An End to a Beginning

As most of you know already my last semester of college started Monday. I still don’t have my schedule memorized yet, might take me a bit. And I have no clue what each class is called. People ask me all the time and I just look at them. If I have to be there what’s the point in memorizing their name? Haha.

Anyway, let me get my cheat sheet.

Monday: Personal Finance @ 6:00-8:45PM

Tuesday: Information Technology GIS @ 9:00-11:30AM and Programming for GIS @ 5:00-8:00PM

Wednesday: NO CLASS YAY!

Thursday: Geotechnology Seminar @ 10:15-11:45AM and Science in American Society @ 7:00-9:00PM

Friday: NO CLASS AGAIN WOOT!

Now my work schedule x_x cause we all know how much I love being there.

Monday: 9AM-5:30PM

Tuesday: 12PM-4:30PM

Wednesday: 9AM-6PM

Thursday: 12PM-6PM

Friday: 9AM-6PM

Lets see how fast we can burn Ashley out! I don’t think this semester will be all that bad. I am a minority in my classes being one of the only undergrads, so I get away without having to do any projects. The biggest thing I have to do so far is write one 10-15 page paper on a possible thesis. And I have all semester to just focus on that so no worries. We haven’t started the actual classes yet, so we will see how things go next week.

How durable are your pants?

Ok so I have a funny story from work today. I am going through the old filing cabinets in the back putting really old files in boxes to go into storage downstairs till the bosses decide what to do with them. I picked a rather large box so when it was full of papers it weighed around 100lbs. Really heavy. I was picturing myself pushing it down the stairs trying to see how I could do it alone (since NONE of the guys down there were willing to help) when in walks Patrick.

Patrick is the new guy, he just turned 18, is still trying to get on our good side, and very willing to help me carry this box downstairs.

He puts his things down and lifts the box and carries it all by himself. I watched him walk away, very grateful for his help. About five minutes after he left I began to wonder if he forgot he got water and left it upstairs. I look around for him and don't see any sign that he was going to return, so I go back to cleaning up thinking that I will carry that down for him when I am done when I hear all this laughing upfront. I wander up there only to find Patrick in the center of it.

He pointed a finger at me and said with a smile 'I am not going to carry any boxes for you.'

I asked him if he made it alright. He replied 'I did ... but my pants didn't' and turned around. His whole bum was covered in scotch tape. The poor kid ripped the seat out of his pants. He said he went to put the box on a table down there but the table was breaking so he had to catch the box and split his pants in the process. Lol. He was laughing so hard when he went back downstairs.

I felt bad but couldn't help laughing as well. Good times at work.

Working Girl

There isn’t a whole lot to my days anymore. I feel bad for not blogging a lot but … well I’m just me … and I don’t think I do a whole lot of funny things. So you get this post. Ha. Suffer. >_<


Over the past week or so I have slowly taken over my mom’s job. With her broken arm I was kinda thrown into it last Monday, but that is ok, I knew enough to get through the day. Between the three of us at work I think we can equal one mom. ^_^


(mom’s awesomeness = Me, Randy, and Alex … epic failure … sad it takes three people to make up for her)


But I am only there till January, and then the new girl will take over. I think it is going to be a circus, at least I have the awesomeness genes in me, with me gone there will be nothing. But no worries to me, I don’t feel obligated to keep them afloat. I am kinda amused. We will see how it plays out.


Anyway, my day plays out kinda like this:


9:00AM – walk through the door and open shop (yes I like to cut it close, I live on the wildside … haha and the clock in machine is 3 minutes off so the bosses think I am early ::sneaky:: ) and starting here I am on phone duty because no one else believes in talking to customers – dorks.


9:00-10:00AM – check webpages and email (my favorite pages and my billion emails one of which is work related)


10:00-11:00AM – the mailman comes in at some point in this hour block so I just goof on the internet till he shows up.


11:00-12:00PM – do payments and billing


12:00-1:00PM – cover for people running around for lunch (I bring lunch so I can work through it … yay more money!)


1:00-3:00PM – a mix of three things, depends on what is going on. A)RMA’s (I struggle to understand the many accents out there … I might get better at this, can’t promise anything though) B) Shipping, or C)Inventory stuff, such as accepting packages, or making sure I have things on the order list. Off and on I check my webpages to see if they updated … you never know when someone might post artwork at deviantart


3:00-5:00PM – Chatting with Randy (arguing about how he never works is more like it :p) checking machines in, and talking to Alex about software problems we can solve


5:00-6:00PM – this hour is spent lounging. Everyone in the office gets together in our little are and talks about how we never get any work done an hour before close because we just want to go home. You know how it goes. But the whole time I am still answering phones. Bleh.


6:00-6:30PM – I am technically off work but I have to drop the mail at the post office so we can get some money.


