no more coin-op!

So after about a month of living here and using the coin-operated laundry room in our complex, I was sick and tired of it. There are only two washers and dryers in our entire building, and one of the washers is STILL broken. But I had accepted this fate because we could not afford a washer and dryer...or so we thought.

I vented my frustrations to my dear husband, and he just randomly decided to go on craigslist to look at washers and dryers, basically to prove that we indeed could not afford any. I decided to get on too, and then I saw a listing for a washer and dryer being sold in Orem for $130. Stephan had not seen this--the ad had just barely been posted! Stephan did the math in his head, coming up with the cost of using the coin-op in our building and comparing it to the cost of the washer/dryer. Basically, we'll be saving about $100 with our lovely additions. They're used, yes, but we should get good use out of them. And our bills shouldn't be too bad--they already are not bad. That's the plus of living in a little one-bedroom apartment.

Let's just say that it is amazing having a washer and dryer all our own. No more do I have to lug laundry baskets down the hall. No more do I have to groan every time I see that "out of order" sign on the broken washer, although my heart goes out to the other residents who must pay to do laundry. I never thought I would love appliances so much.

In other news, I have gotten two job rejections so far. Kind of a bummer, yes. But Stephan keeps assuring me that we should be okay for a few more months at least, as long as we are careful. My mom is acting like I must have a job right this very second and should therefore apply to Wal-Mart or something for the time being. Uh, no, I refuse to work retail and Stephan will not let me besides. He worked retail before he left for his mission and hated it. Don't worry, Mom. Blame the government for making my job hunt more difficult. Of course, don't get me started on the government ;)

Stephan and I have callings now. We're in charge of the ward newsletter. The couple who worked on it last had the calling for FIVE years! Holy cow. I guess my editing skills are being put to use. Yay. Can I get paid for them yet?

We have also opened up our own checking account. I know, it's the "in" thing to have separate checking accounts, but I got tired of the whole "Who's paying?" deal whenever we went shopping and such. Plus, I know people who have separate checking accounts and they fight over money ALL THE TIME. I'd like to keep the arguing to a minimum, thank you. Just thought I'd mention that it was never our plan to have separate accounts, it's just that we hadn't gotten to the bank deal until last week. I wanted to change my name on my account (we mainly just added Stephan to my current account with the bank), but I had to have our marriage certificate for that. My mom is mailing that as we speak (we had it sent to my parents).

So, we have a washer/dryer. I'm still looking for a job. We have a calling. And we have a joint bank account. That's all for now!

Getting better

On Tuesday, we decided to celebrate our one-month anniversary by going out to dinner and catching a movie. We went to Chili's, where I had some ribs (mmm) and Stephan had a really good steak. We also had some lovely strawberry lemonade...mmmmmmm!!!! After dinner, we went to the dollar theater to see the movie "Up". Unfortunately, I started feeling ill in the middle of it and we had to go home because I was afraid I'd throw up. Stephan called his mom (she's a nurse) and she recommended some peppermint tea, and he went to the grocery store and got some. Thank goodness I like peppermint tea, and I started feeling better. It was a mild case of food poisoning, we think.

Today we just went to a ward cookout in the playground at our complex, and I think I'm finally making some friends here! Hurray!

I'm also cooking more often. On Monday, we were supposed to go to a Beatles reenactment concert at the SCERA with my in-laws, but then Stephan's brother and sister both had a ton of homework and then it started raining. Stephan was working until seven that night, but when he got home, I had prepared a lovely Japanese style dinner of chicken katsu, rice, and edamame. It was so good! My brother Scott let me have his panko crumbs, tonkatsu sauce, and Japanese rice when he moved out of his apartment. Stephan loved the dinner--he said it reminded him of the katsu he had on our third date. On Wednesday, deciding I needed to use up some leftovers, I made a chicken teriyaki stir-fry (with veggies) and served it with the leftover rice and edamame. Yummy.

September 15

Once again, I apologize for not updating.

