely) so I’ve got a new phone that should be shipped out today and arrive sometime around Friday.

Aside from being possessed, the phone isn’t dead, definitely still usable; the soft keys have just become really unresponsive, which makes navigating through my phone really difficult and aggravating. Oh well, I can survive a few more days.

On Friday we went to a coworker’s house and had dinner and played board games. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed getting to chat outside of work.

On Saturday after work we got together with our new upstairs neighbors and had dinner and played games also. It’s really nice having great neighbors, and they definitely fit the bill. They seem like really fun people to just hang out with, so there will probably be more of that in the future.

That’s all the news for this past week. Ezra’s started his spring class and this is the last week I have class until June. I’ve got two major papers to write, but I’ve got 100% in one class and 97-98% in the other class, so I’m not too worried. I just have to do it.

Later!

Easter

This past week has kept us busy.

School and work were as usual, Allison and I both continued to get good grades on our class assignments.  I also am still pressing forward on my portfolio to apply to the Nickelodeon Artist Program that is due the 15th of April.  2 weeks, I can do it.

Thursday we also had a bit of a scare with a visitor to our office.  A Scutigera coleoptrata, a house centipede. It is this freaky 30 legged spider-mutant.  obviously not a spider, but before we knew what it was it was just creepy. I intentionally kept this picture smaller in case you get freaked out, if you are intrigued, you may search for it on your own.

Friday we went and donated blood, Allison was very happy that her iron was high enough to donate this time. 

Saturday night after work we watched the Doctor Who premiere at a friends house. It looks like these episodes will be a nice finish to the season and a great build-up to the 50th anniversary.

We had Easter yesterday on Sunday at my moms house and were able to visit with a few of my family members there.  Afterwards we went to the park and tossed bread to the ducks.  we also found out that it is entertaining to throw a whole roll out to the seagulls and they all flock to it.

Thanksgiving and a new home

This week, as opposed to others as of late has been rather eventful.  We found out that one of the other apartments in out building has black mold and a mushroom growing off of the wall... yes a MUSHROOM!!  needles to say, we want to move.  We spent a few days looking for a new place and finally found one.  We call it our greatest Black Friday deal.  2 bedrooms, washer and dryer, covered parking, a landlord that has chickens which means we get eggs, she also owns a horse, oh and it comes with a microwave... Allison is happy.  the only downside is the distance, but I think I'm going to love being able to ride my bike more and more often.  I just need to fix it up a bit.  Oh and did we mention 2 (two) bedrooms?

We were also able to spend Thanksgiving with my sister and her family up in Salt Lake. It was great, but my nephew was sick , and now Allison isn't feeling great at all. I am okay-ish. We didn't really get much shopping in, but maybe we'll try our hand at Cyber Monday this year.

Waterless

Ezra and I walked home from work yesterday to find our local apartment manager at the house trying to call us. Apparently there has been a leak (we could always hear water running through the pipes in our walls but I didn’t think much of it) somewhere below the house and it’s gotten to the point where water was seeping up through the concrete. They checked our apartment to make sure it wasn’t coming from us, and then went downstairs to investigate further.

We went grocery shopping, came home and put everything away, then found out that they had broken through the floor downstairs and water was spouting up. They were going to turn the water off, work on it tonight, then come back and continue in the morning. What did that mean for us? We would have no water from when they turned it off last night to an undetermined time today. The manager apologized and then suggested we fill anything we could with water. Which we did. Mixing bowls, pitchers, the bathtub, etc.

Some of our bowls of water.

What else did we do? What any 21st century social networked couple does! We put out a plea on Facebook to see if any friends would let us crash for the evening. A few minutes after the plea was posted I got a phone call and invitation from some good friends, the Despains. Ezra and I went over there and stayed the night. We showered, did everything we could that required water and then came home this morning. We got home at about 9:20 and they were hard at work (I hope), but still no water. Ezra forgot to take his razor and looks pretty scraggly so we decided not to go to church. We ended up watching some sessions from General Conference that we missed when we were working.

That truck and trailer have been a constant fixture outside our house as they continue to work.

The water has been off and on for the last few hours as they continue to work. I’ve managed to get all our dishes washed when it’s on, and we rush to use the bathroom and refill any empty bowls of water when we have the chance.

You’d think (and we did) that we could just put buckets of water from the bathtub into the toilet so that we could use it when we needed, but when we tested that last night it didn’t work. We have an old ghetto toilet, so we just rush when the water is on.

Hopefully everything will get fixed tonight so that we can stay home rather than bum off of friends again, not that we don’t appreciate our friends’ hospitality, we just really like our own bed. So we’ll see what happens.

UPDATE: We found out they'll turn our water off again tonight at 11pm, and turn it on again at 5am. Still more to do, but we're almost in the clear! Woohoo!

New Refrigerator!!

 It's here!!! The new refrigerator! I totally should have taken a picture of the old one, then before and after photos of that back corner it was in. SO GROSS! I vacuumed, dusted, mopped and wiped down everything in that back corner so that it was clean for the new appliance. I've very happy with how it turned out. :-)

Had to decorate it with all our magnets. I finally got out all of my magnetic poetry.

Ezra has been dying for me to make these gingerbread cookies. Today I finally did. :-)

Welcome!

The most astonishing words came out of Ezra’s mouth the other day.

 “I want to start a blog,” he said.

“About what?” I asked.

“Us,” he said.

Confession: I love stalking my married friends and reading their blogs. For a while I’ve toyed with the idea of making our own, but I didn’t want to be at it alone. Now that I’ve got the Mr. on board (and he thinks it’s his idea!), I think we’re ready to start.

The Mr. (Ezra): From Washington. Studying art at BYU. Served a two year, full time LDS mission in Indonesia. Works 40 hours a week between the PCL (Provo City Library) and the HBLL (Harold B Lee Library). Enjoys drawing, rock climbing, and building things.

The Mrs. (Allison): From Oregon. Graduated from BYU with a BA in English. Studied abroad in England for a summer term. Works +30 hours a week at the PCL. Enjoys reading, writing, and doing wifey things (though I’ve discovered I’m a terrible housekeeper… working on that).

As a couple:

*Nerf gun wars and sword fights. I hope our neighbors don’t hate us.

*We love Doctor Who, so much in fact that the TARDIS was the top of our cake at our Washington reception.

The TARDIS, bike tire, book

wedding cake, designed by Darby Harris!

*We’re okay with sitting, staring at each other and making faces.

*We love our little home here but it has a lot of quirks, such as the refrigerator that we’re defrosting again (3^rd time) tonight, the bathroom that has no ventilation, the front door that sticks, and the humidity that likes to migrate to the bedroom and warp the books in there.

*We talk to and play with our stuffed animals as though they were our children.

*The Mr. is a furnace and the Mrs. is a block of ice. Together we’re a normal temperature.

*We love rain and miss the wet and green northwest.

Stay tuned!