Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 20-22

Getting behind again..gotta play catch-up...

Tuesday the 20th - Seems to be a theme this time of year for me...hard to not choose joy on a day like this. :) Spent a lot of the day with four of my nieces and nephews. Love spending time with them! Then ate some great food at the Christmas party for Gordonville Grocery. Oh that was so good! :)

Wednesday the 21st - I did a lot of little things around the house today, which actually I like being able to do. I love having my own house and property to maintain. Even though it is a lot of work, I can take pride in knowing that it is mine. We try to keep things clean and nice looking, and I think we're doing good, even though it's not always fun.

Thursday the 22nd - Ugh, this day was not so fun. First I went into town pretty early in the day. That wasn't so fun, but I kept a good attitude and it wasn't too bad. Made sure to go in the morning so it wouldn't be too busy. Then in the afternoon Ashley had a dentist appointment and we were watching Donna June. So I had to watch her in the lobby for a little over an hour. I was not looking forward to it really, because she can be a little difficult to contain for that long. But she did great! Time flew and I kept her entertained. Whew! Then at night, Mom and I got a little dusty. Okay, really dusty. Sanding texture off the walls of a bathroom so that we can paint it. The texture we applied was just too hard to make it look good, so we decided against it. Oh well. Anyways, I had the sander going, and Mom had the shop-vac going all the time to catch a lot of the dust. Still a lot that didn't make it into the vacuum, but I can't imagine what it would be like if the vacuum wasn't going. We came out of that bathroom covered in that crap. Had to take multiple breaks because it was so hot and hard to breath with the mask things on. But...it got done! :) Need to wash the walls and clean up other things in there. Then we can paint!!!

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 19

Hard to not choose joy on this day, just like the previous Friday. This day was a Monday and the first day that I would have normally worked, but didn't have to. I chose to celebrate by having friends over and doing absolutely no work. We played some video games, shot old cell phones with guns, and played a long game of Risk that ended with a victory by me! :) It was a good day.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 18

I don't even remember what happened this day! Oh, I remember one thing. :) The season premier of my favorite show ended on a cliff hanger! Hate it when that happens. And it is rare for this show to end on a cliff hanger, and this one was a big one. And now I have to wait until probably August for the new season. But I chose joy because now I can cancel Showtime and our Dish bill will be cheaper. :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 17

This day was the day of the last official wedding reception for First Choice Entertainment! And we still didn't want to do it. :) We even had an opportunity to back out of it, but we chose to stick with it. Then we even regretted sticking with it! I'm thinking it's a good thing we were getting out of it.

When the day came, I took a positive attitude towards it, pumping myself up for it. That helped a lot. It made the night go by fast, and everything went very smoothly. And the bride and groom were happy, but most importantly, the bride's parents were happy! (They were the paying customers.) :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 16

How could I not be joyous on this day? It is my last day of work until January 2nd, 2012! I am so thankful to work for CMU and get a full to weeks off of work and be paid for it.

I have lots of things planned for the break, mostly getting things done at the house. Hopefully those things won't take too long and I will have some time to relax and enjoy having a break. The best part is going to be spending more time with Ashley and actually be around during the day.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 15

Today I am being charged with joy by ignorance. Well, I'm not really sure what to call it, but I will use ignorance even though I don't think it's the right word. What I mean is that I am choosing to ignore a problem, therefore being joyful. :) Probably not a real solid decision.

My car needs some work done, basically at least two new tires and a couple other parts. It might not be the safest idea to ignore this problem, but I just don't have the money to pay for it right now. Hopefully it will be fine for a few weeks. Since I won't be driving my car much at all for like two weeks, I think I will be okay.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 12-14

Wow, I am really bad at this. Not only the writing regularly part, but the content of what I am writing about is tough. But let me list some situations in the past few days that really tested me.

First, I have had the privilege the past couple days of cleaning out the room that will be our nursery. :) It was all my old junk in there, most of which was brought over by my parents while we were in Jamaica. (Thanks Mom and Dad. :) ) I tried to be positive about it and throw a ton of stuff away, and I was successful. Almost two full big garbage bags were taken out. Two boxes of random things to sell at a garage sale, leaving me with a tub of memories things (like old pictures and keepsakes), and a box of things I want to keep but need to sort and put away. Not too shabby. Now we can seriously start thinking about decorating and getting things ready for our baby girl.