So, we're basically done unpacking. There are a few boxes left, but they contain things like books, and we don't have a bookshelf just yet. We need to get Stephan's old bookshelf from his house sometime in the near future. Right now, I am focusing on keeping the apartment clean, figuring out how to cook and getting dinner on the table at a reasonable hour, and job hunting. I've applied to a few jobs so far--I hope I hear from them soon.

Today marks one month since we got married! So far, so good. We have our challenges, but we get through them. We still love each other--we both agree that we love each other more than we did a month ago. Who knew? We still haven't gotten ANY wedding pictures. No professional pictures, no pictures people just took around the wedding (although Alex did take some pictures of the cake), nothing except for the one picture my dad sent me that's my profile picture on facebook. No one has even tagged pictures on facebook. Errgh. Okay, I sound like I'm whining. Moving on.

Our ward is fine so far, although I've yet to make any friends. It's hard for me because I'm somewhat on the shy side, and we seem to have moved into a very transient ward. I've chatted with a few women in Relief Society. I'm a little lonely around here. I mean, it's like this place is dead. I almost never see anyone out and about. Do we live in a ghost complex? Ha ha. I do hope I make a few friends here soon. It's also hard when all your old friends live in Provo and go to school.

Life is good, I hope it continues to get better.

September 3

Things continue to go. I admit I haven't been the most productive in unpacking. But in my defense, I was doing a lot of household things like laundry and cleaning. In fact, I have a laundry story for you.

Our clothing supply was running low on Monday (running low on the clothes we had unpacked) and we had recently received a supply of towels as a wedding present that we needed to wash. The washing machines we have in the building were available, so I took advantage of this opportunity. I put the whites in one washer and the colors in the other (there are only two washing machines in the entire building). Both start without any difficulty, but the washer containing our whites suddenly stopped after it filled with water. Not good. I tried what I could to start the washer again to no avail. I decided not to give it anymore of my money because I felt it would be a waste. I was pretty ticked because basically my entire garment supply was in there! Stephan still had plenty of his own in the dresser, but I did not (being newly endowed and all). I left a note on the manager's door (she was out cleaning apartments), later finding out that I should have left it in her box. Whoops. As soon as the colors were done, I put them in the dryer and fished the whites out of the warm pool they had been soaking in and put them in the other washer. It took me hours to finish doing laundry because I was only using one washer at a time. I also used a lot of quarters.

It was a doubly hard day because I was all alone and Stephan started work that day, and I didn't see him until after seven. I had dinner mostly ready when he got home (my attempt at hamburgers, if you were wondering). I had forgotten hamburger buns, but Stephan bought some on his way home from work (he normally calls me when he gets off work, and I asked him to buy some buns).

So at the end of the day on Monday, I was quite exhausted and pretty crabby.

Other than that, this week hasn't been too bad. I'll do more unpacking today. I'm looking for new and exciting ways to motivate myself.

getting settled

Sorry for the lack of updates. We haven't had much in the way of internet access, but it looks like our neighbors with the open network are back.

We came back to Utah on Monday and didn't get into our apartment until late that night. We spent a good part of the day at Stephan's family's house--there was free food. We were very tired by the time we got back to the apartment, and I was annoyed because I had wanted to get back earlier to start unpacking. But we went to bed.

The next morning, I had to drive Stephan to UVU for a meeting for the math tutors. He was gone all day (sad). When I got back, I surveyed the apartment and decided that if I wanted to get anything done, I needed to go buy some garbage bags, garbage cans, and other various things. So, I drove to Wal-Mart, and probably nearly got into an accident. I am not a terribly experienced driver, especially by myself. I had only driven by myself once, when I was a senior in high school. My parents were far too overprotective when it came to driving opportunities for me. I'm still bitter about that. Anyway. I went to Wal-Mart, got what I needed, and came back and nearly got into another accident. Unprotected left turns are not my forte. After I got home, I started unpacking things. I didn't need to go pick Stephan up--he had his dad pick him up so he could go get his scooter from the house. After he got back, we got our many gift cards together and went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and Target to get stuff still on our registry.