And that is my day in a nutshell. Pretty boring isn’t it? Ah … oh well. I am sure I will have more to write about when I am in school. We have 13 days left. Mom and I have mixed views of school. She is excited and I am the complete opposite. But then again I have been going since I was 5. Things will be different when I am done.


Well … I am off. Enjoy reading.

Pictures!

I planned on posting pictures in the last blog but it got really long so you guys get another update from me today. Yay!
Ok here at the opening night party pictures (I picked out the ones I liked best)

See hospital Bella's bum? I laughed when I saw her. Interesting costume.

Here is the crowd inside. Really crowded, but lots of fun!

And the outside crowd. We were kicked out at 11:00PM so they can clean and set up the stands. Look how good they were to listen to instructions "Stay out of the street!" That poor mall cop. He drove up and down yelling at them but they really didn't care. We were sitting on a grassy hill here so we weren't in the way. Look at all the prom dresses.

And we had a surprise visit from Jacob. ^_^ everyone called that kid Emmett, and surprisingly he looked just like I imagined Emmett to look. He ran around attacking people in his werewolf mask (we weren't attacked :p).

It was a fun night. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I should have taken some of my prizes but emergencies call and I wasn't able to get around to it. Sorry guys. You will just have to visit to see it ^_^.

Braving the Crowds

Where were all of you on August 2^nd at midnight? I was standing in a horrifically long line feeling so very old. Breaking Dawn, the ending to an epic series was released, so me, and about 600 screaming girls gathered outside Barns and Noble waiting.

But that isn’t where the story begins. Oh no. It all started when I was at work … around 4 I think.

4:00PM - Work

I was sitting at my desk folding and stuffing envelopes when my friend pops up on the instant messenger. Seeing as that is more fun I dropped what I was doing and began chatting about how excited I was to read the book, and my thoughts on what was going to happen (funny the silly things we thought about were actually true …) when she asked where we were going to get the book. I stated smugly I already ordered it so I didn’t need to join the big crowds, but wait safely in my house for its arrival. She said she hadn’t bought one yet and needed to get one. From there we decided to go to a Borders bookstore and see what was going on.

7:00PM – Home

I got home around 6:00, installed a few programs on my machine and waited for my friend to show up. Our plan was to run to our Borders store and see what was going on there. The run to Walmart and see what they had in store for the night.

In Borders we were too chicken to ask directly what was happening, so we snuck around the store reading various books trying to catch snid-bits of conversation. I should have been a detective I was so sneaky (flips book the right way) sneaky sneak.

We formulated a plan in the children’s section, Holly was going to buy a book and ‘notice’ the midnight release party and ask what is going on. I was supposed to be part of it too but I chickened out. I had over heard that they were going to show the trailer over and over and at midnight the coolest costume won a signed copy of The Host, and the person drawn from the raffle won the banner in their entrance way.

Boring.

So we left for Walmart.

Walmart there wasn’t much going on. The workers didn’t even know there was a party that night. They had to ask their manager (I didn’t mind asking there, I am brave in Walmart), and the manager said they had about 600 copies and were going to start selling them then.

Boring.

So we left for Barns and Noble. In the other city.

9:00PM - Barns and Noble

The mall was full of prom dressed girls and skittish boys (they read too I guess). We got pretzel bites and waited for the fun to begin.

9:30PM - Midnight Release Party

There was a red carpet leading into the store, body guards at the doors dressed in black suits and purple ties, and there was a full camera crew interviewing a group of girls dressed in their I LOVE JACOB shirts. After getting stickers and a wristband we headed inside. There were booths for nail decorating, face paint, and trivia. We skipped the first two and stood in the trivia line. It took about thirty minutes. I stuffed my hand in the box, pulled out a little paper that read ‘Eclipse 2’ and they asked me a question from that chapter.

“Which school did Edward make Bella sign up for even though she didn’t want to?”

Easy beans … Dartmouth .

So I won more stickers, a tattoo, and a button that read “I was bitten by Breaking Dawn”. We wandered around the store for a while before our second friend showed. We forced her through the trivia line and then started hunting for the vampire teeth we were seeing around.

11:00PM - Parking Lot

They kicked everyone out. I guess they wanted a clean store when they started the lines. There were about 600 of us. Holly had wristband D17 and Amanda has wristband F78. We sat on a grassy hill and waited till midnight.

12:00AM - Outside Barns and Noble Waiting

They got through each group in about 10 minutes, so by 12:30 we were out of there racing back home to catch the Borders party to see if we could get free there but they were out. Oh well.

My Prizes for the Night:

3 Sheets of Stickers

2 Vampire Teeth

1 Tattoo

1 Button

And 2 Bookmarks.

Vacation!

Ok, so the past couple days I took a short trip to Utah to get away from the stresses of life. It is nice to take a break from the hum drum of grownup life. This summer has been way too fast for my liking, but that is how it goes when it is your last taste of freedom. Tuesday morning, bright and early we took off for Lagoon. We being Amanda, Holly, and me.

