Our Crazy Week!

Well, this week has been...eventful to say the least.  Monday I was in about the best mood I ever have been in my life, because I woke up to a phone call from the manager at the Cocoa Bean Cupcake Cafe asking if I could come in for an interview Tuesday.  I wasn't expecting a call at all because the week before, I had just basically tracked through Provo filling out job applications and dropping off resumes.  Most places said they weren't hiring, but they'd take my resume anyway.  I felt pretty discouraged about getting ANY additional job, let alone my ideal job of being a baker or cake decorator.  There are pretty much two popular cupcake shops in Provo: The Cocoa Bean and the Sweet tooth Fairy.  Both said they weren't hiring, but I left a resume anyway.

Monday was only a few days after I had dropped off the resume and caught me totally by surprise--but I was thrilled.  Tuesday came and I was so nervous and excited.  But my mood changed drastically when I woke up to an unpleasant surprise.  I opened my eyes to tiny little bugs crawling on my pillow.  I screamed, ran to the bathroom, and called Jimmie.  The bugs were about the size of a period at the end of a sentence and I don't think I've ever taken a longer shower in my entire life.  We thought they were bed bugs, because they were on  the bed, but we had someone come look at them and he could determine that they were not bed bugs.  They took a sample to identify what they were, but we haven't heard what they actually are.  Their best guess was that they were some kind of common bug that gotten through a small crack in the window, laid eggs, and they'd just hatched.  GROSS!

I was stressed, upset, and just totally freaking out.  Needless to say, I was itchy with the sensation you get when you feel like there are bugs crawling on you.  And I had the best interview I'd ever gotten ahead of me.  I was uncomfortable and out of my element, and wasn't entirely sure how the interview went.  I was nervous and frustrated with this untimely event of a bug infestation.  Upon further investigation, we found them crawling all over the walls and ceiling.  After talking with our landlord, he decided to try and eliminate them with several bug bombs.  We had to leave the apartment for about 3 hours that evening while it worked it's magic.

So we decided to make the best of it and go to the mall.  We did a little window shopping and then saw a movie with Cinemark gift cards Jimmie had won at work.  Since we didn't have access to our refrigerator and were super hungry, we discovered that you can indeed just walk into Texas Roadhouse and buy a thing of rolls with their tasty butter.  We got like a dozen rolls that came with two free soft drinks and it was like all of $1.50.  Cheapest thing ever! Anyway, of course during the 3 minutes we were in the rather loud Texas Roadhouse, the manager from Cocoa Bean called and I didn't hear it.  I glanced down at my phone, saw a voice mail, listened to it, and when she said "We'd love to have you come and work for us" I jumped up and down and did a some what crazy-spastic happy dance.  I think I scared everyone in sight.  My apologies fellow customers and employees of the Texas Roadhouse.  I was super excited.

Thankfully, that night we went home and found that all of the little buggies were dead and they had just entered through the window that had been opened a crack. (NEVER opening that window again by the way! Thank goodness we got an air conditioner!)  We are officially bug free now after spending all day Wednesday vacuuming everything, cleaning everything and washing everything.  Thank goodness it wasn't a serious uncontrollable infestation and was simply a little visitor from the outside who wanted moisture in the hot dry heat.

Anyway, we realized that I would be starting my job at the Cocoa Bean at 5 am Friday morning and I would also be working Saturday... my birthday.  Not that I mind working on my birthday, but Jimmie had been planning a fun day for us together.  So for the next several evenings we spaced out my birthday events over the course of several days.  Going to the movies which we were about to do was actually one of the things we were going to do on my birthday.  So we checked that off that night.

On Wednesday night we went to Ihop for dinner instead of for birthday breakfast, even though Jimmie's not crazy about breakfast for dinner (How silly!)  It was delectable!! I got like a New York Cheesecake French Toast with strawberries.  Mmmm! Look at that deliciousness...

On Thursday afternoon, Jimmie took some time off from work in the afternoon and decided to make it up on Saturday, when I was at work.  We got some needed errands done and then went to Nickel City--a nickel arcade! I've been begging to go here for a long time now, so Jimmie thought it would be fun to pull all of the nickels from our change jar and go have fun.  And we so did! We won so many tickets and played so many fun games! We were there for several hours, and I didn't really want to leave!