I am not nearly done unpacking the apartment, much to my chagrin. Stephan went back to school on Wednesday, leaving me to continue unpacking. I made some progress. We also got new cell phones that evening too. Yay. Thursday, I went to UVU with Stephan. He was doing some kind of advertising for the math lab. It was part of "Welcome Week" apparently. I just hung around, read, listened to my iPod, etc. We were at UVU longer than expected because Stephan started doing some programming for his Computer Science class, and lost track of time. Mental note: I must distract Stephan from time to time when he does programming. He tends to lose track of time when he programs. Yeah, I married a nerd. After we finally came back, we washed dishes and put stuff away. I went to Enrichment for our new ward...and hardly anyone spoke to me. I hope our ward is friendlier than that.

Yesterday, Stephan went to class and came back as soon as he was done. We went to Lowe's to get some space savers and then we went to his family's house for a little while to give Alex the power cord for the cell phone and to pick up some more packages that came for us. We are opening the gifts at the in-laws house now--if I get anymore boxes in our apartment, I'll turn into a crazy lady.

Hopefully, we'll have the household up and running really soon. After we get settled, I'll start looking for a job. I'm actually glad I didn't get a job before now because I'd probably have to be committed. So, don't ask me about the job hunt for a while. And don't worry, we have enough money to get us by for now. And I'm confident that it won't take me forever to find a job--I'm out of school and my wedding festivities are long over.

Stephan's work schedule starts on Monday, and I'm not really looking forward to that. On Mondays, he doesn't get off work until seven. So I have to go eleven hours without seeing him. As if 8-2 wasn't enough. Oy. I'll live somehow.

Married!

Okay, where do I begin here?

I received my endowments in the evening of August 11 in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. My parents, my brother Scott, and my Uncle Vernon and Aunt Linda were there from my side. My wonderful ELANG professor, Cynthia Hallen, showed up at the temple not long after my mom and I did and she came too. From Stephan's side, it was only him and his parents. My grandfather was going to come, but something came up. The temple is truly a beautiful place. I cannot tell too much because of the sacredness of it, but I will say that there is nothing scary about the temple ceremony. It is not nearly as complicated as I thought it was going to be--the ceremony itself is quite simple, it's just that there is A LOT to remember. My advice to those who are going to the temple in the near future is to study the scriptures, and I especially recommend reading The Pearl of Great Price because the endowment ceremony is almost entirely taken from that. There are other scriptures I highly recommend that I will put up at a later date. But let me say that if you have attended church and paid attention to what has been taught, read the scriptures, and attended seminary if you have had the chance, you will be prepared.

The next day, I went for a job interview at Western Governor's University in Murray, UT. I was interviewed by four people at once, and that was intimidating. I found out yesterday that I didn't make the next cut in the process. I'm doing all right, it's kind of a relief knowing that I won't have to commute to Murray everyday for work. But I am back on the job search wagon again, which is annoying, but now that I am out of school and almost done with wedding stuff, I can work right away.

I moved out of my apartment on August 13. I missed commencement, but I didn't really care that much anyway. After moving my stuff out of Park Plaza and into the new apartment, I went back to my family's rented house in Lehi and then we went to my uncle's for a family cookout. Stephan came along, and we left in the middle so he could go for his stake president's interview for his living ordinance recommend. Then we came back, and Craig and Brittney had shown up at my uncle's. Craig tried to intimidate Stephan, but was unsuccessful. I think they got along just fine :)

Then on August 14, I went to my college's convocation. In other words I graduated from BYU!!! My entire family was there and Stephan was there with his parents and his little sister. A few hours afterwards, we had a family lunch at Brick Oven, which was good. At the lunch, Stephan gave me my wedding present: pearl earrings! He got them so they would match my pearl necklace :) I didn't see Stephan for the rest of the day :( but I was okay.

August 15: the wedding. I got up early, ate breakfast, and then my stylist called and told me that she couldn't find the place. Uh-oh. But she did find it, thank goodness. She did my hair and she did Brittney's. Then my mom and I drove to the temple, and it was VERY windy and cloudy. I was afraid it was going to rain. On August 15? In Utah? No way!