Next, I found out yesterday that an exam I took 10 days ago for my online class never got submitted. I know I did it, and I know I completed it on time, but there is no record of me even attempting it. It took a lot for me to not get really upset, but there is still a chance that it can be fixed. I have been in contact with my professor and IT people at the University, and they both seem to believe me, but there has been nothing decide yet as to how to handle it. I don't care if I have to retake the exam, as long as I can do so without penalty. I have a B+ in the class right now, and even if I got a 10 of 15 on the exam (which would be really bad), I would get an A. getting an A in that class would mean I will have earned a 4.0 for my first semester as a graduate student. So of course, I am really hoping that this can be resolved.

Lastly, my back has been pretty solid lately. Not too sore the past few days. Went to the chiropractor today for the last time of the year, and he hurt my back. Trying to trust that he knew what he was doing. Maybe he put it in place so the muscles are just sore now trying to adjust the position change. Time will tell. Worse case scenario, I go back. The only reason I don't plan on going back until January is that CMU will be closed for two weeks and I probably won't come to Mount Pleasant very often, if at all.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 8-11

Man, this is harder than I thought. Hard to think of something to write everyday, and hard to remember to write everyday! I don't think I can go day by day and make up the past few days, so I will roll them all into one.

The Fall Semester has come to a close, the first semester for me taking graduate level courses. Honestly, I don't really see a big difference between graduate and undergraduate level. Not yet at least. I guess the classes are shorter, which is nice. :) Finishing up two online classes this past week was difficult. I had two projects that I basically waited until the last minute to do. I tried to not let it stress me out too bad. And I knew I still needed my sleep. I'm a big believer that sleep is more important than staying up too long to study or do homework or whatever. The quality of work would be awful if I was to stay up all night.

So anyways, I got the projects done, trying to keep a positive attitude throughout the process, which was difficult because I wasn't very confident in what I doing. But I checked my grades this weekend, and I got a perfect score on both of them! I couldn't believe it! But of course, I was thrilled and I'm not asking any questions about it. :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 7

I chose joy today by having a positive attitude about a meeting that I didn't particularly want to go to at work. It's a meeting for a group of people from various departments around campus that use the Imaging system we have at CMU. It's a system that our office has had for a long time and many other offices are just now finally coming on board. Long story short...Kristin and I go to these meetings basically for no reason. Every other office talks about their problems, and I.T. just says, "Yup, we'll work on that." Waste of an hour.

Believe me, I didn't want to go, but I had a positive attitude about it anyways, because I knew I should go, because maybe one day the meeting will benefit our office a little bit.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 6

Today was the big shopping day for Ashley and I. We went to Great Lakes Crossing Mall in Auburn Hills. We decided to go there, because Ashley wanted to go to Joe's Crab Shack for her birthday dinner.

So we had our lists, and went at it!...but not so fast. We got there between 12 and 12:30, so we had to eat lunch first. Then Ashley did some shopping with birthday money she received. And we went to a couple other stores. I think it was about 3 by the time we bought our first Christmas present! :) And we already had a locker to hold everything we bought! But then we got right into it and crossed people off our list one-by-one.

But anyways, I chose joy this day instead of complaining about my back being in pain, and my feet hurting, and whatever else was wrong that I normally complain about when shopping. I just enjoyed the day with Ashley, away from work, away from school. I may have mentioned my back hurting and things like that, but I never whined. Did I do okay, Ashley? :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 5

Today we can finally start burning wood in the wood stove that has been in the works for a couple months now. Comes at a good time too. The propane tank was getting kind of low, and we just can't afford to get that thing filled right now. So from here on out it is goi to take a lot more work to keep the house warm (hhhoootttt), but I will try to choose joy when walking into the freezing cold weather to load up the stove.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 4

Not one specific moment stuck out this day, just the day in general...

Sunday was a good day. :) Sunday morning didn't start off good though. Not sure what was wrong but I didn't sleep good at all. Usually I am fine with getting up at 8:30, since every weekday is 6:20. But I just did not want to get out of bed. Then after church I was told by a certain someone that all I was doing was complaining today. :) So the rest of the day I tried to make a conscious effort to be happy and stop complaining. I think I did okay. :)

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 3

Today was a rough day due to a funeral. The joy comes in when you realize where he is right now. Sad to see Harold pass from this world, but awesome to know that he is enjoying Heaven.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 2

My job is boring, sometimes lonely, and doesn't pay very well. But I find joy when getting to spend some alone time listening to whatever I want for 8 hours. (Today is TSO.) I get to spend time on the computer getting homework done for my classes that are ending in one week. I also find joy in the fact that even though I don't get paid much, I have great benefits with this job, like free tuition, paid time off, and great health insurance that makes it so that Ashley and I don't have to pay a dime for any doctors visits, or anything else that relates to our baby.

Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness: Day 1

Well, this first post is going to be a little different. I'm going to write about how I didn't choose joy among the Christmas craziness.