Friday at 5 am was the first day of my new job! I think my job title is something like Barista/Cupcake Specialist/Baker officially. I don't truly know.  I worked from 5-12:30 and things went well! It was a little overwhelming the first day, but that's because there's so much to do, not much time to do it, and so much to remember.  It was a little overwhelming, but it was alright.  The second day at work, on my birthday and today as well, I had a blast and I loved it!! I'm picking things up quickly and doing well, but I'll talk more about my job in a later post.  If you wanna check out the cupcakes that I'm making every day you can see them under Cupcakes>>Flavors at www.thecocoabean.net.  Or if you live in Rexburg, ID, Idaho Falls, ID, or Provo, UT... you can just go to the store :)  More on my new job later!

Back to the birthday stuff, on Friday night, we decided to have a little taste of home and went to DP Cheesesteaks for dinner where they have Philly style cheese steaks, Tastycakes, Herrs chips, and Birch beer.  And in case you didn't know--you can't buy those things out here! Oh how we miss them.

[I didn't take this picture]

On my birthday, like I said, I went to work.  After that, I was pretty tired from adjusting to my new sleep/work schedule so we just relaxed at home and played some fun board games.  I'm recently addicted to Trivial Pursuit :) It was a rainy and kind of dreary day, but I think weather like this is so beautiful and this weather made my day!!  [I took this picture because I thought the weather was pretty, but a lot of people were asking where I work.  You can't see the store front, but I stuck a little bubble pointing to where it's at in the picture in case you don't know]

 That night we went over to Geoff's place for a nice birthday dinner which he prepared! He made a delicious roast, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls, salad, and strawberries.  DE-LISH. It was a lot of fun, thanks again Geoff! And he got Tastycakes butterscotch Krimpets for dessert and I blew out a match in my Krimpet for a candle. It was excellent!

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes and thoughtful gifts! I got my birthday presents about a month early from Mom because she bought them while she was out here.  I got a lot of great things, but some of my favorite finds were these sweet little plates! You probably don't understand why I like them... :)

Jimmie's Mom got me this wonderful little thing and I use it literally every day.  Can you tell I'm enjoying having him?  For those who don't know--It's a Philly Phanatic (MLB Phillies Mascot) Pillow Pet 

Those are the only two things I have pictures of, but thank you to everyone else for everything!

Overall--my birthday week was wonderful, I'm loving my new job doing what I love decorating and baking cupcakes, and we got rid of the bugs!  So overall, I'm pretty much feeling like this: 

Oh, and if you care... I tried sushi for the first time today! I hate fish... but it was a free sample at Smith's and smelled good for some reason.  So, I ate it...and actually really liked it! Interesting, huh?

Yum yum yum.  I have no idea what kind of sushi it was, but it was free and tasty :)

Anniversary Projects and Happenings

This weekend we tried to be kinda crafty.  We took on a couple different projects we've been meaning to get done. Since our 6 month anniversary was on Saturday, I thought this first one would be a nice gift to get done for then! The first project I did was the photo canvas transfer from home.  If you don't wanna hear about it, just skip down until you see baseball , but it's pretty neat.

Basically all you need for this project is a stretched canvas (I used 8x10), a picture printed on laser printer (on regular computer paper), a gel medium (I used Liquidex), and some kind of brush.  The process is very simple! I assume colored pictures would work but I've never done one.  I used a black and white photo because I knew the transfer wouldn't be perfect so I was going for the antique/old look.  Here's a quick view of the project:

(Sorry the picture is a little small; it doesn't want to let me make it big.  Just click on it if you want to see the quick view in more detail)  

Directions:

(1) Apply the gel medium thoroughly to canvas with brush, covering all areas of canvas

(2) Carefully place the photo face down onto the canvas and smooth out any bubbles. Allow to dry overnight

(3) Once dry, wet the paper and rub off wet paper.  You can use a spray bottle, a sponge, whatever you want to wet the paper.  I just dipped a paper towel in a bowl of water and dabbed on the paper one section at a time.  This part will be messy! I had to do a couple areas a few times to make sure all the paper was off.