Like all vacations we planned on leaving at 7:00AM (I planned on 7:30 knowing how I work haha) and we weren’t on the road till 7:45. But all was good because Lagoon didn’t officially open till 11. We drove partway and stopped at Denny’s for breakfast (a restaurant full of old people, but 100 times better than ours let me tell you). Twenty girls camps songs later we pulled into Farmington and made all the right turns to the park. The parking lot was empty for Lagoon standards so we had a promising day ahead of us. It was supposed to be in the low 90s too which is bonus. We sunscreened up, 70+ spf yay! And waited for Malissa to show up. It wasn’t long before we were in the park starting rides. We rode everything at least once (no rollercoasters for me, too scary O.o), played a few rounds of DDR (early in the afternoon because you can get sweaty gross playing that game … trust me), some relaxing stops for snacks and drinks, and off again chasing kids around. We had the perfect amount of adults and kids that no one had to be left out. My favorite ride this year was the OdySea. It is similar to the Dumbo ride in Disneyland where you can control if you go up or down but here they warn you that if you don’t go up you will get splashed. So we did the opposite we dove then it told us to go up and rose when it told us to go down. We got soaked it was blast on more ways than one. The dolphins on the side would spray water in your face, or the whale will sprinkle you in a gentle mist. Wonderful for the hot weather.

(These are pictures from the Lagoon website to show what it looks like. Malissa has all the pictures ^_^)

I got ice-cream, pretzels and cheese, soda, soda, and more soda. I bought a mug this year for $12 and was able to refill it all over the park for free. Good deal. The kids loved the mug. I filled it six times. We partied hard, with one casualty (Amanda got a little sun stroke), and left around 10PM. Right before they closed there was some light sprinkling, a blessing for me I LOVE the rain. We said out goodbyes and headed to the hotel. After a long night we were bright eyed and bushytailed and headed to Salt Lake City for some shopping. We hit The Gateway shopping district, I came out with only 2 books from Barns and Noble, good me and my strict spending habits (or my lack of money haha). I bought I’d Tell You I Love, but Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter and Night World Vol. 1 by L.J. Smith.

On our way home we decided to stop and get gas in a little town. It was eerie there. No one was outside. Amanda was craving some ice cream and after I drove around a bit we found a mom and pop shop. I think they lived there and just made their living room a store front. O.o. We ordered double scoops in a bowl and all together the price was the same as one scoop at Lagoon. A pleasant surprise for sure. It was a lot of ice cream too. We headed home and made it there by 7PM.

It was a nice break. Sad it was over too fast, but we already have plans for it again next year. Something I can look forward to!

Pretend Mommy

My sister and her husband celebrated their wedding anniversary this week. Dinner, shopping, spending quality time together ... so what does this mean? Yup you guessed it, a babysitter! I was the lucky one to be chosen to spend time with their kids, who wouldn't love that? So around 5pm I clocked out at work and raced over to their house. And like most babysitting jobs, the parents didn't leave till close to 6pm (at least it was my sister and brother-in-law, I don't mind them being around :p).
There were tears shed at their parting, but nothing a 4 year nursery veteran can't handle. The second the car was out of sight the tears settled down and we got to eating. Pizza is a wonderful meal (or breadsticks if you're Emmy). We spent a good ten minutes working on filling our tummies before the games began. We raced around the house chasing each other (love the circle runway), stopped to dump out the kid's toy baskets, ran downstairs to catch the last part of Jungle Book II, went spider hunting in the computer room, and finally back upstairs for a short splash in the bath. Quickly after the bath we ate again (not in my ultimate plans but if they are hungry and the parents are away I say go for it). Once our tummies were full of pizza and apple juice we picked out our favorite stories, read them, said our nighttime prayers, and joined the other children in dreamland.

With all the fun we had there were some life lessons going on as well. I will list a few of the ones I picked up while there:
1. Pizza sauce can be spread all over your face (even up your nose O.o)
2. Chasing kids really doesn't tire them out
3. When a movie is on DO NOT get in a childs view (death to siblings that way)
4. When playing puppies it is considered rude to make your puppy walk down stairs
5. Ponies can never be clean enough, they always want to take baths
6. Buzz Lightyear can be a weapon (trust me)
7. Spiders make everyone shiver (except little boys who find it fun to poke them)
8. If it has a straw there will be fighting (even if there is only ice left)
9. Bath time is more fun if you get the person not intending to get wet, wet.
10. If what you are doing gets a gasp for a response do it again (i had wet hand prints all over me)
11. Catching freshly bathed kids is a slippery job
12. Trying to put diapers on them can result in a streaking chase
13. One story is NEVER enough (but its ok, I love princess stories ^_^)
14. Little boys require no convincing to go to bed (at least in my nephews case)
15. Little girls want to look at the stars all night (because her daddy put them there)

and finally

16. Kids are a blessing to everyone (but I suppose you already knew that :p)