Tuesday of this week, I learned that a co-worker threw away three Rubbermaid containers that belonged to me, because they had been in the office fridge a little too long. She did not know to whom they belonged, and she did not ask, and she did not even set them outside of the fridge for a day to get the owner's attention. She just decided to pitch them. I know, I know, it would be extremely difficult and time consuming to send out an email asking people to clean their stuff out of the fridge, or specifically to the owner of the Rubbermaid containers to remind them to take them home. (very sarcastic)

Anyways, I was not happy at all and kept getting more upset about it because it was so dumb to throw those away. It wasn't stinking up the fridge, the fridge wasn't full, and most of all...don't throw stuff away that isn't yours to throw away! The guilty person came forward after I sent an email asking if there could be some better communication when cleaning the fridge.

This morning, before most people get to the office, she came back and brought me three new Rubbermaid containers. :) She said she felt bad and wanted to replace them. Now I am feeling bad for getting so angry about something so silly. I wasn't mean to anyone, to their face, but that can be worse.

So after thinking about little things that happen every day that can tick me off, I am going to make a big effort the next 25 days and choose joy instead. Hopefully that will create a habit or a pattern or whatever you want to call it.

25 days to Christmas

I decided to start something on my blog to get me writing more consistently. Might be following the idea of leading up to Thanksgiving and writing something everyday that you are thankful for. For now, I will just randomly come up with something to write about, until I maybe come up with a theme or format or something. :)

As I am writing this, I saw an idea on Facebook! :) "Choosing Joy Among the Christmas Craziness." It might just be a quick note of something that happens during the day that should upset me, but I want to make a conscious effort to choose joy. So that will start today...in my next post.

As for this post, Ashley and I found out that our precious child will be a baby girl! We were all very surprised to hear that since everyone was so sure it was going to be a boy. So I can't help looking, and sometimes buying, very cute little girl things. :) I didn't think I was going to be like that, but my new goal is to spoil my little girl, until she knows she is being spoiled. :)

Ultrasound

When we went in for the first ultrasound, everything looked great! Only one baby in there! :)

When we were all done, the ultrasound tech said, "So I'm not supposed to tell you guys this, but I think you're further along than what you thought."

Ashley was excited because it means she would be out of the first trimester sooner, and hopefully feeling better sooner. I was kind of bummed because I won't quite be done with classes by the new date, April 13th.

But we are both excited to meet our baby sooner than originally expected. :) November 22 we go in for the next ultrasound to tell what the gender is!

Expecting!

See, I said I would write again pretty soon! :) Maybe it's because I knew there was something to share, but we hadn't told the important people yet. :)


Ashley and I are expecting a baby! Maybe a little sooner than we had planned, but we are both very excited about it. The due date as of now is May 5th, 2012. More info to come as more info is known. :)

Recurring theme

I was informed that all my posts have a recurring theme lately, which goes something like this..."It's been so long since I've posted anything on here!" :) Oops. I shall continue that theme now.

A lot has happened since I wrote last. (But really, anyone who will read this knows exactly what has happened.) But I shall document it anyways! :) I won't go in chronological order. That's too tough to remember. I'll go by importance.

Ashely and I were married! Everything was very stressful soon before the wedding, but the day itself went great. It was perfect. Everything was picture perfect, especially my bride! We thoroughly enjoyed having our family and friends with us on our special day. For our honeymoon, we left early Monday morning for Montego Bay, Jamaica! It was beautiful there, and we had a ton of fun and had a very relaxing time. It was a great change of pace from our busy lives before the wedding. Only negative was that I decided to take my iPhone swimming with me once. :( It still hasn't turned on. I'm really hoping that it will fully dry out and I will be able to use it again.

Our house was finished! (Kind of.) We still have a lot of work to do on it, but it is livable. And we are enjoying living there. :) Once the carpet was installed and the furniture was delivered, it turned into a completely different place. It went from a construction site to a home in a matter a few hours. I love it. We love it.

I guess that pretty much does it. :) Our summer was full of preparing the house and planning the wedding. I'm sure I will update again in a little while. Definitely not a month, or two months. It will be quicker than that. Maybe. :)

Way too long

I am just awful at keeping blogs updated. It's not like it is super hard or anything. I guess I have been pretty busy lately though. :) Besides the normal day to day business of work and whatnot, the wedding is in about 7 weeks, we bought a house last month (finally), and life has just been crazy! Good, but crazy. I am soooooo excited for the wedding and even more excited for the honeymoon to Jamaica! It will be my first time out of the country (Canada doesn't count in my book). Lots of work and stress have resulted from the wedding planning and house repairing, but it will definitely all be worth it once its over.