Well, my mom and I got to the temple before Stephan and his dad did. Funny. Everything went smoothly, until Stephan stepped on my dress and part of the bustling came out. We spent most of the time in the Celestial Room trying to fix it. One of the patrons gave us her safety pin. After that, we were taken to the sealing room. My mother's Uncle Herschel (my great uncle) performed the ceremony. It was beautiful. And I am so grateful that Stephan and I are sealed for time and all eternity :)

And it did rain that day. Thankfully, it was only drizzling when we came out of the temple and it was a little chilly. I'm grateful we had such an experienced photographer! And he was really congenial, which was good because it was a very stressful day for me. Alex (Stephan's brother) forgot the bouquet, and Brian had to go get it. And then we forgot the guestbook and they had to buy a new one.

The reception went pretty smoothly. Good food, lovely string quartet, lovely ambience, and we had a lot of people. But unfortunately, a lot of my friends didn't show up. Apparently a lot of people got mixed up about the time. We did have an afternoon reception after all. But we still had a lot of people who showed up! And our car didn't get decorated, although Trevan and Heather are still determined to do it. Heather is still mad that theirs got decorated at their wedding and she wants revenge. Trevan wants to because it's tradition. I am now going to address them:

Trevan, I know it's YOUR family tradition, but you see, we're not in YOUR family, you're in OURS.

Heather, take out your anger on Trevan's sisters, not us. We didn't do anything to you. Don't you remember how you felt when Trevan's sisters did that to you? I'll feel the same way, only worse.

Anyway. We had the bouquet and boutenniere toss (no garter, I hate the garter tradition). My cousin Kerstin and my brother Paul caught both respectively :)

Then came the honeymoon. We spent the first night in Little America in downtown Salt Lake and then spent a few days in a cabin in Logan Canyon. The cabin was okay, except that it was about 70 years old, some of the furniture was out of date, and every time we went into the bathroom, there was a new bug. The last night of the honeymoon was spent in Anniversary Inn in Logan, and it was WONDERFUL. Stephan selected the Oriental Gardens room, and it was perfect. It was the perfect way to end a honeymoon.

Yesterday was spent driving to Orem, packing stuff for Houston, and flying to Houston. We got in late last night.

So far, being married is lovely. I love having someone to cuddle up with when I go to bed. I think I sleep better when someone else is in the bed...who would have thought? Stephan is wonderful and I hope he stays that way. I could not have asked for a better husband. I'm doing my best to be a good wife.

I highly recommend marriage--it's wonderful.

one more week

I'm getting married next week! I'm excited and nervous, but apparently that's normal.

We officially signed the lease on our apartment yesterday. I know you're wondering, "If you just signed the lease, how is it you've had the apartment since May?" Okay, we paid the deposit on the apartment in May, but the manager told us that the lease agreement was going to be changing in July, so if we signed the lease then, we would have to sign a new one come July. So, we just paid the deposit and waited until yesterday to sign the lease. She gave us our keys. We walked through the apartment. It turns out we have a little more closet space than we originally thought. But um, it's going to be interesting sharing a closet. I have...a lot of clothes. But I'm going through my wardrobe soon anyway. I know there are clothes I'll be donating to DI or just tossing. I'm getting my endowments on Tuesday, and I'm pretty sure I have a few pieces of clothing that I won't be able to wear after I'm endowed. And there are things I just don't wear anymore.

Then we went to the Utah County Courthouse to get our marriage license. We had a fun time looking for the building where we were supposed to get our marriage license, but we did find it and we have our marriage license. Stephan is guarding it with his life.

On another note, I'm not feeling great. I'm feeling a lot better today, but I'm still coughing and have some congestion. I either have allergies or I have a cold. I hope I'm better by the wedding. Me being sick on my wedding day, that would stink big time. I think my body is retaliating from my night owl tendencies. Well, the night owl is dying now. Right at the end of my college career--how convenient.

I took bridals on Wednesday with my cousin. I hope I got at least a few good pictures out of it. We were afraid we wouldn't be able to do them because there was a major storm before I left, but thankfully the rain stopped and we had pretty much perfect weather.