(4) Once all of the paper is off, apply another coat of gel medium; this will dry clear, don't worry!

(5) Optional: For a more finished look, cut strips of scrapbook paper to the size of the sides of the canvas.  Use gel or mod podge as glue to attach the scrapbook paper to the edges and apply coat over scrapbook paper

(6) Hang using your favorite decorative ribbon [I haven't done this part yet, hence no picture!] 

You can see the transfer wasn't perfect in all parts, so you may not want to use a picture with a lot of details.  Thankfully the faces transferred well on mine and the imperfections are mainly around the edges. But hey, it gives it character! It's really very easy; I highly recommend it!

On our anniversary we went to the BYU baseball game, which was a lot of fun! We've been missing baseball since we won't be going to any Phillies games this season! (Boo!!) Anyway, we ended up leaving a little early because I was overheating, we were losing, and it was kind of painful to watch at times as we walked people home.  We did end up losing 10-14, but the time that we spent there was fun!  And hey, that is a beautiful sight there! Mountains, baseball, and the Y :)

We got a pretzel and thought it was funny that this was from Pennsauken, New Jersey! Okay, maybe it's not that funny, but it made us smile :)

And I had to share these little gems... because we both just look so lovely! It was so sunny, Jimmie looks so pained. We took two attempts at pictures and couldn't see how they actually turned out because it was so sunny.  And this is what we got. Hahaha, oh well, we love each other anyway!! :)

 After resting a bit from the very hot baseball game, we decided to continue with projects that need to be done and went out to get us an air conditioner.  We had so many road blocks and detours with this project that ended up in an adventurous, funny, and long evening/night.  Long story short-- we got it to work.

Here's a picture of our funny little rigged window unit that we're so very proud of.  Our windows open side to side, not up and down.  So we got some plywood and a few other things to help hold our window unit up and hoped it would work.  As we were setting it up, our neighbors suggested that we duck tape the inside to keep the bugs out and just reinforce it.  When we went to buy the duck tape at Smiths just down the street, we ran into my Aunt Jan and some members of her family who actually live in Idaho but were visiting for a little while! Small world :)

So of course we bought Tie-Dye duck tap!!  I mean if we gotta look at the thing, it might as well be awesome.  I'm not sure if I'm going to tack pictures on the wood or paint it into a beautiful design.  But when I see that, I see a beautiful blank canvas for me to play with :) We'll see what it becomes.

For now, we don't look at it because we have the blinds down.  I've been meaning to get my curtain project done, but I haven't done it.  For now, the tension/curtain rod and unfinished curtains are taking over the gap the blinds leave.  I love how convenient my project procrastination has actually become :)

We also happened upon a Craig's List steal this weekend and bought this little end table thing.  It's technically a small TV stand, but we had been looking for something that was bigger than an end table, but not too big, that we could put the iMac on.  Jimmie's laptop is there too in this picture.  It's actually got a ton of storage as well which we weren't expecting and we're quite happy with our little purchase. You really can't see it well in these pictures, but it looks great in person.

Anyway, that's our long, somewhat pointless post!  But long story short, we had a great day and look forward to the many anniversaries to come :)

Mom Comes to Visit

Mom had the chance to come out and visit for Women's Conference and visit her Mom and sisters.  This was her early birthday present to her so they celebrated her 50th birthday a little early together.  I also had the opportunity to go to Women's Conference and it was a lot of fun! It was great to be able to get together with family and have a blast.  I forgot to take pictures for most of the time she was here but thankfully, Mom took some.  So some of these are hers :)  Here are some pictures from our time together

And it was GREAT because she flew into PROVO.  It was really nice to be able to drive 10 minutes to pick her up and watch the plane come in.

Celebrating with her sisters and Mom

Becca, Jan, Jeri, Grandma Tucker, Jennifer, Me and Mom at the Marriott Center during conference

Thursday night there was a concert which was way fun! We all got little electric candles to hold up during certain songs and it looked pretty cool :)

Becca, Jeri, Jan, Grandma Tucker, Mom and Me after the last class of Women's Conference

Overall, it was a great time! We are so happy she was able to come visit and we got to spend time with family.