No pop

I don't think I've tried this before, ever. I've thought about trying it, but always chickened out, or didn't think there was a point to it. I am going to give up drinking pop. At least for 40 days.

Normally, I don't really participate in the practice of giving something up for Lent, but this year I will give it a try. Our Sunday School class was talking about different types of fasting possibilities, one of which was a seasonal fast. Since it was good timing for Lent, we decided we would each give up something. We joked about it for a while, talking about giving up paying bills, or exercising, and drinking water. :) I stayed away from the idea of giving up pop, until I realized it's the one that kept coming into my head.

I think the hardest part will be breaking the habit. Every time I go to get something to drink, it's a pop. Just about every meal and every snack, I have a pop along with it, and one in between. After about a week of getting into the routine, I think I will be fine. I'm not really worried about headaches, because I am still drinking caffeine.

We'll see how it goes after Lent. Who knows, maybe I will decide to give it up all together.

Stress

The past couple weeks have been a very stressful time in my life. I have changed my mind on what I want to do with school, thought about starting a new small business venture, and hmmm....what else? Oh yeah, thought about my future house every waking moment! It's been crazy.

A lot of progress has been made though. But it seems like every time we can a few steps forward with the house, something major comes up and slows us right back down.

I'm quite sure now, even though I didn't think about it before, that all the stress has caught up with me and made me sick. Not a horrible sickness, just enough to be very annoying.

The school thing, and the possible business thing are hardly in my mind anymore, if at all. Hopefully all the "IF"s with the house will be gone shortly as well.

Job Application

I was pretty excited earlier this week when my co-worker told me about a position opening in CMU that I might be interested in. The position is in University Communications as the Assistant Director of Multimedia and Videography.

Wait...you mean I would actually be using my degree if I got this job? :) I would be dealing with video, audio, lighting, editing video, writing scripts with storyboards, producing podcasts, and other related things.

I really want to get this job!!! I re-did my resume, made a cover letter, and sent in work samples. I am not very confident that I will get the job, but I am hopeful. They prefer someone with a Master's, but it's not required. Another one of the qualifications was three years experience in the field.

Of course, another reason I want the job...money. :) My income would increase by about a third. And I would get more vacation time. I like my current job, but mostly because of the people and the lack of challenging work. But I would love a challenge in my job if it was dealing with video and writing scripts! I would be excited to go to work and be creative. I'm hoping that since I am a CMU employee, maybe that will get me an interview and I can sit down with them and explain that I really want this job and that I wouldn't let them down.

Simple Man

I am thinking that this song may be used for the mother/son dance at my wedding reception. What do you think Mom? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgFQ6WmxdMs&ob=av2nl

I'm open to suggestions. :)

And so it begins...again

Classes started again today. I am so ready to be done with school...but definitely not ready to start paying my student loans off. I am pretty scared about these classes because I don't really like advanced math anymore, and computer programming is beginning to confuse me. I am taking Discrete Mathematics, and another Computer Programming class that I think teaches JAVA.

So far, I like my math teacher, and he's not foreign so I can understand him. :) He has the sense of humor that I like, and he seems really nice and he is already applying the math logic to computer programming. He says that this class helped him a lot when he was learning programming, so that is encouraging.

What I am not going to like is that I can't take a lunch break this whole semester, because I take my break in order to go to class. Makes me want to take night classes...but that won't happen until I am actually taking the Graduate level classes.

My dream job

I went to a Detroit Pistons game a couple weeks ago and we had awesome seats. It was a lot of fun to be that close! There were 4 rows in front of us that were VIP and then we were in the front row of the section right behind that. There was a walkway right in front of us where a bunch of workers were constantly walking, mostly waiters and promotional workers to get the crowd pumped during timeouts and stuff.

The guy in the picture has my dream job! :) I'm not sure about the whole living near Detroit thing, but I love handling a camera and I love basketball, especially the Pistons. I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and say, "excuse me, would you like to trade spots for a little while?" :)

Maybe one day, in the distant future. But for now, I'm content with my data entry job. :)

iPhone

I can even post from my phone! Like 4 different ways! :) So those that know me well can guess that I am more likely to do something if I can do it with my phone. (What can't the iPhone do?) Which means I am probably going to post more often, which tends to be good for a blog. :)

I'm back!

So...I decided that while having my very own, custom, hand-crafted blog might be cool, it is SOOOOOO much easier to use this one. And I think if I just use this one, I am for more likely to actually post things. :) And I have been working on other blogs on here, creating one for Countryside Church and Teens Loving Christ, and I found that it is completely customizable as well! pretty cool, and again...SOOOOOO much easier!